Calling these "philosophies" is probably marketing fluff, but the dichotomy is definitely a real thing in interaction design; interacting with a computer as an agent (querying, dialogs, etc.) vs interacting with a computer as a tool (physically manipulated interfaces). All of the companies cited build products in both categories, but Google (and now increasingly Facebook) definitely skew towards the computer-as-agent applications, and Microsoft and Apple towards computer-as-tool.
At an organizational level I'm inclined to agree with you that the altruism ascribed by the article is far too optimistic, but I would imagine that there are individuals in each company who do think along these lines and try to design along them. (I do, however, find Google "giving users back their time" a bit hilarious as their business model is precisely to get users to spend as much time as possible looking at ads - maybe they free us from mundane tasks so we have more time to browse ads).
I disagree with this particular dichotomy being a real thing. The "computer as an agent" vs. "computer as a tool" interactions are functions of the problem being solved. You'd think that CLI interfaces are tools, but then tools like ls or mysql are clearly agents querying things.
IMO all those companies are on the spectrum of trying to remove user's agency from the problem. That happens when you build your tools to perform ever more complex queries and actions, while simultaneously making the user unable to see all the relevant details and tweak them. That happens when you dumb down your tools. All of the companies mentioned are guilty of it. Apple software is powerful and mostly very well made, but it's continuously dumbing down and locking the user away. Microsoft software used to be "bicycle for the mind", but it too is getting dumbed down every iteration and evolves towards pretty fluff. Google is simply much further down this spectrum, but they're not in a separate category.
It's not about productivity. A big part of productivity is interoperability, and that's not something platforms want to give you. It's all about getting you to use their software, so they'll bait you with pretty interfaces and faux-productivity promises, in hope you pay for it (with money or data).
True. And Microsoft and Apple are starting to show worrying signs of going to the other side with their own garbage AI "assistants" among other things. Windows 10 supposedly lets you switch it completely off, but it's a very dark pattern. They make it incredibly esoteric and there's no telling if a future strongarm update might just turn it back on and expand its capabilities dramatically without telling you except for some obscure never-read EULA footnote. Give it even more power to gobble up your data for dubious advantages. There's really no way to use Windows 10 satisfactorily without hacking at the registry with a machete.
I do think that individual developers and designers have good human hearts and altruism, but the corporate structure is devised to keep that under control and serve shareholder value above everything.
There was a talk at the latest CCC which likened corporations to very slow, analog AI which responded to stimuli and attempted to increase share value by any means necessary over years and generations. And that this slow, silicon-free AI has already taken over our governments and captured almost all regulation. It was an interesting idea.
I think that's a bit harsh. The documents at that URL were understood to be freely available to the public.
As I physical analogy, I'd think about it more as one of those restaurant straw dispensers. He got tired of pressing the button each time for a new straw, and instead opened the lid and grabbed a bunch out.
> It did, however, damage the privacy of various Canadian citizens.
Did it? I understand that the stupid contractor who put this data on the website did (potentially--but note that nobody is saying that anyone has actually suffered harm because of that data being accessible). But did the teenager who got this bomb dropped on him damage anyone's privacy? As I understand it, he downloaded the data, put it on his hard drive, and left it there; it never went anywhere else.
Can you please send me a copy of your last 3 tax returns? My email address is in my HN profile.
I don't know you have don't particularly care about your financial situation, so I'm not gonna read them or share them with anyone else. I'll just keep them on my hard drive.
> Can you please send me a copy of your last 3 tax returns?
Options:
A) Sure, here you go. Oh wait! I didn't mean to send you those. You tricked me and stole my information. I'm going to send 15 police officers round to arrest you and then you're going to prison for years.
A) is not comparable to the current situation because you are the one initiating the action. I can't stop you from sending me an email so it can't be a crime on my part if you do so.
No, you are initiating the action by requesting the file from me. You did request the file didn't you? Even though you should have known it wasn't public information?
That's not a correct counter argument, the information he got was understood to be public and there was no reason to expect or think there was any private information on there.
If the site had said "This site provides tax returns" then there would be reason to expect the files would contain private information.
The site in question gave no indication there would be private information in those files.
Also, technical nitpick, there are some countries where tax information is public so probably not the best thing to go with.
That may be so, but did he intend to damage their privacy? Probably not.
He can't be faulted for accidentally downloading some private information that was improperly mixed in with a bunch of public information that he was trying to download. He had no indication that the information he was retrieving was not supposed to be public.
Have cameras take pictures of the interior before and after each ride. You then have a verifiable record of what state the car is in, and you don't have a bunch of data-privacy issues around recording activities while someone is inside the car.
It's a great toolkit for building pen-centric computing tools (especially math recognizers and tools), but unfortunately it is heavily tied to the old Windows 7 tablet APIs and so isn't easily generalized.
I've been hoping to port it to work on newer hardware for the past few years, but have not yet found the time. If anyone wants to take on that project it would be incredibly useful (especially since there seems to be a resurgence of pen-centric computing on the near horizon).
I'm not a lawyer but I would guess that there is no reason they need to change it. As long as they're not profiting from the likenesses of the celebrities they're emulating, then the paper is likely to be considered free speech that does not violate their privacy or publicity rights. See the legality of fair-use of someone's likeness. Some states might have different laws.
Small grammar nitpick:
In the last sentence of the "Cheap and risk free" section you use the word "years" twice where "year's" would be the appropriate usage.
At an organizational level I'm inclined to agree with you that the altruism ascribed by the article is far too optimistic, but I would imagine that there are individuals in each company who do think along these lines and try to design along them. (I do, however, find Google "giving users back their time" a bit hilarious as their business model is precisely to get users to spend as much time as possible looking at ads - maybe they free us from mundane tasks so we have more time to browse ads).