What people are googling in real time
google.com
google.com
It's going to see a pattern of what I watch on TV, the websites I visit during the day, and on my phone, who I talk to, where I go, what I do, the kind of business I run, the products I buy, etc, etc.
One night, I'll be watching Breaking Bad and head over to Google on my phone to see what other shows one of the Extras was in.... but Google will already know I'm probably watching Breaking Bad, and Google is going to know that I've looked up Extras before, so guess what, my Google home page is already going to be showing a list of all the Extras that were on Breaking Bad that night before I have to type anything in.
When I turn on my Google Android phone in the morning, the phone will be smart enough to know everything I check every morning. I'll see the weather forecast first, then my sales numbers, probably headlines on Reddit and HN.
When I pull up Google Maps a few days before Fathers day, it's going to know that I'm trying to find my way to various sporting goods stores, it'll automatically put them on the map before I have to type anything in.
If I'm Googling before 5am, guess what, I'm looking up the best fishing reports... it'll be on my Google Home Page.
Or will this all be in front of my face as soon as I put on my Google Glasses?
While I don't feel the technology is quite there yet, it's only a matter of time before recommendation/predictive systems reach a level where they are able to personalise everything that we interact with.
As an aside, Amazon should really have an 'I already bought this somewhere else' button. 6 months after searching on Amazon for a watch but then buying it elsewhere, I'm still getting watch suggestions...
It's actually pretty neat and I think its definitely made the recommendations more useful. I think it can be done for videos as well, but I guess they don't have it for general retail.
E.g., I research the Hitler teapot† on Amazon. Then, suddenly, I'm seeing teapot ads everywhere.
†http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/illusion-chasers/2013/06...
Sure, you could generate a dashboard based on most viewed information. This wouldn't rocket science and could be done today.
OTOH, pulling up google maps a few days before fathers day? That could be for any number of purposes unless it knows that you always go shopping for gifts precisely 3 days beforehand.
I just emailed Mom asking what Dad might want for Fathers day, and I told my wife I'm headed out sometime this week in a text on my phone, and I searched Google for products that took me to Amazon....
So, when I pull up my map one afternoon soon after these communications, I think it will know what I'm up to - or could at least show me a popup saying "Headed Father's day shopping? Want some locations based on your recent web activity?"
I say Yes, and all kinds of fun spots and deals popup.
The result it likely to just be constant annoying spam.
There was a project in the MIT Media Lab something like a decade ago where they stuck about 100 graduate students with Bluetooth-enabled cellphones (this predates smartphones) and tracked many of their behaviors over the course of a semester. Things like phone calls, personal interactions, movements, etc.
A very interesting result from that study was that they built a model for predicting daily behaviors for their subjects with up to 79% accuracy [1]. The whole project was groundbreaking at the time, and they have some very interesting papers.
[1] http://realitycommons.media.mit.edu/pdfs/eigenbehaviors.pdf
> It's going to see a pattern of what I watch on TV, the websites I visit during the day, and on my phone, who I talk to, where I go, what I do, the kind of business I run, the products I buy, etc, etc.
> Or will this all be in front of my face as soon as I put on my Google Glasses?
This is the whole premise behind Google Now, which on its current incarnation is merely the tip of the iceberg.
Sorry, I had to.
They will not if you use https://duckduckgo.com/ :)
Someday, Google will know what I'm going to Google before I Google it.
You raise a good point that very few people understand. What information you receive determines, to a large extent, what you think. The relationship between inputs and thoughts is somewhat messy, especially for those people who can take apart ideas and put them back together in novel ways. However, people of below average intelligence, who only think in analogies to concepts they are familiar with, have behaviour and thought patterns that are very regular.
PS: Do you have a reference for people of below average intelligence thinking only in terms of analogies to familiar concepts? It seems plausible, but I'd be interested in any studies done.
I see this is scary. At the same time this is something we collectively want.
I think the problem here is not what predictive services based on our data are being offered. The problem here is that these services are being offered by a company that has much of our data. _Who_ is doing the computation is worrisome, not the computations themselves.
I would love to be able to do `apt-get install google` on my privately own server and get the same good services while keeping all my data under my roof.
Predictive services using your data wouldn't be much use if they weren't offered by someone with not only much of your data but also big honking scads of other data, including other people's interaction data, both to analyze to find general patterns for prediction, and to actually provide the information you need based on the predictions.
That's what early adopters want, but for the rest of us...
"No", he said. "We have filters for that."
Just then, the word "bukkake" scrolled by.
"I think your filters should learn Japanese," I suggested :)
Correct, non-misleading title would be: "Nice Visualization of Google Trends"
At Blekko (where I currently work) I wrote a similar application so that we could watch searches, live, on our display monitors.
It has been invaluable in identifying robotic searches and amusing to watch how some folks mangle the english language in their quest for porn, but most interestingly for me is that it is a great way to train your urban dictionary app since the OED doesn't define 'underass' but if you look at the pages that contain the term you can compute what folks take it to mean ;-), and then you can add it to the filter list.
Weather
Golf
Basketball
Celebrity gossip
TV show
Edit: I was just searching for Markdown on Hacker News[1]
That said, and while the visualization is spiffy, I do not think I want the collective interest of the Internet displaying on my monitor for all to see when I am away. I've been to the Internet, and I can't say I approve of everything that goes on out there. ;)
*Update: This works awesomely. Just pop in the URL. https://github.com/liquidx/webviewscreensaver/downloads
You need to go into Options, and copy-paste the URL of the OP into the field there.
Lots of people use Google as their primary means of navigating the internet -- nothing to do with censorship. I would guess that a Google search for "facebook.com" is one of the biggest referrers to Facebook.
"NHL Playoffs" "Apple iOS 7" "MacBook Air" "Chicago Blackhawks"
Nice try Apple/NHL!
If you watch Chrome's network activity, it shows no activity after load, and near the bottom, you find that list of terms. Still a cool visualization. It would be great if it was OpenGL and I could set it as my screensaver, or something.
So, these are just the top X searches from some time period, presumably after some processing and filtering (NSFW results eliminated, capitalization and spelling corrected, maybe some categories omitted, etc).
And since it gives them the right result anyway... why should they change anything?
Yup I'm still in the loop.
You're welcome.
I know you have "bang-cuts" like !g and !i, but it's kind of nice to have map results show up when you just search.
It's great for everything else though.
Maybe not quite the same, but I've seen incremental improvements in the months that I've been using DDG.
> We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable
> information publicly and with our partners – like
> publishers, advertisers or connected sites. For example,
> we may share information publicly to show trends about
> the general use of our services.