Eric Schmidt: "I think people want google to tell them how to live their lives"

Eric Schmidt sure had some interesting things to say today....

"In an interview Mr Schmidt said he believed that every young person will one day be allowed to change their name to distance themselves from embarrassing photographs and material stored on their friends' social media sites." -- Murray Wardrop , Telegraph

"We're trying to figure out what the future of search is, one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type." -- Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman & CEO

"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next." -- Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman & CEO

"He suggested, as an example, that because Google would know “roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are”, it could remind users what groceries they needed to buy when passing a shop." -- Murray Wardrop, Telegraph

I'm sure Google's PR team is banging their head against the wall on this one. I was even reluctant to repost this because I'm sure comments are flying everywhere. Its rather scary to hear this blatant disregard for privacy concerns when you remember that Google has recently teamed up with the NSA.

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't cared enough about my privacy to discontinue the use of all Google products, but I think Eric has made his intentions fairly clear in this interview. Google does not care about your privacy, and frankly if you don't like it you should change your name and you may miss out on Google telling you when and what to think and more importantly buy.

Google's primary line of business is advertising, and frankly their really isn't any single competitor that can provide quality alternatives to their current service porfolio. That said, I dont see Googles position in the market place shifting anytime soon. We'll continue to use it and they'll continue to analyze and share our data.

From a Privacy perspective we get sick thinking about this, but frankly I think most people are in the "I don't like it but I can't stop using them" camp. Personally I try to mitigate potential damage to my future professional reputation by releasing everything under a Pen Name. The goal is simply to avoid the potential effect my current naive viewpoints and public photographs will have on future professional engagements. However most Google users are unaware that information is collected, and our younger generation has shown blatant disregard for personal privacy on many fronts.

I'm really interested to see where this wave of personal openness and lack of privacy takes us as a society. The internet globally connected my generation and I think by and large many netcitizens live in a world without international borders, a world where you are judged by your personality and knowledge over your skin tone and accent.

Personally I don't think these kids will actually need to change their names. What we're experiencing here is a changing of guard, the previous generation was lucky enough to leave what happened the summer of 1969 behind. Their children got to burn all of the pictures of themselves with big hair, and pink sweat bands. Perhaps the coming generation will just stop trying to pretend they were never wild, and it will become professionally be acceptable to be something more then Generic Cube Occupant 32A.

--Multi-Mode

Consumer Devices and Electomagnetic Radiation

Today I'm a little frustrated by more then a few negative mentions of the Ontario parents who are pressuring their school district to discontinue the use of WiFi. Theres nothing particularly new going on, some local community's across the world have been fighting the deployment of cell phone towers and even wired published a piece about the effects of WiFi in 2006

Everyones entitled to their opinion, however I find the "WiFi is awesome, these parents are nuts" groupthink a little disturbing. Considering the combined knowledge across various hacker communities I'm somewhat disappointed by the lack of serious consideration.

First and foremost, I'd like to see WiFi, Cellphones, Microwaves, and other specific RF implementations dropped from these debates. I think the real question on the table is: What affect (if any) does the electromagnetic radiation being produced by prolific consumer devices have on the human body

America's FCC FAQ states:

At relatively low levels of exposure to RF radiation, i.e., levels lower than those that would produce significant heating; the evidence for production of harmful biological effects is ambiguous and unproven. Such effects, if they exist, have been referred to as "non-thermal" effects. A number of reports have appeared in the scientific literature describing the observation of a range of biological effects resulting from exposure to low-levels of RF energy. However, in most cases, further experimental research has been unable to reproduce these effects. Furthermore, since much of the research is not done on whole bodies (in vivo), there has been no determination that such effects constitute a human health hazard. It is generally agreed that further research is needed to determine the generality of such effects and their possible relevance, if any, to human health.

I think thats a fair response considering the current state of research in this space, however if we remove the political slant and legal ease we're left with "Maybe, we're not sure at this time".

In this particular case it may be in the Ontario school districts best interest, to review any records of the school nurse keeps to determine patterns. A good test would be to compare the number of reported symptoms to those of previous years and investigate the possibility that the children may be inadvertently being rewarded for reporting these symptoms (ie. going home early, getting out of gym, or class).

At the same time its common knowledge that RF causes interference to electrical devices. Considering our nervous system is also an electrical system, I think its foolish to completely discount the reported symptoms as unrelated.

If the brain was receiving unfiltered mild electrical interference, headaches and nausea would reasonable symptoms. In that case, there are probably no real long term health effects. However we also need to consider the effect electrical interference could potentially have on the developing brain. Obviously all of this is speculative, but I see real value in seeing this research come to pass. Comparing WiFi and cellular rollouts in epidemiology studies, and double blind testing inside a Faraday cage could help.

All in all, society has every right to be suspicious of the proliferation of wireless networks. Theres nothing wrong with the intuitive wisdom that rejects things that are too good to be true, because history has shown that every technological advancement comes with its price.

--Multi-Mode