jfuhrman

In order to get the Play Store, an OEM has to agree to install all the other ‘required’ Google apps including Google Voice Search, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk (now Hangouts), Google Maps and so on.

The most important clause states that "Devices may only be distributed if all Google Applications... are pre-installed on the Device." Google apps are an all-or-nothing affair. If you want Google Maps or the Play Store, you must also take things like Google+ and Google's network location provider.

Thechnically Skylake support for Win7 wasn't announced, but the effect is the same since there was an implicit expectation that the feature would come.

From where did this implicit expectation come from?

Windows 7 mainstream support ended in Jan 2015 and that was known since forever.

Extended support implies:

Microsoft no longer supplies non-security hotfixes unless you have an extended support agreement

All warranty claims end

Microsoft no long accepts requests for new features and design changes

Well that's a fairly misleading comparison. Where is the screenshot for Outlook.com which has no ads either?

Not to mention the fact that Gmail is valuable to Google because it gets people to sign in in all the browsers they use, allowing them to track them via cookies on all Google properties including search.

The "World's Most Valuable Advertising Business" does things like track which physical stores Android phone users and Google maps users on iOS visit.

Plenty of Android OEMs install adware and bloatware, sometimes which cannot even be uninstalled, so I guess people are already conditioned to this.

Can't drop something that doesn't exist.

If you follow the thread, it's about calling Google an AI company.

How much of Google's profit(or even revenue) is not from tracking user data and advertising?

Search, Gmail, Android, Chromebooks, Nexus, Pixel, Youtube, Maps etc. everything is about selling advertisements after scanning user provided data.

The rest are either loss leaders or moats, or ones with unclear monetization scenarios like Fiber. One exception is GCE and GAE, but I don't know how much profit/revenue they're making. I would count Google Apps, but until recently they were scanning even paid Google Apps for Business accounts for ad tracking purposes.

That reads like sarcasm, but I am not 100% sure.

I use IRCCloud.com, but this looks very interesting to throw on my Linux server on Google Cloud to play around with.

Well, abusing their search dominance among other things like making ads indistinguishable from organic results and paid placement on verticals like shopping/hotels etc. was eventually going to pay out.

More details on how Google manipulated search rankings manually to make more money:

From http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-skewed-search-results...

A previously undisclosed report by staffers at the Federal Trade Commission reveals new details about how Google Inc. manipulated search results to favor its own services over rivals’, even when they weren’t most relevant for users.

In a lengthy investigation, staffers in the FTC’s bureau of competition found evidence that Google boosted its own services for shopping, travel and local businesses by altering its ranking criteria and “scraping” content from other sites. It also deliberately demoted rivals.

For example, the FTC staff noted that Google presented results from its flight-search tool ahead of other travel sites, even though Google offered fewer flight options. Google’s shopping results were ranked above rival comparison-shopping engines, even though users didn’t click on them at the same rate, the staff found. Many of the ways Google boosted its own results have not been previously disclosed.

One way Google favored its own results was to change its ranking criteria. Google typically ranks sites based on measures like the number of links that point to a site, or how often users click on the site in search results.

But Marissa Mayer, who was then a Google vice president, said Google didn’t use click-through rates to determine the ranking for its own specialized-search sites, because they would rank too low, according to the staff report

Instead, Google would “automatically boost” its own sites for certain specialized searches that otherwise would favor rivals, the FTC found. If a comparison-shopping site was supposed to rank highly, Google Product Search was placed above it. When Yelp was deemed relevant to a user’s search query, Google Local would pop up on top of the results page, the staff wrote.

Other regulators have found similar practices. European antitrust authorities in 2013 said Google had a different, “specialized” search algorithm for ranking its own content.

To bolster its own listings, Google sometimes copied, or “scraped,” information from rival sites. According to the FTC report, Google copied Amazon’s rankings of how well products were selling, then used that information to rank its results for product searches. Amazon declined to comment.

While Google promoted its own results, it sometimes demoted rivals, the FTC staff found. For example, Google compiled a list of comparison-shopping sites and “demoted them from the top 10 web results,” staff wrote. According to the report, Google users in tests didn’t like the changes; only after Google tweaked its search algorithm at least four times, and changed the ranking criteria, did the new results get “slightly positive” feedback, the staff said.

Google’s efforts paid off, the FTC found. It said Google’s maneuvers reduced Web traffic to rivals, and increased traffic to Google sites.

So, does that mean, for example, anything you type in a non-public Google Docs is auto scanned for advertising purposes?

Why do you refer to MS as M$? In my experience the people who do that are far from the people who worked or would work at MS.

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/22/m

It's very telling that you get a 3 year free Google Drive storage account with 1TB or so storage instead of more local storage on Chromebooks.

The terms of service allow them to mine all your documents etc. for keywords once it's in their cloud. Otherwise why would they sell Chromebooks at or below cost.

Flash bundles things like Chrome, Mcafee etc.

That's the real reason they don't want a auto-update. Google pays them a lot for bundling Chrome(I think it's around $1 per install). They keep breaking the auto-update on purpose so that they can make a ton of money by bundling other software. Same with Java updates.

From http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-skewed-search-results...

A previously undisclosed report by staffers at the Federal Trade Commission reveals new details about how Google Inc. manipulated search results to favor its own services over rivals’, even when they weren’t most relevant for users.

In a lengthy investigation, staffers in the FTC’s bureau of competition found evidence that Google boosted its own services for shopping, travel and local businesses by altering its ranking criteria and “scraping” content from other sites. It also deliberately demoted rivals.

