As promised, Cyanogen has released an update to Cyanogen OS (which is not CyanogenMod) that integrates Cortana into their Android offering.
In the Cyanogen OS 12.1.1 update, we are excited to introduce Microsoft Cortana. What makes this such an exciting partnership is that by having Cortana’s voice command capability deeply integrated into the Cyanogen ecosystem, we’re opening the door to future capabilities that don’t currently exist.
So, they’re going to “take Android away from Google“, and then give it to Microsoft? This Microsoft?
OK.
Look – like Microsoft, Google collects data. A lot of it. We all know it, and at least all of us, OSNews readers, make a conscious choice to use Android anyway. While I don’t trust Google in any way, there’s at least the comfort that they are probably the most closely monitored company when it comes to privacy, and there’s little to no risk of the company folding and being up for grabs – meaning, your data will remain within Google, and won’t end up in somebody else’s, less trustworthy hands just because they happened to buy Google.
Cyanogen Inc., however, is a whole different ballgame. This is a start-up funded by venture capitalists who are clearly looking for a quick buck. They’re making a lot of grandiose claims and a ton of ruckus, and as I’ve said before, I give them a few years before they’re acquired by someone else – at which point your data could end up anywhere, completely beyond your control, with little to no oversight.
Venture capitalists – and by extension, those who depend on them – have no interest in you. You are irrelevant. All they care about is cashing in on their investments as soon as possible, everything else be damned.
Don’t buy into Cyanogen. Just don’t.
I don’t see the point in simply replacing one component with another. And Microsoft also collects data. If the people of DuckDuckGo make an assistant perhaps it will be different.
Edited 2016-01-08 01:26 UTC
How would a company make a useful assistant if it didn’t collect data?
modmans2ndcoming,
The difference is that a “real” assistant wouldn’t routinely send your data off to be mined by another company. These digital assistants are designed to serve the interests of the company that programs them. They typically reserve the right to profile you and change their terms on a whim. It’s pretty clear who the real boss is, and it’s not users.
I don’t know if you know how these technology works.
But these companies are using more and more machine learning technologies like ‘deep learning’.
The problem with this is: you need a lot of data and computing infrastructure to make these systems learn well.
That I think is why Google, Microsoft, Yandex and Baidu are the companies making a lot, maybe the most, progress at this time.
After that you can take the resulting model and run it on your own just fine.
That is why a lot of former academics are now at these companies. Because they have the data to work on this.
And while the academics can release code or even algorithms and techniques. Without the data they are a lot less useful, if not completely useless.
This really is a problem.
I think the technologies are very interesting, but they are a problem for privacy and possibly even freedom (centralization leads to chokepoints for governments which are turning into being less and less democratic).
A lot of the time they are applied to potentially really useful things like for example this:
http://news.berkeley.edu/2015/05/21/deep-learning-robot-masters-ski…
And self-driving cars.
Al though that could still be end up being bad if we don’t come up with a enough new jobs or don’t learn to work with computers enough or change our society to fit the new reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU
This is wrong on two fronts:
First, no one uses machine learning for the “chatbot” part, because, simply put, it would be way too dangerous for the chatbot to say anything other than a very strict set of preprogrammed responses. Imagine you ask something about Russia and it tells you about Mordor (e.g. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/google-translate-dubs-russia… ).
Second, as for the voice recognition, they do use machine learning. But all of Microsoft, Google, Apple, Samsung, LG, etc. use a single service provided by a single giant monolithic company: Nuance. Who, being more or less a conglomerate of crazy venture capitalists, is well-known to be more than happy to cede all your data _literally_ to the highest bidder.
The worst part is that Nuance _has_ an offline voice recognition program that works at least as good as as the online one but is superexpensive to license (compared to the online one which is so cheap it could as well be completely free to use).
The voice stuff wasn’t the thing I meant.
I meant analysis of the data, think of something like Google Now.
You can program that for each type of data, but these companies are already using machine learning for part of that. And it will become quicker to add new data types when you get better at using machine learning.
Lennie,
I understand your point, but I think it’s a disappointing direction for our future. Google would have never come off the ground without access to the same public information it’s larger competitors had and it owes its early existence to information being public. This is good, we should encourage everyone to maximize the utility of information. When there are gaps in knowledge, the incentives should be to fill those gaps in the open, where everyone can benefit. However when incumbent companies get to mine large volumes of private data, it essentially grants them exclusive access to all of this knowledge at the expense of everyone else.
Those who control access to information, have all the power. We need to think very carefully about what it means for a few top companies to hold everything in their silos while everyone else remains blind and dependent. It doesn’t need to be this way, mass mining technology can be deployed is a manor that mutually benefits us all and with more explicit control over what each of us want to contribute. If it weren’t for greed, the Googles and Microsofts and Apples and Facebooks of the world would be in a pristine position to push us into a new renaissance of computing. But they can’t see beyond their own pocketbooks, they all want to control this technology to serve us ads instead.
