The Google Chrome Commercial They Should Have Aired
Heard of Google Goggles, right? I knew you can take pictures of churches and wine labels, it does some funky math, but I had no idea how great a booty tool it is. Peep this storyboard:
Scene: Opens with me walking down the beach, looking all buff, rockin’ my Nexus S and Nexus One in either hand, taking pictures of the seagulls, sandcastles and hot chicks.
Oh here’s some honey taking a dip. "Hey lady, I like your hair, be a doll and give me a smile, I want to make this ‘last longer.’ Technically you don’t have to smile and keep in mind that this is a public place making this arguably legal but let’s not get litigious, you know? Just go with it sweetheart."
Hmm, she’s okay looking, not that natural but who is these days. If only I knew her name, then I could use it to try to impress her or at least to look her up to find more pictures of her if things don’t work out… maybe David K or Chris Leiter knows this broad, so I’ll just share the picture and Gmail her their way. Menu button, share…
Hey, nice subtle translucent effect, you see that? Got her legs still and I got buttons. All right there’s my Share button, here below is part of the list of badass things I can do.
Cool, I can FTP it to my server and do a Tineye thing when I’m back home but … Hey wait a second, Google Goggles? Why would I share this with some search thing? Well let’s see what happens if I tap it.
Woah, trippy scan analysis, friggin’ CSI over here, what’s it doing? “Enhance” baby!
Hey, Jackpot! Ashley Ann Vickers, gotchya toots! It algorithmically figured out her name. And not only that I could rate her for other guys taking pictures of her so they know whether or not she’s worth Google Goggling!
So Google Goggles reversed her sweet ass and not only that, I can go straight to her Twitter and tweet at her, maybe suggest that she buy a Nexus like me. Hey she’s got her own website, maybe I could post something in a forum, maybe she’d appreciate some forum traffic. Oh wait, what’s this? Google Image results already laid out for me, didn’t have to type anything in? Well I know what I’m going to tap next…
Heavens to Betsy, that looks like some HTML5 mobile markup sweetness of this Ashley broad! Maybe one of these pictures is better than the one I took. I like pictures, what can I say.
Affirmative, I like this one, better use of depth of field with this shot. Way to deliver for me, Google. Guess I should make her a Gmail account and start writing to her.
Fin
Doug Simmons
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Doug Simmons
Biographical info.. hmm. I have a history of not being able to strike the balance between what is "safe" to put into these forms and what is, in my mind at least, funny. Can't do it.
can you do this on that Anthony Weiner photograph? I presume if it can identify it as him that’s conclusive enough for me…
After going through this incident (which is fake anyway) and writing this post, if you still don’t realise how google is dangerous for people and their privacy, maybe you have your head up Larry Page’s voyeuristic ass so far up that only his shit tastes sweet to you.
@Hotmail Alias:
C’mon dude, lighten up a bit. I, and lot’s of others can learn from what Dougie posted above. I had heard of goggles, but until now I did not know what it’s function was. Now that I know what it is and how it works, I can decide for myself exactly what Google may or may not do with the information that it collects from geotagged photos and such. I can see that this tool could have it’s benefits and it’s downfalls as well. But I will not call Google out a being evil because of some paranoid tendencies that I may or may not have within me. And I will not call Doug out for informing me either.
HiTekRedneck: Thanks for getting my back, that guy is a big bully (whose email is fake anyway). This was intended to be a Sunday post (though my timing was off a bit), and though I was having some fun, yes it is a handy trick that eluded me and presumably others who’d want to do the same thing because that’s something they could use in their life or just to test it for a few minutes and move on in life. Privacy stuff didn’t cross my mind.
But now that you mention it, Hotmail Alias, weren’t you listening when Schmidt explained that with regard to this privacy stuff, if you don’t want the world to know about it, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place? And if you slip up on that, that you can always just change your name and move?
Larry Page, don’t know much about him other than that he made a few blunders when he stepped up to the plate. I like Eric Schmidt. Like his humor, his style. Seems to know what he’s talking about. I was actually going to do a thing about him before I got sidetracked with this Goggles thing, suddenly the Eric Schmidt piece striking me as too tl;dr, but I’ll just slip in a little interview he did recently here because, Hotmail Alias, you’re here.
Even though Facebook got caught paying a company to plant negative articles everywhere they could against Google, Schmidt praises Facebook, concedes Google’s failure to do their thing, making me think he’s just answering questions and not trying to say the right things for Google, just things that are right. Among the things he said, Microsoft is not, unlike Apple, Google and Amazon, a contender to the consumer, that it is those other three companies which each provide at least something people really want that they cannot get anywhere else.
