back to article Google whacks CREEPY predictive search up to 11 in cheap Chrome OS beta

Google's Chromebooks are about to undergo an overhaul that puts the Chocolate Factory's creepy, predictive search tech – Google Now – at the heart of the firm's OS. François Beaufort, who describes himself as Mountain View's "Happiness Evangelist", said that Chrome OS fans would soon be able to access a beta version of the …

  1. Mage Silver badge
    Devil

    Positive features

    Not a mandatory brain implant.

    There are still alternatives.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Positive features

      "There are still alternatives."

      Quite. With the latest Intel chips, you can get a proper tablet running Windows with better performance and similar battery life for this sort of money now. No need to buy this combination spyware / crippleware anymore.

  2. DryBones
    Pint

    I love the double standard. When hotel concierges or a secretary / administrative assistant knows what you like and anticipates needs, it's excellent customer service. When it's code, it's creepy.

    5:00 somewhere...

    1. h4rm0ny

      If that hotel concierge was mentally linked to all other staff at all other hotels and had perfect recall of everything you did in any hotel for the past ten years, yes - I might find that creepy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        If a hotel asked me if they can bug my room 24/7 so I can have wine faster, I'd find that creepy. Teenagers on the other hand do not. I think most of the spying by corporate software companies is due to teenagers because they already feel like everything they say is being listened too.

        1. DryBones

          Rubbish. You're creeped out by a search engine remembering your searches and history? Delete them, Google offers you that functionality in the dashboard.

          Advertisers have been collecting things, using cookies of various types for more than a decade. Google is actually letting you be a user of that data too, and giving you the ability to remove a good deal of it. If it scares you, GO NUKE YOUR DATA.

          The every hotel analogy is off. It's your concierge following you to each one you go to.

          1. veti Silver badge
            Headmaster

            A concierge who follows you from hotel to hotel, and even home afterwards, is called a 'valet'.

            HTH, HAND etc.

          2. Pseu Donyme
            Thumb Up

            >Rubbish. You're creeped out by a search engine ...

            Um ... it seems as if you see Google as a company offering just a search engine. In fact it is really the largest ad pusher on the internet and this is where it gets its revenue. To target its ads it collects profiles on internet users. A part of this is one's search history on Google search and, in general, whatever they can get from their other services (such as gmail, Youtube, Chrome (browser), Android devices, Chromebook, cloud ...). This might be legal even in the EU (*), what is illegal (in the EU, at least) is their collecting (and making use of) data of browsing habits with Google Analytics, G+ buttons, Google Maps and of course the ads they distribute (and possibly otherwise) without consent - or even knowledge, in most cases - of the internet user.

            (*) Then again it might not, because their TOS is so wide open to intepretation that actual user consent to any of this is suspect (and possibly because their dominant market position with search and Android).

      2. Craigness

        The concierge talks about you with other hotel staff. He tells the cleaners that you're a bad tipper, they tell him you leave hair on the soap. You walk through the lobby and can't look people in the eye because you know they know you know they know your secrets. But when a computer knows where you live all it does is realise you're in a hotel and might be interested in some local attractions. When the Value Judgement engine goes live, THAT'S when you need to feel creeped out.

        Sent from my Chromebook

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Trollface

    Good to see Google offering a choice as always

    Install beta creepy privacy-invading search technology now to test or have the Chromebook autoupdate to creepy privacy-invading search technology later.

    1. Andrew Jones 2

      Re: Good to see Google offering a choice as always

      Pretty sure...... the privacy-invading part is actually in the Google Cloud where it ties everything you do or ever have done on any Google property anyway into a sort of database. The bit on the Chromebook / Android device / iOS Device simply returns information from the database.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good to see Google offering a choice as always

        They don't simply "return" information from the database, they actually feed it...

        1. Craigness
          Coat

          Re: Good to see Google offering a choice as always

          One does not simply return information from the database.

  4. A Known Coward

    "Google turns creepy" !?

    Where have you been for the last ten years? They haven't suddenly become creepy overnight, their entire business model involves spying on you - there is barely a website in the world now that doesn't use Google hosted content which only exists so that they can track you everywhere you go.

    1. RyokuMas
      Facepalm

      Re: "Google turns creepy" !?

      "They haven't suddenly become creepy overnight, their entire business model involves spying on you"

      Ah, but it's only recently that people have started waking up to this fact and ignoring the Google faithful who keep trying to reassure them that "everything's fine, no, no, you can always choose not to use Google, it's all in your best interest, blame Apple, blame Microsoft, blame the NSA..." etc., etc.

  5. Planty Bronze badge

    Already on beta channel

    And very good it is too. My chromebook gets better and better.

  6. x 7

    " a secretary / administrative assistant knows what you like and anticipates needs....."

    I don't mind my secretary knowing I like a blonde in my hotel room (and taking appropriate action) but I don't think I'd be keen on Google anticipating the call.

  7. JLV

    Hey Google

    (re screenshot)

    how about your "uber-cool interactive financial charts" leaving 2005 behind and not requiring Flash to work anymore?

  8. Turbo Beholder
    Black Helicopters

    good morning.

    Oh, come on. CIAagle cannot "turn creepy", for the same reason why Atlantic Ocean cannot "turn wet".

    Even if it was just a honest search engine at day one, it's so much more for so many years.

  9. Simon Harris
    Facepalm

    "apps you most often use right "

    What about the apps I most often use wrong?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just wait

    Really, calm down. Just wait about a year or two and Google will shut down their Predictive Search app server, leaving the feature non-functional on all your Chromebooks and Android phones.

  11. JoshOvki

    Flakey Wifi

    I am not worried, the wifi on my Chromebook is so flakey they won't be able to gather anything from me!

  12. Yugguy

    I HATE predictive search

    Chrome mobile is a bugger for this.

    I start typing in the url I want - yes I'm old-fashioned. Chrome pops up some random meaningless shite url which bears no relation and now I can't see how far I've typed my url as there's no shading or difference to tell me which are my characters and which is Google bollocks.

    Every bloody system these days wants to second guess you. Just sod off, I know what I want.

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