The next phase of Google trying to intrude into our lives comes into existence today ....and it's hideous!
"Online technology’s urgent emails, calendar updates and videoconferences may propel business, but the system at times seems to suck energy from our personal lives.
The answer, according to Google, is more technology.
On Wednesday, the company is introducing new features to its popular calendar that will enable people to program in their aspirations for times when they don’t have work or meetings scheduled.
Google’s algorithms will then seek appropriate gaps in a schedule in which stuff like exercise or discussing life with one’s spouse might be appropriate. While this means putting more of ourselves inside the machine, Google argues that its method is more efficient.
“It’s a tool to help us against ourselves, and all the short-term things we agree to do in our calendar,” said Dan Ariely, a university professor, best-selling author and Google employee who worked on the new tool. “Empty time where you think you’ll do something loses precedence to things on the calendar that are concrete and specific.”
The product, called Goals, works like this: Inside the online calendar, people choose from a menu of goals like “exercise,” “me time” or “skill building.” The software then asks for some specifics, like how often a person wants to run, for what duration and typically when in the day.
It then scours the white spaces in a calendar for possible times and maps out a schedule, filling those times with the desired aspiration. Afterward, the goal can be marked completed or not, which helps the algorithm work out a better schedule over time."
"Online technology’s urgent emails, calendar updates and videoconferences may propel business, but the system at times seems to suck energy from our personal lives.
The answer, according to Google, is more technology.
On Wednesday, the company is introducing new features to its popular calendar that will enable people to program in their aspirations for times when they don’t have work or meetings scheduled.
Google’s algorithms will then seek appropriate gaps in a schedule in which stuff like exercise or discussing life with one’s spouse might be appropriate. While this means putting more of ourselves inside the machine, Google argues that its method is more efficient.
“It’s a tool to help us against ourselves, and all the short-term things we agree to do in our calendar,” said Dan Ariely, a university professor, best-selling author and Google employee who worked on the new tool. “Empty time where you think you’ll do something loses precedence to things on the calendar that are concrete and specific.”
The product, called Goals, works like this: Inside the online calendar, people choose from a menu of goals like “exercise,” “me time” or “skill building.” The software then asks for some specifics, like how often a person wants to run, for what duration and typically when in the day.
It then scours the white spaces in a calendar for possible times and maps out a schedule, filling those times with the desired aspiration. Afterward, the goal can be marked completed or not, which helps the algorithm work out a better schedule over time."
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