Google does a bunch of different stuff on a large scale, and for many of those things, like Street View and wifi mapping and geolocation and just general datamining, they are no longer the only game in town. However, they are the most heavily scrutinized. If you’re serious about this privacy stuff, Google’s no longer your only threat.
Schmidt notes briefly in this thing that for large scale third party mobile software development two’s (Apple and Google) a crowd and that not to expect much of an influx of programmers of either of those two or both stepping into WP, also a crowd for consumers who can’t handle much more app store / market identity than Apple’s and Google’s without getting confused. Curious what you think about it. Sorry about the ads..
@Doug Simmons:
Dude must really be paranoid if he went to all that trouble just to be able to post a rant at you. Maybe he is skeered you gonna open a can o whoopass on him if you find out who he is. LOL
Doug, so you caught Eric Schmidt at D9 trying to make it seem that he’s human afterall. Good ploy and pretty neat execution. But did it ever cross your mind, since you were there, why he didn’t say those things in the 10 years when he was actually doing his shit? I have had an account with gmail earlier and I have used some of their other services too. Ever wonder why I (or anyone else) was never informed till now about personal records being kept for 18 months and the feature to have it deleted on request at any time and where to place such a request? And can you give me any good reason why I should believe this guy? I mean just because he’s chosen to come down from his high horse for a while to reveal that he’s not infallible, doesn’t make me believe that his convictions have changed. It just brings to mind a popular adage in my country about being sceptical of a cat going on a pilgrimage after eating 900 mice. Doesn’t cut much ice, sorry.
The issue with google is not about technology, innovation or implementation, which ranges from impeccable to downright shoddy just like any other corporation. It is the thought behind it that counts because thought is more powerful than any other physical instrument in the world. So while we have several Augmented Reality apps that do recognition and search stuff on tin cans, books and other objects, we have google thinking they can do it on humans, Pardon me for being paranoid but that makes me feel like an object. Not only that, they go ahead and place such tools in the hands on geeks who, by self admission, care so much about someone’s privacy that it doesn’t even cross their mind while they’re having their fun. Geeks who readily drink the Kool-Aid about “if you don’t want the world to know about it, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”. Do you mean that Ashley Ann Vickers should stop going to the beach or stop being polite to strangers. People do a whole lot of stuff that they are not ashamed of, but does that give google or you the right to track it, document it, save it and splash it across public places. Do you seriously think google is God? Probably Schmidt thinks so and that is why we have them telling me what I want to ask even before I finish my question. Hell, they claim to even have the technology to tell me what I want even before I think of it. All this is under the seemingly benign blessings of google and it is FREE!! Then they have the gall to mock you that you cannot hide from them and that a complete change of identity may be the only escape from their all seeing eyes. (Though I think it was Mark Zuckerberg who said that). Well, the last time I checked, mankind had only allowed God to be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent and anyone who came close to godliness was termed as a saint. And even there, people have the choice to not believe in God and godmen. What makes google think they can usurp that role and rule people’s lives through technology?
The purpose of technology is to make man’s life simpler, more efficient and less hazardous. It cannot be allowed to rule human life, nor can some people with access to technology be allowed to misuse it to commoditise humans. And to do all this for commercial and ulterior gains behind a smoke screen of new age mantras like ‘open source’, ‘free market’ and ‘empowering the people’ is evil in itself even if making money is not evil. Don’t you even try to compare privacy issues on Facebook with google’s shit. Users of Facebook actively and personally disclose details about themselves in their posts and photos and should be rightly responsible for their own actions. Whereas google takes its users’ information while they are doing innocuous routine stuff like surfing the web, searching for things they want or need or shopping for groceries. So, Doug, while the technology may be good and the features rich in googleland, all doesn’t seem to be well in thought process behind it and the disdain with which they treat lower lifeforms like writers, publishers, artists, content providers and humans in general. As to Schmidt’s rant on google’s mistakes, gang of four and apps/developers’ loyality, no prizes for guessing that I don’t give any credence to any of it.
@HitekRedneck – Don’t worry Dude, I’ve been bullying him for a long time and he knows very well who I am behind my fake email. I started to use this identity all over the interwebs on Doug’s suggestion as he liked it and approved of it. Maybe he already has enough shit on me to make my life miserable but he’s afterall a good lad and one of the few who can write straight and correct English. So good-sense should prevail eventually, which is not necessarily google-sense.
@Hotmail Alias:
Ahhhh … I am beginning to see the big picture now. The old Good Cop / Bad Cop routine but it is now Good Google / Bad Google instead. It worked pretty good on me in that police interrogation room at 2:30 a.m. that time, and it is no less effective when played out here between Doug and yourself. Kudos to you both for enlightening us all to both sides of the Google coin.