Just don’t give them the data ! 😉
I’m actually pretty serious.
But it seems a lot of/most people haven’t understood the problem yet or even understand a problem exists or know anything about what is going on.
Seriously.
I wish I knew how this could be solved, because this is a possible future.
There are a few things how this could be prevented:
1. the industry finds some algorithms which work well with less data
2. hardware improves fast enough that lots of people and companies can afford it
3. society understands we shouldn’t keep storing our data with these companies. Even Snowden and all the data-breaches so far haven’t had the needed effect. Maybe governments will create laws ?
Maybe we even need all 3.
Lennie,
Haha, good one
Probably not, but you can still hope right ?:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/eu-court-strikes-down-trans-atlantic-sa…
Lennie,
I know P2P in general is not dead. The end to end connectivity principal means that every node should be able to talk directly to every other node on the internet, that’s what I was referring to. With mobile connections this has always been a problem, but it’s begun to spread to broadband users as well. And just to be clear I’m not referring to a static-ip, but any publicly addressable IP at all.
ATT has started charging $15/mo for that feature.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Warns-UVerse-Users-of-Servic…
It sucks because adding new layers of carrier NAT breaks local port forwarding, it breaks UPNP, it breaks dynamic dns providers, it decreases the reliability of STUN, which is already spotty and often breaks TCP anyways. I benefit tremendously from being able to connect directly into my own equipment and I’ll just suck it up and pay more for this functionality if it comes to it. But when not everyone can have a publicly routable IP, that’s what it means to say the end-to-end principal is failing.
P2P services like skype mitigate this by routing traffic through other users who still have connectivity, but it is a compromise of resource efficiency for connectivity. There will be more and more overhead as users pop up behind unroutable private IPs. Capped/metered users may well end up paying for this inefficiency on their ISP bills.
Overlooking this though I still think there are tremendous advantages with the P2P model. P2P offers the best CDN on the planet bar none. Heck even google with their vast networks suffer from not-infrequent and annoying outages affecting video playback on youtube. Youtube would very likely work better as a P2P application.
Skype is NOT a p2p application anymore.
ALL traffic goes through servers Microsoft is paying for ( I believe it’s Akamai or their own )
While we are on the subject of STUN and P2P and even YouTube, a lot of browsers also now have support for P2P protocols like: WebRTC & Datachannel.
Netflix has been talking to the guy behind WebTorrent ( https://webtorrent.io/ ):
“Imagine a video site like YouTube, where visitors help to host the site’s content. The more people that use a WebTorrent-powered website, the faster and more resilient it becomes.”
“A few months ago Netflix specifically mentioned WebTorrent in a job application, which shows that the video giant is serious about P2P-assisted delivery.”
https://torrentfreak.com/webtorrent-brings-bittorrent-to-the-web-imp…
So seems to be still lots of live in p2p 🙂
Edited 2016-01-09 09:49 UTC
Lennie,
But…I actually think they can. If we give up end-to-end connectivity, then the IPv4 internet really can be sustained indefinitely. I think there’s actually a risk of that happening. Service providers certainly don’t mind this, selling centralized services is their goal anyways. Gamers who would have hosted their own game servers in the past already seem to be ok that modern AAA games force multiplayer to be hosted by the publisher.
Obviously it’s not the future of the internet you or I want, and it’s certainly not the future envisioned by the internet’s pioneers, but it is nevertheless a possible future to remain stuck on an internet without end-to-end connectivity. This is very worrisome, so maybe governments should pass laws to make sure this isn’t the future of the internet.
Internet and government laws… yeah, so far that has not been a good track record.
Maybe someone can make this is a netneutrality issue in countries that adopted netneutrality rules/laws.
Move along there, nothing to see…
This “enhancement” was clear to see when MS invested in the Corporate entity that Cyanogen became.
I am sure that there are a lot of Cynaogen fans waking up today and collectively gnashing their teeth when they read this. The old hippy phrase does seem apt here
“They sold out to the Man!”
On the positive side, this has clearly positioned the new corporate entity. There is a clear gaping hole for a replacement to the replacement to Android (and even Windows Phone) that will commit to never ever putting in any spyware/tracking/etc stuff.
“I give them a few years before they’re acquired by someone else” – wanna bet the buyer will be Micrsoft? especially if users run away from this new Cortana integration.
…better use Android because it’s backed a Big Company that will most probably never be bought out, and avoid the others because of size?
And what if that Big Company decides to sell your data – exactly that portion of their owned data – to another subject you don’t trust?
Man, there is something wrong here…
Do people actually use Cortana, Siri, and whatever Android has for things other than telling jokes? Is it the fastest way to get some tasks done on a phone these days? Is it because the rest of the user interface is so slow to use and poorly designed, or for other reasons?
