My digital footprint

I was struck by a recent article in bbc news on the new Google acquisitions: smart thermostat maker Nest, and robotics company Boston Dynamics.  

You can read the article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25725808

So it seems Google wants to have its fingers in many different pies.  And it wants to connect smart appliances to the internet.  

Inn the future we could have android running on these appliances.  That seems to be a way forward.  This is not in my predictions post (see my previous post), but it makes good sense.  Something that was announced in the book by Negroponte "Being Digital" (1995): you can talk to your microwave, your dishwasher or your car.  

According to this article Google seems to be going further than that.  It is collecting data about you and me.  Your presences when you search the web, when you set up your mobile phone.  And who knows, the type of food that you out in the microwave, your eating times, the routes that you take to go to work.  Google is connecting many things to the internet.  Or shall we say that Google is collecting your digital footprints?

Yes. 

Is this a bad thing?

Maybe, maybe not.  There is a lot of data out there, and we are becoming used to think that someone or something has to process it to help us in order to make our lives easier.  For instance we do not quarrel anymore about the weather forecast.  We seem to need to know what is going to happen.  We need that kind of 'information'.  Siri is supposed to learn from us and help us.  And we let it do it

The only problem that I see today is that we need to leave our digital footprints.  We need to leave them somewhere.  We also need to let Google collect them.  And then Google will create a knowledge base from which we can all learn new things.  But we will then learn and use what is suggested as best.  Or what comes first in our search for answers.  Your foot prints and mines together.  Collective intelligence.  What if that is wrong? What if we want 'out' of the collective? Now can we challenge it? 

Reminds me of Startrek and the Borg rather than Big Brother.  We are one. We think like one.  We assimilate others.  Resistance is futile...Only to discover that there was a Borg queen. 

Or shall we say two Borg kings?