A Memorable Fancy » google

Google is creeping me out

erik — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:26:10 +0000

Remember back when gmail was new and they were talking about targeting ads to people based on the contents of their email, and some people were freaking out? Not me. I didn’t really care. I’m all for privacy and find most web ads distasteful, but this didn’t bother me too much. I’ll tell you what is, though.

First of all, Google Voice. I have been messing around with it a little, and it’s pretty cool, including the transcription of voicemail to text, which can then be texted to you or saved on the server. But there is something about this that makes the hair on the back of my neck rise a little. This means that all of my voicemail is now searchable. Does this mean they can target ads based on VM? And who owns my voicemail. The issues here are identical, I think, to those of email, so why does this bother me now?

Breaking News! Further Google Voice creepiness: As I was composing this, I checked my Google Voice account, and discovered something strange. The other day I had a text message conversation with a friend who uses Google Voice, but I was using my regular phone, which is tied to GV, but I wasn’t using GV itself. When I checked GV, the entire text message conversation appeared in my text transcripts there. Both sides of the conversation.

Secondly, Picasa Face Recognition. I downloaded Picasa 3.5, and it found 2000+ photos in my library with faces. I started tagging them, and names from my (Google) contacts started conveniently appearing in the box as suggestions. To tag someone, it seems, the person must exist in your contacts. After tagging a few, I was amazed to find that Picasa suggested other photos that might be the same person. It correctly identified a slew of pics of me, with and without glasses, with long hair and short. The only pics it missed were partial or side views, or pics of me with a thick beard. My concern here is the same as before. By including this technology and tying faces to contacts, Google is attempting to make pictures face-searchable, which is fine for private collections, but, again, creepy and possbily intrusive on the web.

I don’t have any deep theoretical or philosophical reflections about this, nor any sky-is-falling proclamations about the loss of privacy, etc. I’m just saying that it creeps me out.

The google vehicle

erik — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 22:32:02 +0000

I have captured some reflections of the google vehicle.

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click on the above image and you can move it around with the arrow keys. If you look down at the car you will see the top of the car, and an envelope in the back seat, like this:

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And here’s another, better reflection:

Also broken. Click here.

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Google Streetview Detroit

erik — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 16:38:47 +0000

Google unveiled Streetview for Detroit this week. Here is a view of the bookstore at Wayne State.

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I will have a lot to say about this, but here are some initial personal reactions.

I find it interesting and compelling to walk through neighborhoods I know, but also a little disconcerting to know someone has taken pictures of, say, the house I grew up in, although my current residence is missing by only about 1/4 mile.

A weird function of this app is that when you “walk” down the street, you may see a person but if you walk forward, the person disappears or moves in a strange way. Try it at a crosswalk, like the one above.

I am also obsessed for some reason to find out when these pics were taken. I may try to drive by like a bank or something with the date on it. So far, I have gathered that it is probably late summer/early fall. I found my car at my friend Kev’s house, which doesn’t say much but that it was probably Sunday morning, which I think is a likely time for me to be there. There are a lot of students on WSU campus and they are mostly wearing pants and short sleeves with no coats, which tells me it is Fall semester. This mail carrier, however, is wearing shorts:

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Gas cost $3.17 that day at the corner of Forest and Woodward. There was no Tigers or Lions games that day. More later as I explore and think about this.