Facebook Home: Is That a Feature or a Threat?, article.
Not just that. It’s a threat of apocalyptic proportions. :-S (That's a don't-know-whether-to-laugh-or-cry emoticon.)
When will we get Twitter laptops, where all you can do is use Twitter? When will you ever *really* need more than 140 characters anyway? And imagine how lean and fast the OS and interface could be!
The good news is you can use the extra space in your skull to store an extra kidney.
Facebook Home explained.
Home is a "family of apps" that essentially push Facebook content front and center on your Android phone.
I guess sorta like your Kindle tablet is all Amazon content all the time.
Putting friends first isn't a bad concept for the smartphone experience. But Facebook thinks that friends = Facebook and Facebook = friends. If this were ever true, it isn't now." -- Jesse Brown, columnist
From the first article:
...particular concerns with Home's "chat heads", a feature that cannot be turned off. It sounds like the recurrent theme from Scifi -- the computer that's so powerful and intelligent, it denies you the ability to turn it off. [...]
The concern is not about giving up a little bit of absolute privacy in order to connect with people. Rather, the concern is that users are blissfully unaware of the motives behind penetrations into their lives to the point where the act has become a dangerous violation, an accumulation of knowledge that controls and debases the "customer." Remember, if the service is free, you are the product.
For me, the scary thing is that Facebook Home assumes that all your friends are on Facebook, and all want to use Facebook to communicate and interact. And the really scary thing is that millions of people will probably just swallow that raw. And if it's successful, the effect is "use facebook or get ghettoized".
Already without "Home", people tell me that they *have* to use Facebook, or simply loose contact with some of their friends and family!
I essentially forced to used Facebook to keep us with my kids life. No way will it be put on any 'portable' device. I don't need to be that connected.
ReplyDeleteIt scares me how every where you go on the web sites allow logging in with your Facebook login. Scary, scary, scary, every thing you do can be known to Facebook, Google and Microsoft. I do my best to keep all those and more separated!
That is also I won't use Google Account as an identity.
It is interesting how Apple and Google have set up their App Stores. Apple are very restrictive and would probably not allow an app that took over the system, whereas Google allows anything. As Googles whole reason for developing Android is to force use of its functions and hence advertising revenue, I would assume they wont be happy about giving it away.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there are many phones and tablets now where Google has provided the OS for free, but the maker (Amazon for example) has covered up all the Google things on the device. I don't think that was G had in mind!
ReplyDeleteBut the OS was not developed by Google. Android is Linux plus some open source libraries. Google didn't even so much as coin the name! They bought the company that had originally put it together and named it that. The software is licensed under GNU GPL and the Apache license, so of course it is free.
ReplyDeleteSince Google does not own the technology, it is not a question of "giving it away". Google's motive must have been to put its weight on a free OS in order to disrupt the markets.
Wow. Maybe I should stop reading the pop tech sites altogether, it seems they tell me nothing.
ReplyDeleteWhat pop tech sites may be good for, if anything, is reporting on imminent product announcements. They get the word first from their contacts at the companies. But beyond that, I wouldn't trust them.
ReplyDeleteApparently there is a license, so Google must own some part, and that would be the top level interface. So open source OS, but private program that runs under that OS.
ReplyDeleteYes, knowing Google, I'm sure they do have some proprietary components too. Maybe some of the apps are proprietary?
ReplyDeleteOf course, what really makes up the Android platform are the 700 or so third party apps. And I'm sure a large portion of those are proprietary too.
I love reading ttl's posts. Hearing him talk about - well, anything, really but in this case technology - is just so entertaining. It's like watching a monkey rollerskate and smoke a cigar. Except those monkeys actually manage to rollerskate and smoke cigars, not fall on their faces. Poor ttl - his life is just a catalog of failure. Failed at music, fails in his attempt at being an intellectual. Well I'm sure you all suspected something when he first claimed to like opera. Imagine, a dolt like ttl truly liking opera! Oh, I think my sides just split.
ReplyDelete