
Google's Answer to Siri Thinks Ahead - oliversong
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429345/googles-answer-to-siri-thinks-ahead/
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habosa
I have been using Google Now for a few months now and it has been amazing.

Example 1: One night I was going to a Roots concert and I went through the
venue's website on my Google Chrome on my laptop. Then, right around concert
time, Google Now alerted me to what subway I should take to get there.

Example 2: I searched for the Phillies score once on my tablet, and now my
phone tells me about the score of each game. Again, I never asked.

Example 3: After 2 days, Google Now guessed where I lived/worked and what time
I left for work most days. I don't use any check-in services or anything like
that it really just guessed. Then it started telling me what time I'd have to
leave home/work to get there on time based on the current subway schedule.
Exactly what I wanted, never asked.

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tarkin2
Really cool, but am I the only one who finds this creepy as hell?

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bdr
I'm not trying to be glib, but: so what? Some people will use it, because it
will provide value to them. I may be one of them. Kids born today will, if
nothing changes, think this stuff is absolutely normal.

Your reaction is a valid one, and I have my limits too, but I think we're
beyond the point of merely acknowledging that it's creepy. Please go further:
Where is the line? Why? And what are you willing to do about it?

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ryanhuff
What happens when you perform a one-off search? For example, lets say a friend
asks if you know the score to the Yankees game? You really have no interest in
baseball, but you do the search anyhow. Should that really influence your
Google Now profile?

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habosa
It does, but you can always remove the team fairly easily.

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ben1040
When I saw the keynote introducing Google Now, the first thing I thought of
was that concept video they used to introduce Glass [1].

For example, in the video, the user looked at a subway station entrance, and
the glasses showed a rider alert that the station was closed due to a train
problem.

I have to imagine that Google Now will be an important information engine
behind the "HUD" displays in Glass. Glass is aiming to also follow that
principle of offering you information when it's contextually-relevant, and
trying to get out of the way otherwise.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4>

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OriginalSyn
So far Google Now is pretty impressive. I love that it will post a reminder in
my notifications before an event telling me when I have to leave to make it
there on time based on current traffic conditions.

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necubi
This can have some amusing results when the input isn't as Google expects. For
example, in my office the conference rooms are named after streets, some of
which are also cities. So when I have a 2pm meeting in Folsom, I get a
notification a couple of hours before telling me I should leave soon so I can
make it to Folsom, CA in time.

~~~
troymc
That's cute. Is there a way to tell Google that you mean a different "Folsom"?

Google's Knowledge Graph does have a concept of name ambiguity (as does
Wikipedia; it has disambiguation pages). For example, if I do a Google search
for "Taj Mahal", the right sidebar shows details about the landmark in India,
but below that it also offers to give me more information about the Trump Taj
Mahal Casino Resort, or Taj Mahal the musician.

~~~
abraham
If Google new there was a conference room in a persons current building named
the location of an event I would bet it would be smart enough to use that
instead. Maybe as more places start using Google indoor mapping this
particular problem will be fixed. Most of the errors will likely just be a
lack of context provided to Google or a lack of information available in a
format Google can access.

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hnriot
While this is incredibly smart and a very impressive application of machine
learning, does anyone actually want this? I'm quite capable of looking at
traffic reports or bus times myself when I need to. I actually think I'd find
this pretty annoying, if my phone told me sports score before I'd had a chance
to watch the game, or if it started second guessing me at every turn. This has
the feel of valet parking, while it sounds fine and convenient and luxurious,
in reality I find it very undesirable and will avoid places that have it.

