Google suspends some business with Huawei

RJM62

RJM62

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Geek on the Hill
Article said:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday, in a blow to the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to blacklist around the world.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ei-after-trump-blacklist-source-idUSKCN1SP0NB

In all honesty, if I were in the market for a new phone or tablet, the lack of Google services on Huawei phones might make me more likely to buy one. Huawei is merely suspected of spying, whereas there's no doubt that Google is spying. The data that Google collects on me would be of zero interest to Huawei or the Chinese government. I'd almost rather they have it than Google.

On the other hand, the controversy surrounding Huawei is about its 5G equipment, not their phones; and Huawei could easily quell fears about back doors in their 5G equipment and software by sharing the source code with carriers and allowing them to compile it themselves. So far, they have been unwilling to do that. It could be just to protect their proprietary IP, but I think it's more likely because they themselves stole it.

The Interwebs have become a cesspool.

Rich
 
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The programs left out will render the phone useless. Google "Earth", "Maps", and "Gmail."

Some of Googles best work is in "Voice."
 
kgruber said:
The programs left out will render the phone useless. Google "Earth", "Maps", and "Gmail."

Some of Googles best work is in "Voice."
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I have a gmail account that I use only to talk to Google and purchase apps. No one other than Google and the app developers have it. I figure if Google wants to read mail to which they're already a party, more power to them.

I don't use Google Maps. In fact, I have it disabled. I use various apps based on Open Street Maps these days. I'll write a review of them some day. I've also become an OSM editor, so it works out pretty well.

I also have the TomTom Go Mobile app installed, but I've become disillusioned with the company of late due to a recent problem with the renewal system and a long-standing flaw in the audio output to BT. They're sending audio to the Call channel without the HFP prompt, which not only makes it pointless (it doesn't interrupt the media audio without the prompt), but also makes me wonder how diligent they are about fixing other less-than-wonderful code.

I do have a Google Voice number. It's one of the numbers I give to people who insist on having my number, but from whom I never want to hear. It works great for that purpose.

In case it's not clear, I'm not a huge Google fan. I'm also becoming less of a Microsoft fan with every forced "improvement" to Windows 10. It's getting to the point that I'm seeing iThings in my future.

Rich
 
The thing that I hate about Google Maps, especially in combination with Google Now (or whatever they're calling it this week), is that not only does it spy on you, but it reminds you of it.

I used to have it enabled but didn't use it. Then one day after an update it started prompting me to leave reviews of literally every store I visited, asking me if I was going home and offering to route me there, and otherwise bringing to my attention that Google was watching me. This was with location history turned off, mind you, which tells me that that particular setting is ********.

At about the same time, the Google Assistant started asking me to turn it on about half a dozen times a day. I have no need nor interest in digital assistants, which is why I had it turned off. But I guess the assistant was too dumb to figure that out.

After about a week on the Google Product Forums trying unsuccessfully to get a straight answer about how to turn these "features" off, I said the hell with it and disabled both the Google App and Google Maps. That stopped the intrusions. I'm sure it didn't stop the snooping -- data-mining is Google's core business, after all -- but at least it stopped the reminders that they were snooping on me.

Rich
 
Pilawt said:
Thanks for the tip about OSM. Just looked at it; the display seems clearer and more readable than GM. Are there any particularly useful OSM-based apps you recommend?
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I like Magic Earth (free) and OsmAnd+ (also free, but some features require an inexpensive subscription). Magic Earth has 3D display and live traffic. It "feels" more like a traditional GPS device or app. OsmAnd+ has neither 3D display nor live traffic, but it allows in-app editing of the map.

There are others, as well, some of which are very good.

Rich

EDIT: If you want to do OSM mapping, Vespucci is also quite useful; and if you want to contribute to the project to map the world at street level, Mapillary works well. I usually use it when I have to wait for something anyway, such as this past weekend when I was getting a wheel alignment on the car. I snap pictures of the world while waiting.
 
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The other nice thing about OSM-based nav apps is that all of them I know of allow offline map storage. Unless the app has traffic capability and you choose to use it, there's no data use while driving. Google allows limited offline map storage, but if you get detoured in a dead zone, you may find yourself with a blank screen.

OSM maps themselves update many times every day, but most of the nav apps update once a month. There are things they need to do to the maps to get them to work in the apps.

Rich
 
EppyGA said:
I didn't know China actually had any IP that they hadn't stolen from somebody else.
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I'm sure they do. As has been noted already... there's a whole lot of people in China, and many of them are really smart people. Historically they seem to have had no problem whatsoever lifting ideas and designs from others. Like all smart people, after doing this long enough they start to figure things out for themselves. They then figure out how to improve other people's work, then eventually cook up their own in ways that suck less and less as time goes on.

We often feel really good about the ability of Americans to come up with new ideas and make them work. Well, the Chinese aren't any dumber than we are, and overall they seem to be much less bothered by starting out with work that someone else has already done. They know they've got some catching up to do, and they're going to do it no matter what it takes. They also play the long game, willing to sacrifice very deeply for years if it means they will eventually become the sole source for something... like, say, raw materials and manufacturing. remember when rare-earth minerals used to come from the US?
 
One brand new feature of Google Maps that I like is RADAR trap warnings on the freeway.

What I don't like is voice messages on my primary phone number, you know *86. I takes FOREVER to retrieve them. That is why I like Google Voice, messages are transcribed to a text message and email. It's about efficiency, you know, like an Industrial Engineer........of which I resemble.

But I'm not an IT guy..............pretty much like the Google experience.
 
kgruber said:
One brand new feature of Google Maps that I like is RADAR trap warnings on the freeway.

What I don't like is voice messages on my primary phone number, you know *86. I takes FOREVER to retrieve them. That is why I like Google Voice, messages are transcribed to a text message and email. It's about efficiency, you know, like an Industrial Engineer........of which I resemble.

But I'm not an IT guy..............pretty much like the Google experience.
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Google's services tend to work okay most of the time. I think you'll find that most people who have done business with them, however, have a less-than-wonderful opinion of the company -- even beyond the snooping aspects.

I had a two-week feud with them about a month ago during which about half a dozen Indian guys with names like Bruce, Bobby, and Bernie insisted that a client's gallery was a "link farm" because the thumbnail images were linked to full-sized images -- you know, like every gallery in the world works. It turned out that none of them actually looked at the page. All they could see was the robot's report.

It took two weeks -- TWO WEEKS -- to get someone to actually look at the page in a Web browser to verify that the "link farm" was actually a plain-vanilla photo gallery. In the meantime, they had the client's site flagged as containing "malicious code" because their robot was too dumb to figure out that little images linked to big images were probably an image gallery.

So yeah, I hold Google the company in pretty low regard.

Usually, however, their services do work well. I'll give them that. It's my hatred of the company itself that repels me from using them.

Rich
 
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