While the world was busy debating about the Facebook IPO, another major deal which could revolutionize our era took place in our neighboring China. The Chinese Government approved Google’s decision to buy Motorola Mobility, thus making a huge dive into the mobile hardware industry.
As someone who has been following Google closely in the news for past few years, I often wonder – “What are they really up to?”
It was not long back when Google revolutionized the mobile smartphone market by coming up with their Android Operating System. A free, open operating system with millions of apps ensured Google conquered the smartphone market in a matter of months.
The Android core load for any mobile included the Gmail, Talk, and Google Maps which ensured those were the go to apps for any Android user. But Google just didn’t want to survive in this competitive market, but wanted to lead and thus they never stopped innovating. It was just couple of months ago when Google announced the next frontier in mobile technology by introducing their wearable technology – Project Glass.
A few years back these would have been part of those James Bond movies but now they are just a few months away from entering the market. It won’t be long before I can sit in a meeting room in Bangalore with my Google Glasses project to my eyes having a meeting in Shanghai while at the same time using voice recognition software to translate between languages & take notes.
With Motorola’s hardware capability under its belt, Google is on its way create a “Google World” which will ensure seamless transfer of data between PCs, mobile devices and users. The possibilities of this synergy are endless and when these capabilities are harvested efficiently there would be seamless collaboration.
Already organizations have started relying the collaborative capabilities of Google Documents and Google mail to replace outlook among the many other Google products. But can we trust Google to make the right decisions to improve our lives?
If futuristic movies about super computers and artificial intelligence have taught us something, it is this – “Never trust Artificial Intelligence, it would turn against you”.
From the intelligent squid like machines in “Matrix to the all-knowing supercomputer VIKI in “I,Robot”, Hollywood keeps warning of the day when Supercomputers empowered with artificial intelligence is going to take over the world. With significant amount of progress in the area of artificial intelligence and the enormous amount of personal data available, would the premise of these futuristic movies come to life?
Google has always comforted us by repeating that it would never do evil. But is our personal information safe with Google whose primary source of income is advertisements? What if the decisions that Google helps us make is driven by the marketing campaign of corporates. Anybody who has used an android device would notice the continuous transfer of data from the phone to Google.
What if the augmented reality glasses keep transmitting everything you see and hear to a database where it could be stored forever and could be used to derive targeted ads, back to your eye piece?
With the advancement in any technology, there has been always been fears and apprehensions, but it is finally up to the users to ensure, it is used for good. Just a week ago the European Nations pushed Websites to follow the new cookie rule, which would ensure greater privacy to users.
As technology advances it would be up to the Government bodies & internet gatekeepers to understand where to draw the line to safeguard user privacy while ensuring growth.
Goggle always came up with new innovative ideas and this time after having deal with Motorola, it will be a great revolution in technology. Now what ever gadgets we see in movies will no more remain as dream.