There's something very much at the core of life in experiencing it for
ourselves without having a computer to hand hold us the whole time and remind
us it's time leave for work. I don't find it creepy, just embarrassing to feel
like I need to be babied so much by technology.

~~~
blrgeek
Earlier browsers had one address box, and one search box.

Chrome moved both together - and many people liked it.

I'm sure you like Google Instant and Google Suggest - with the results/search
terms showing up even as you type - allowing you to refine your query on the
fly even before you complete it!

Google Now is one big leap in the same direction.

I search for a lot of things, and I would like instant access to a lot of
things that I've searched for before.

If my phone can figure out what I need access to 'Now' because I've searched
for it before or it knows my routing - I say bring it on - make my life easier
- and give me more time to do my stuff instead of handling logistics and
trivia.

Look at the examples - giving you transit timings when you enter a bus-stop,
or giving you traffic conditions to your office or next appointment, or
driving directions to the place you searched for. Why not using the super
computer in your pocket for that instead of focusing your mind on it and
distracting you from your life?

And either you're watching the game NOW, and therefore the score is not
relevant to you, or you're not able to watch the game, so the scores are
useful. Presumably, the number of people who time-shift a live game is not
that high. Those folks can simply delete the card the first time and never see
it again.

Google Now is adding a rich information layer to your life via your phone. You
can ignore it or you can use it.

~~~
lkbm
I actually hate Google Instant. I like to start typing before I'm done looking
at what came up and I like to take notes in the search field. I wish I could
turn it off, but that setting never seems to persist across sessions.

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bdr
Interesting. I'm thinking that Android vs Apple may be decided on the simple
fact that sufficiently-better AI trumps any-amount-better UI. Lawsuits and
supposed openness be damned.

~~~
buu700
That actually seems like a really interesting observation. I've never
specifically thought of systems in terms of UI v. AI before, but it makes
sense if you think of all operations in any computational system as the result
of data manipulation by some "intelligence", and user interface as more
specifically the interface between that data and user intelligence.

In a computational system, computational intelligence will be used in all
instances possible, until such a point as it is either insufficiently advanced
or insufficiently informed to continue without making a call to the user
intelligence. Thus, the more advanced a computational intelligence and the
more information at its disposal, the less interface with user intelligence
necessary. By that reasoning, it follows that the ideal or perfect interface
would be one which treats the user purely as a data source (more precisely, as
the absolute last data source in the pecking order – one to use when
absolutely no other data source accessible could possibly provide the same
data or make the same decision with reasonable confidence).

In that sense, it's likely that going forward we'll see UIs moving more in the
direction of Now / Wolfram Alpha / Siri and using such mechanisms to
manipulate and return greater amounts of information.

~~~
buu700
A couple more thoughts:

* This idea of data being acted upon by intelligences is essentially a generalisation of the canonical algorithms and data structures.

* The argument presented would also explain why anyone accustomed to a certain command line interface will swear by it over most graphical interfaces to the same system (the reason being that commands are usually a much more direct interface between the system and the user intelligence).

~~~
bdr
One more detail to throw in: the user as data source will move toward
expressing what they want rather than how to get it.

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jpalomaki
I think Android 4.1 is finally something like the "agents" people have been
envisioning for over a decade.

The possibilities on this are endless and currently Google is about the only
company that is able to do it (from my point of view). Google knows my
calendar, Google knows my contacts, Google knows pretty much everything I buy
online (because they handle all my emails), Google knows about my travel plans
(email again), Google know what I've been looking, where I've been (Latitude)
and so on.

There could be also huge opportunities for money making in all this. One good
question is should they keep all this just to themselves or would it be better
to try to create an ecosystem for applications.

Let's the take travel plans as an example. It would be fairly easy for Google
to mine my calendar and emails to figure out my travel plans. This would open
up opportunities in offering me flight upgrades and other travel related
services. Google could either try to use this information themselves, they
could allow advertisers to use it, or they could expose it to 3rd party apps
(of course with my consent). Keeping with the agent idea these things would be
much more than just highly targeted ads. They could be direct offers, like
"Say Yes Please, to upgrade your flight from Helsinki to Barcelona to business
class for 150€".

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potch
So I can steal someone's phone, and just have it remind me of all that user's
private info by walking around? Nifty.

Edit: I know the above is glib, and I'm not trying to rain on the parade of
unbelievable achievements in data-wrangling that are going on here (I'd love
to hear how it's done computationally), but I don't like knowing that all the
privacy controls something like this deserves will be rolled out hastily in
response to someone's life inevitably being ruined by the careless trust of
one's life to a device that can fall out of their pocket. It's easy for the
savvier of us on this site to say "serves them for not thinking to take
precautions", but when we make it so _easy_ to give a third party the reins,
even we get complacent.