I’m very much NOT a normal mobile phone user (N900, Jolla, no data plan) so I really don’t know how people use their phones these days.
I rarely use Google wtf (my personal name for it), and only slightly more often do I use the voice-to-text.
It can be useful when I’m in my car at a red light and I need to look something up quickly, or fire off a quick text to someone.
I have to admit, the first time I told my phone that I had an appointment at the doctor’s office Tuesday at 3pm, and it “just worked”, I was impressed.
For the most part, though, Android is easy enough to use that I’d rather do the work myself.
I use the Moto voice/ google now my car for hands free operation via bluetooth. It works nice. Sure there are luxury cars that promise to do that out of the box, but I don’t buy cars for that reason. I buy them based on much more practical matters: color and popularity.
That’s what I would also use such an assistant for, if only they didn’t suck so bad (they’re just unusable here in Finland); I think only having to speak out loud to get the phone to send a quick SMS, to set a reminder or to make a phonecall and/or pick up the phone when receiving a call would all be great while driving, but I can’t think of any other situation where I’d want something like that.
I do, esp for setting alarms and reminders. Telling my phone ‘remind me to do x when I get to location y’ is rather convenient. I don’t mind trading some of my data for this convenience either, esp. since I don’t do anything on my phone that I wouldn’t want in tomorrow morning’s headlines anyway.
I didn’t want to say anything this time but… this is big. Given that every single US tech company is simply collaborating with espionage and surveillance programs (and they are well compensated for that), stating that Google is better than Microsoft is absolutely fanboyish.
Wasn’t Microsoft that EVIL company cited a lot by Assange and Snowden ? Oh wait… no, that was Google !
Guys, Microsoft is evil, Apple is evil, all US tech companies are nothing else but trojan horses for US surveillance programs (pretending to have been hacked… lol… that’s a good one like Juniper Networks pretending SOMEONE put backdoors in its OS…) but not understanding that Google has in facts been raised for that single task frankly is… well… good night 😉
TBPrince,
Granted they’re all guilty of some nasty business tactics, but lets not mix the issues. In regards to the NSA spying programs almost every one of those companies is trying to fight the NSA in the public eye, using more crypto, as well as in the courts.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/microsoft-prism_n_3611285….
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/11/tech/web/zuckerberg-mayer-nsa-disrupt…
http://www.theverge.com/2013/11/6/5072924/google-engineers-issue-fu…
I appreciate none of this alleviates the very legitimate concerns about US snooping, however the blame on US companies themselves doesn’t make sense to me. On this occasion, we’re on the same side.
Companies here can protest surveillance programs till we’re blue, but it won’t build an impetus for policy change without evidence that we’re actually loosing business to the rest of the world. Boycotting US companies may be the strongest message you can send (so get on it guys), but you need to make it clearly known you are doing it because of government snooping.
Alfman,
I agree about that and I appreciate that US tech companies are voicing such message in a clear and open way. Let me say that I had no doubt about that because I know all of us, especially if working in tech, share common roots and values.
The problem is simple: money. If someone comes to you, maybe when you’re starting up or maybe at a later time, and promises to inflate your stock so you could get a lot of money (and thus you can provide your services for free – pun intended), have all blogs and magazines write about how great Alfman is, have a certain network of companies all of sudden start to buy your products and maybe also feel patriotic (how dumb that word is) and all you need to do is just a “little thing”… will you be able to resist ? 😉
It’s not people that needs to start to say no. Companies MUST be the first to say no, even at risk of being shut down and being vocal about why they have been shut down.
I’m stating this being conscious that Europe is going down along the same path and for sure you will see many “compliant” companies popping out. 😉
TBPrince,
Edited 2016-01-09 06:43 UTC
Alfman,
What did you expect ? That they would say “we will just keep on doing what we did before” ? There’s no doubt that corporations perfectly understand that revelations about surveillance programs could hurt them a lot and that the old party was 100% over.
However, believing that the US IT industry now turned good because they understood the lesson is simplistic. There is no US IT industry without the money coming from the collaboration with such programs. Look at Twitter: not a single euro of margin yet. Should I say more ?
And, by the way, I don’t have preconceptions about Microsoft. My company is a MS partner, we use their technologies everyday and we also noticed that there has been a shift in their behaviour (not going into details here). Heck, I’m also waiting for my Lumia 950 XL to replace the 1020 😉 But, as I said, even if I use Facebook and post my pictures there, that doesn’t mean I trust Facebook nor I started to believe that FB is safe, good or cares about me.
TBPrince,
…
You do realize that… Oh I give up, haha.
Edited 2016-01-09 19:11 UTC
We do not agree with each other but it was a nice chat 😉
…is to sell out to Microsoft.
Microsoft’s business plan…replace Windows Phone with CyangenOS…
that would be an interesting turn of events, but it would be one way for Microsoft to go after Android and leave the legacy of WinPhone behind…with minimal investment to do so…