For example, the FTC staff noted that Google presented results from its flight-search tool ahead of other travel sites, even though Google offered fewer flight options. Google’s shopping results were ranked above rival comparison-shopping engines, even though users didn’t click on them at the same rate, the staff found. Many of the ways Google boosted its own results have not been previously disclosed.

One way Google favored its own results was to change its ranking criteria. Google typically ranks sites based on measures like the number of links that point to a site, or how often users click on the site in search results.

But Marissa Mayer, who was then a Google vice president, said Google didn’t use click-through rates to determine the ranking for its own specialized-search sites, because they would rank too low, according to the staff report

Instead, Google would “automatically boost” its own sites for certain specialized searches that otherwise would favor rivals, the FTC found. If a comparison-shopping site was supposed to rank highly, Google Product Search was placed above it. When Yelp was deemed relevant to a user’s search query, Google Local would pop up on top of the results page, the staff wrote.

Other regulators have found similar practices. European antitrust authorities in 2013 said Google had a different, “specialized” search algorithm for ranking its own content.

To bolster its own listings, Google sometimes copied, or “scraped,” information from rival sites. According to the FTC report, Google copied Amazon’s rankings of how well products were selling, then used that information to rank its results for product searches. Amazon declined to comment.

While Google promoted its own results, it sometimes demoted rivals, the FTC staff found. For example, Google compiled a list of comparison-shopping sites and “demoted them from the top 10 web results,” staff wrote. According to the report, Google users in tests didn’t like the changes; only after Google tweaked its search algorithm at least four times, and changed the ranking criteria, did the new results get “slightly positive” feedback, the staff said.

Google’s efforts paid off, the FTC found. It said Google’s maneuvers reduced Web traffic to rivals, and increased traffic to Google sites.

Nah there isn't.

Are you serious? Do you even know how Reddit works?

The sub had no subscribers, and the only mod and founder of it spammed the name of the sub in another sub, and it was a new account. There are plenty of anti-Pao subs that haven't been banned since months and those actually have subscribers and content being posted.

User keeps seeing their comments, but other users cannot see their posts or their user page. Only Admins can shadowban. Mods can use a tool called automoderator to remove posts by certain users but only in their subreddit.

Reddit admin staff don't touch any posts in subreddits unless it is something against the site rules like doxxing,personal info or child porn.

Some subs leave a flair or a moderator message on removed submission, if not you can modmail them and ask.

It wasn't even removed by Reddit. It was removed by subreddit mods who essentially have full control of a sub. Anyone can create a sub and enforce their own curation or arbitrary rules which is not the same as censorship. From the sub sidebar:

This is a curated space. The moderators reserve the right to remove posts, users, and comments at their own discretion.

If I create a subreddit where I ban all posts start with A, is that censorship, or is that freedom for me to run and build my online space as I wish?

Please stop spreading this nonsense. I expected better from HN.

constantly banning and deleting anything disagreeing with her viewpoint about her law suit.

There are multiple posts on multiple reddits, each with thousands of points and comments that were not deleted. Some posts were deleted by sub moderators(not the same as Reddit staff or Pao) on some subs because they were offtopic and were being vote brigaded and had comments full of hate speech.

E.g of posts:

http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/30j9mn/ellen_pao_loses...

http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/38qkmx/after_losing_he...

It doesn't make any sense why she would leave those posts up if she really was deleting stuff. It's interesting how the folks against her have made it look like she was. It's just sad how easily so many people are manipulated by false information.

Examples of comments that were being made and upvoted by the brigades on unrelated big subs:

Somebody needs to fire this whore right fucking now. What a tampon smear...

She's a lying cunt who is using her pussy pass because she didn't get what she wanted; a big pay-out for being a whore.

Why would subreddit mods want to deal with hundreds of such comments when the story is offtopic to their sub?

So the question is, if a country (like Spain or Greece)

If, say, European Union provides better shield, would Apple move its HQ to Germany or Spain?

Two words. Labor laws.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ceo-employee-lawsuits-killed-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9663421

Fragmentation is harmful when it's mostly similar ones with minor incompatibilities, like ten thousand Linux distros and Window managers. Not to mention the various stock browser versions on Android phones.

Across a market, having two to five differently implemented competitive products results in innovation instead of stagnation with just one.

I'm surprised you point out iDevices, what we should be worried about is keeping them away from the Windows ecosystem.

I thought iDevices meant only iPads, iPhones and iPod Touch(es?).

Why is rollout of contactless so slow, and why is it being reported as being specific to Apply Pay?

It's a response to all the "Apple Pay to singlehandedly revolutionize and popularize contactless payments" articles seen over the past few months.

That and having Apple in the headline drives page hits.

I believe they have been given notices longer than a month.

Anyway, it's a financial transaction for knowledge and labor like any other, if you think you're getting a raw deal, you should not accept the deal.

Not sure how it is financial extortion though.

I was referring to the laid off employees, not the new ones.

Or they're paying a 10% bonus of yearly salary as payment if they're willing to train their replacement.

If someone offered me $10K extra on top of my salary to take the trash out and clean the company kitchen for 2 weeks, I would gladly do it without blinking, even if it's a little humbling. I don't know about you. Calling it extortion is a bit much.

(and not to be snarky at all but I find it fascinating that that was your take away after reading it)

It might be because I have a low tolerance for clickbait headlines and articles.

Isn't this at will employment? Companies can ask any employee to take the trash out or even clean up the kitchen(barring physical disabilities and strength). If you refuse they can fire you, same as you can quit anytime for any reason or no reason.