~~~
kaolinite
That isn't a problem with Google Now, that's a problem with smartphones
generally. Even without Google Now, you can log onto someone's Facebook
account, read their emails, read their texts, view their calendar, etc.

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modernerd
With a little imagination, it's not hard to see why some are nervous about a
search engine that stores every interaction in an attempt to profile its users
and guess their intentions. Don your finest tin foil hat as we channel surf
some internet TV stations from the future:

LIGHTS DIM; THE GLOW OF A COMPUTER SCREEN FILLS THE ROOM

"In what is thought to be a world-first, a man's life was saved late Friday
following automated intervention by a search engine.

"Close friends of Mr Exampleson, who BBC News can now reveal were the only
members of his "Best Friends" circle on Boogle Plus, said they were able to
get to the Beachy Head cliffs in Southern England five minutes before his
arrival thanks only to an email from a 'Concerned Partner'.

"The email said that their friend was displaying worrying behaviour, that he
had personally disclosed his intention to take his own life, that he had
planned a route to Beachy Head with an estimated arrival time of 19:27, and
that he was currently on the A267 heading South at a speed of 57MPH.

"A spokesperson from Boogle Ireland this morning said that they have long been
publishing helpline numbers on their website when a user enters certain search
terms, and that this was simply an extension of that service.

"Privacy advocate Mr Foilhatison joins us now to discuss what this means
for..."

SWITCH CHANNEL

"...surrounded the building and ordered the suspect to come out with his hands
up. When questioned, it emerged that the man was famous writer Real Steveyson,
who is staying in the area to write his hotly anticipated thriller,
_Cryptonomnomnom_. Mr Steveyson has since been released with a public apology.
Police are now said to be following a variety of other leads they hope will
'prove to be less of a hopeless time suck'.

"Asked why he felt detectives had singled him out and surrounded him in his
remote location, Mr Steveyson said that he had been searching Boogle over a
period of two months for various methods to reduce DNA evidence at crime
scenes for his upcoming book. He had also been Boogling for local peat bogs,
completely unaware of the recent bodies that police have pulled from them. Mr
Steveyson suspects that Boogle may now be sharing live search information with
local law enforcement agencies in a bid to both pre-empt crime and increase
conviction rates. The idea sounds so far-fetched that he plans to make it the
subject of his next novel, which he hopes to publish for the first time via
telepathic transfer using the new...

SWITCH CHANNEL

"We're here in the diamond district where Miss Caratson is closing her shop
for the last time. Tell us, Miss Caratson, is it the same story for you as it
has been for the others?"

"Sure is! I haven't sold a single engagement ring since Boogle Hive got
popular."

"Can you explain why?"

"Boogle talks my customers out of the purchase! Somehow it detects that
they're in a jewellers. And that's when it gets really weird. It always starts
the same way: they get that dreaded audio alert. That's when I know I've lost
the sale.

"One time, it told a young man that, based on a language analysis of all
correspondence with his partner, there was a 76% chance that his fiancé-to-be
was only interested in him for his large Boogle Wallet balance, so he might
want to hold off on his big plans.

"Another time, Boogle tells my customer that, based on something called their
"Boogle Lifestyle Score", they probably weren't the marrying kind. Then it
reels off a list of 12 ways they'd have much more fun with the same amount of
money, and it lets them know that six of the 12 things are within a five-
minute walk.

