Google Might Be Working On a New Smartwatch, Report Says (androidpolice.com) 36
According to new job listings (first spotted by Android Police), it looks like Google may start building its own wearable devices. "A job listing posted two days ago on the Google Careers site calls for a Vice President of Hardware Engineering for Wearables," reports Android Police. The description reads, "As the VP of Hardware Engineering for Wearables, you'll work collaboratively with the Senior Leadership team for Google Hardware and will be responsible for the design, development, and shipment of all Google's Wearable products. You will lead and enable the effectiveness of a large engineering organization primarily based in Mountain View to develop multiple next-generation wearable products simultaneously." From the report: Google's only current wearable product is the Pixel Buds, which hasn't been a runaway success. It seems extremely unlikely that the company would want a Vice President dedicated to producing earbuds, so it's safe to assume Google has plans for other wearable products, like fitness trackers and/or smartwatches. Another listing is for a "Wearables Design Manager," but the description is more vague. "As the Design Manager of the Wearables design team within the award-winning Google Hardware Design organization, you will be a critical leader and contributor to guide the efforts in defining and evolving what it means to hold 'Google in your hand.'"
Google Smartwatch will go well with the (Score:1)
Google Smartglasses. Or Google Glasses, for short.
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, the way Google post jobs is cryptic to prevent stock price speculation. :
Here are some examples
Posted Opening :: Actual Position (sorry about /.'s crappy column formatting)
C++ developer : python and javascript developer
python developer : QA test engineer, 3rd shift for gmail
senior software engineer : lunch-aid 3rd floor daycare centre
Sanatation Engineer : CFO
so for "Vice President of Hardware Engineering for Wearables" the position
is actually for
Smartwatches that depend... (Score:1)
...on a phone to be useful are a dead end.
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...on a phone to be useful are a dead end.
It's not an either/or proposition, smart watches can use a phone *and* be useful standalone.
My Garmin smartwatch works well with and without a phone -- without a phone, I can get all of the fitness tracking I want, and it can even do map based navigation, but that seems less useful, I've never had a case where I wanted to use my watch for navigation.
When it's paired with my phone, I can configure the notifications that appear on my watch, so if I get an SMS or call while biking home, I can see if it's some
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It's actually the reverse. A smartwatch that depends on a monthly data plan from a carrier to be useful is a dead end. We all have phones in our pockets anyway, it would be pure insanity NOT to use that as your means of connectivity.
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You forgot the datastream flow from the user choices + Alexa AI scrubs + user geo-positioning + hand motions (is that user doing what I think he/she/they are doing??) + proximity to other users (they're a gang!) + whatever can be vacuumed by tethering to other devices.
This is a business plan for Google, not a smartwatch for human consumers. If you have any questions, may I list the long line of Google products which, once they served their useful economic life, were abandoned with little ceremony and much u
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... on being charged more than once a year are dead!
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And yet, in the past year or so I've noticed that almost everyone I work with, in 2 completely unrelated industries, wear one, as does almost everyone I interact with socially.
Sure, it's popular to hate on the people wearing one, until you realize that it's no longer only a couple of early adopters. The fact is, these devices provide useful functionality to people which they value. Despite pretentious idiots who want to pretend they're superior simply because they DON'T have one.
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"And yet, in the past year or so I've noticed that almost everyone I work with, in 2 completely unrelated industries, wear one, as does almost everyone I interact with socially."
That has a name: "confirmation bias" Did you know about it?
Yes, your environment is keen about smartwatches. In other places you can't "live" without a Montblanc pen or a Rolex watch.
Yes, there are a lot of places which exhibit "cliche totems".
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Great (Score:2)
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They'll put just enough resources into it to make it start to look kind of interesting and useful aaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's gone.
Their long track record of abandoning stuff that, at least on its face, seemed interesting and viable makes them seem unreliable in the long term. That cool service they offer- will it be there tomorrow? Sure. Next month? Sure? This time next year? Anybody's guess.
Ads (Score:1)
A mic on your wrist.
PRISM to walk around with.
meatspace (Score:3)
Which non-coincidentally excites the Chinese, who can simply steal all your data from the devices which will ultimately be build there....
No thanks (Score:2)
Another Google Gadget that could be awesome but that somehow always has some stupid flaws and that will be abandoned by Google just about the time you've figured out that you might like it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's gone.
50 First Dates for nerds (Score:2)
Three weeks ago it was widely reported that Google had just bought a big chunk of smartwatch tech from Fossil. It's hardly surprising they now would be hiring more people for that.
But here we have a Slashdot article about an Android Police article celebrating their ability to sniff out the next move of the big G through a job posting, when both Slashdot [slashdot.org] and Android Police [androidpolice.com] wrote about the Fossil acquisition in mid-January.
Great job, super sleuths.
Domination of Digital World (Score:1)