Thursday, May 23, 2019

Huawei, Google and the Faraway Tree

It must have come as a shock to Huawei. It's discovered that it's only a hardware-maker after all. The real power is with Google. So it will now have to develop its own total ecosystem like Apple.

But it's hard to replicate what Google has - just think of the intellectual capital represented by Google Maps, for one. Remind me again just how good the Chinese are at software for westerners.

Huawei can't win this one. Not outside of China.

We now live in a multiple planetary system. Planet Anglosphere, planet China and then the rest.

On a personal basis I distrust the woke, dissimulating Google. It's a vast gatekeeper, sitting between the producers and their customers, siphoning off middleman-rents like some vampire squid. It's interests are far from benign: ask yourself what the ideal Google-world would look like and repeat after me: 'total surveillance'.

Benign, of course, Daenerys.

I'm tiptoeing away. I already left Google Search in favour of DuckDuckGo; Chrome has been abandoned in favour of Firefox. I am tempted to migrate from Gmail to Protonmail but I hardly use email these days. But Photos, Maps, Translate, Keep, Docs and Blogger?

There are Microsoft alternatives but frying pan and fire come to mind.

Oh dear!

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Trivia note: in "The Magic Faraway Tree" (Book 2 of the trilogy), Enid Blyton introduces 'Google Buns'. Here's a recipe. And here's a link to my current (.mp3) reading of this book: 'Are you sitting comfortably, children?'.

I already read Book 1.

2 comments:

  1. (I have also recently changed to DuckDuckGo, and Chrome doesn't let me write on this blog.)

    However it turns out that Huawei is also reliant on the West ie ARM for Hardware too.

    There is a lot one could Blog about this ongoing China growth. For example it was discussed on radio recently whether we would or could get an "Internet Iron Curtain" reminiscent of the old "Iron" one.

    China for AI! China for 5G! . . . so might go the technology slogan.

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  2. China and the current AI paradigm: a marriage made in heaven.

    ReplyDelete

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