"And don't get me started on the glasses! Guys using those Boogle Glasses
always get told that Boogle has found the same ring they're looking at 500
bucks cheaper three shops down. It's a race to the bottom. I just can't win.

"Some of us tried to circumvent it by installing Faraday shielding and
blocking the damn system altogether, but Boogle just warns people to avoid us
before they even get in the door. It's over. I'm done!"

"What will you do now, Miss Caratson?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm going to do what everyone else is doing. I'm going to
start a..."

SCREEN DIMS, AMBIENT LIGHTS FLICKER ON

Yes, some of this may be a little far-fetched, but the idea of a computer
network attempting to infer intentions based on a lifetime of intimate
accumulated knowledge _is_ troubling for many. Even if such a system has the
potential to be incredibly useful, I suspect that the amount of blind trust it
demands would make it a challenge to adopt for more than a few of us.

~~~
option_greek
Wow, that's a pretty good one. Why don't you expand it a little and make it
into a short story :)

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sprokolopolis
Recently, my parents went on a trip to London. Before they returned, I
received a Google Now card with their flight information and estimated time of
arrival. I am not sure if they gathered this info from email or sms. It was
somewhat creepy, but certainly helpful and convenient (I needed to call them
before they left).

I have been quite pleased with Google Now and use it much more than I ever
used any of the other Siri clones. When I am busy, I forget things easily and
it is nice when Google just gives me helpful information to keep me on track.

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Zenst
Interesting, would appear the AI is based upon your email and general google
collected info upon you. With that in mind I better make sure I'm catching all
the spam comming in as one walk near Soho in London and things could get
interesting.

From what I have played with google now and its card alerts it has so far
impressed me with bus options to get home, though mostly when I'm upon a bus
already and it offers alternatives. If the bus breaks down then I'm covered is
how I see it in a thru positive blinkers.

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ams6110
The trick will be for them to be helpful without being creepy.

~~~
ihsw
There is a certain threshold where helpfulness and creepiness cross,
specifically when it will be so helpful that creepiness will need to be
ignored. At that point it becomes dangerous to rely on it (see: drones and
their exploding popularity in civilian applications).

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blrgeek
Google Now is awesome.

Search for a place on Google - card shows up with driving directions on phone.

Morning and evening, shows up driving time/directions for work/home.

~~~
ralfd
Why are you people thinking this is better than Microsoft Words annoying
Clippy? "It seems like you are writing a letter..."

I already know how to get to work every day.

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blrgeek
It's out of the way - at best there's an extra notification, or it's one card
in Google Now - when/if you go there.

Extra information when presented unobtrusively is not annoying.

a. Do you know how long it's going to take today? If there're any specific
traffic issues that are causing delays on your usual route?

b. What if you have an appointment today to a different place than work -
wouldn't you like to know the route there?

c. If you take transit, wouldn't you like to see bus routes when you reach the
bus stop, instead of manually searching for it?

Think of it as your Personal Assistant... Not sure why you wouldn't want one
that's always with you and can be flicked away if it's not what you want
[permanently or only this time].

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eco
So the voice search is called Google Now? During the keynote it was confusing
because they kept calling the voice stuff "Voice Search" and "Google Now" was
only used when talking about the cards (which are confusingly in the same
app).

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cbhl
Voice Search is Voice Search. Google Now is just the predictive notifications
and the cards (the notifications being the more signifiant part). The two are
separate.

Voice Search has been available since Froyo, IIRC -- although in the past it
would simply show search results rather than respond with a voice for anything
other than a small set of phrases. Voice responses for more general Knowledge
Graph queries is new in Jellybean. (Long-press the search button on an older
phone, like a Nexus One, to trigger it.)

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YooLi
Not looking forward to the ads. I'd rather pay for it.

~~~
jmsduran
I would pay for any service if I had guarantees that my data would not be sold
or used for third party profit in any way.

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nsp
;-

