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So Google buys Nest Labs for a reported $3.2 billion dollars. This is the second biggest purchase by Google after the acquisition of Motorola. Nest Labs is a maker of smart thermostats and smoke alarms.
Theory’s abound as why Google made this purchase. One theory was to compete with Apple, one to get a head in smart devices and another is to jump ahead on connected devices. I can’t say I have any Nest devices but the jest, as I understand it, is they are sensing devices that you can also program from your phone. If someone is in the room make it this temperature and if not turn it down. As a geek a very cool idea, little pricey for me though.
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So now I consider that Google is going to own Nest. For me I use their search, their social I G+, their email, and their tablet (Nexus 7). If I was to go and buy a Nest today I would use, in a round about way, their smoke alarm or thermostat. Now if Nest and Google press into more appliances in the home imagine the data they could collect about you beyond what they already know.
I walk into my kitchen and open my Google fridge powered by Nest and pull out milk for my cereal. It learns how often it takes for that action to then require me to buy more milk so the fridge uses my Gmail, power by Google, to email Amazon or maybe by this time Google Groceries to then drone in my milk before the next time the fridge know I will need milk for my cereal. Andy Rubin is building robots for Google and add in some Nest tech….
Ok so consider this. I wake up to my Nexus 7 alarm which has all my notifications of Gmail, drive time, weather for my journey to work. My Nest thermostat turn up the heat while I am in the shower and starts warming the spaces it know I will be in during my morning rituals. I step into my garage and start working, because my Google self-driving car allows for me to begin work while driving to work. Or maybe there is not garage because I am sharing the self-driving car with my local community and this is just my scheduled time for me to get to work.
The reverse at the end of the days I head home I work on my way home in the self driving car. The house warms up as I head that way. The Google car will know and report back that I am heading home.
I feel this thread of thought could go crazy….I am pointing out the obvious and missing other things but considering how much Google know now and could know in the future I may be re-considering my stance on how much I am connected.
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