

Discuss : Google will do to physical what it did to Internet - pauletienney

Driverless cars, Internet balloons network, robots, home sensors, optic fiber network.
I think Google is building a big puzzle. It will be a bit creepy when it is completed.<p>I think Internet was just the beginning. They will follow the same pattern for the physical world : crawl it, measure, analyze and build free or cheap services then put ad on it.<p>Imagine Google Taxis. They would be driverless. They would transport you, know where you go. they would also capture every bit of information about the environnement : every shop, every car, every work in progress in every city ... 
I think Google Streetview cars are their very first real-world crawlers. They are the early websites directories of Internet first years. Based on human drivers, not automated, not so up-to-date ... Then will come driverless cars, sensors at home, balloons, maybe ships and drones.<p>Data quantities they own about you, about the world will explode.<p>Although their mission is &quot;Organize world information ...&quot;, not only Internet information ...<p>Someone has the same vision ??
======
MildlySerious
A bit creepy? More like damn creepy.

If Google stopped operations right now, we would still need a decade to catch
up with their current technologies, and they leave behind a massive patent
minefield that won't help the situation.

The speed at which they push forward comes at a high price in my opinion.
Their dominance and the fact a lot of end users as well as companies are
basically fully dependent on them scares me.

Right now there are few (worthwhile) alternatives to their products and god
knows what this will be like in 2020 if everyone keeps ignoring that.

~~~
computer
What? I don't use any Google services besides Youtube, and for that there are
many alternatives that are technically equivalent. I have zero issues living
my day-to-day digital life.

In what way exactly are they a decade ahead?

~~~
MildlySerious
You're on Hacker News, so you're propably not the kind of "end user" I
mention. Those guys typing youtube.com into the search bar of their browser.

Their architecture and the software they use to manage it has to deal with
problems no other entity had to deal with before. The last thing the public
heard of is Spanner. Once it's papers get released the same thing will
happened as it happened with Big Table.

