It's not really about Google, I think the reason that HN in general is.. annoyed at the actions of the EU is because they're worried these rulings will be far reaching. This one in particular: fetching content from a website and feeding it to an AI to extract information or summarize it requires that the person doing it "compensate" the website operator. Well there goes one of the most useful tools in the AI toolbox being able to search the web for external information. It also codifies that accessing a webpage is a weird kind of transaction which also might put ad blockers in a weird legal grey area.
I don't want my Kagi quick answers, Summarize page, or Ask questions about page buttons to be turned off, I find them extremely useful.
Wait what ? Why can't they add a feature to the watch that is already there on the wrist and especially already bought that will start recording the thought after a hand shake (that triggers the mic) plus magic keyword ?
This thing seems to stand alone though? As in - I don't have to have a watch, nor, it sounds like, do I have to have my phone within pairing range when I record something.
It's unlocked though, so maybe a software toggle will let you turn off the mic and just have it activate your watch's mic. This would presumably extend the battery, which seems to be a focus of discussion.
What I understand as "ultimate workstation" would be a smartphone that once connected by usb-C to a monitor, becomes your computer.
Then, you don't need any other device, hence "ultimate".
Convergence, Samsung Dex, lots have tried but nothing mature yet. Well, Dex is mature but closed-source and Samsung-dependent. On the linux no-android smartphone side of things, hardware is too low-cost and the phone aspects of linux too brittle.
I think it would be nice to have as an option, especially when travelling but I also do think that most people don't really want that and prefer the separate device paradigm.
I don't want to toggle options and stuff when I don't want to be distracted or interrupted with calls or messages, I just leave my smartphone in another room. Sure you could attain the same with some keyboard shortcuts but you are pretty sure to sometimes forget to do it while not bringing your phone with you is inconscious and always work.
Android 16 is adding "Desktop Mode" to do exactly this, I bet in a few Android releases this will be good enough for most "desktop usecases". They'll have a "Linux" app that gives you a VM exactly like WSL2 on Windows or Crostini on ChromeOS.
If we allow ourselves to dream it's not impossible we'll be able to run Windows games on Android in some future :)
Sure, but that's moving the goalpost from the comment I was replying to. And generally people are fine with using proprietary systems. MacOS, iOS, Windows and Android are all popular compared to "Linux desktop". I would appreciate a desktop mode for my phone even if it isn't 100% FOSS.
How do you assess that? I'd imagine it would be more along the lines of is the phone frictionless to use?
This is just an anecdote but I owned every Google Nexus phone they made up to Nexus 5. A series of bugs caused priceless videos to get ruined and I decided to try iPhone after that. I didn't realize just how much I unconsciously hated using the Nexus phone and that contributed to me not actually adopting smartphone software until I got the iPhone. When the phone and the OS were a burden it led to the phone being avoided. I dont know which was better. I appreciate the battery life, camera and general stability but I hate the new addictions to social media it has caused.
I'm making this distinction post-hoc, so I already know how it turned out: they ultimately decided to stop making those smaller devices. I assume that means it wasn't enough sales to be a financially viable product, and to me, selling "enough" would mean that Apple found it profitable to maintain the supply chains and assembly lines for those smaller devices and continued to invest in the product.
Arguing against myself, Apple could be discontinuing the smaller models because they did market research and found that most buyers of smaller, cheaper devices could be converted to buyers of larger, more expensive devices if those smaller devices didn't exist. Auto manufacturers are doing just that, discontinuing or enlarging smaller light trucks in favor of larger models that are subject to less regulation and therefore can be designed and manufactured more cheaply and might offer even more profit.
If Apple has or had that strategy, then my assumptions are flawed because no matter how many mini iPhones they sell, they would still want to get rid of the line as long as most of those customers could be converted to full-size iPhone customers.
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