Google debuts first Android 15 developer preview without a single mention of AI Google has delivered the first developer preview of Android 15. A Friday post by veep of engineering Dave Burke led with the inclusion of the latest version of Privacy Sandbox on Android – an addition billed as delivering both "user privacy" and "effective, personalized advertising experiences for mobile apps." Burke also …
I'm not sure what the problem with that statement is.
"effective, personalized advertising experiences for mobile apps."
The mobile ad experiences are effective for both Google and the advertisers. Google can certainly still track everything you do - and even if the advertisers can't - they're stuck trusting Google that they can do effective targetted advertising, just as they were before. We know Google can't, but the advertisers want to believe it so hard, and are paying so much money - so they do.
Now Privacy has a definite meaning. But I think you're forgetting that the term is:
Privacy Sandbox
I look up the meaning of sandbox in the OED:
Computing: a testing environment in a computer system in which new or untested software or coding can be run securely.
OK securely is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. But I'm willing to buy untested...
Computing: Isolate (a piece of software) so that it can access only certain resources, programs, and files within a computer system.
Those certain resources being all of your private data. Which Google have neatly placed into the privacy sandbox, in order to be able to use.
North American: a shallow box or hollow in the ground partly filled with sand for children to play in; sandpit
Another definition of a sandpit being a hole in the ground full of sand and dog turds in which small children hit each other over the head with plastic toys. Seems apt.
Ah, come on! Surely you want "effective, personalized advertising experiences for mobile apps", as opposed to ineffective, non-personalised advertising experiences?
Any day now they will be offering us an option for no fucking "advertsing experiences". OK, maybe not...
Remind me, now that 3rd party ad cookies will effectively be banned, replaced with a google managed "user interest" category (instead of 5000 random companies stalking you across the whole internet).
What will be interesting, will be if Google are planning to include an opt-out for the ad categories scheme. They historically have
I propose that AI is the opposite technlogy to nuclear fusion.
Fusion is always nearly theoretically ready, but 30 years in the future for actual deployment.
Whereas AI was always something we thought we might have been close to 30 years ago, but then turned out not to be. And with no theoretical underpinnings, given we don't even know how natural intellitgence works.
> we don't even know how natural intellitgence works.
Nor is there a single definition of 'intelligence'... the broader are along the lines of 'the ability to solve a problem.' While we don't know how natural intelligence works, we do know something about the processes that created it... billions of generations of selection.
However, regardless of how it's done or what people call them, there exist today computer technologies that can do things - pharmaceutical discovery, image recognition, winning at Go - that computers just couldn't a few years ago. Tellingly, criminals are finding these technologies useful for creating fake IDs and other nefarious activities - ie. they've actually using the techniques to make money, and not just using the concept to secure VC funding.
I don't care what it's called. I've sideloaded Googles GCam camera app onto my Samsung and it's excellent for creating low light pictures, if slow. If it's shown that Google's custom silicon on their Pixel phone makes the GCam app faster, then good. If Google calls said silicon an AI accelerator or Neural Processor or whatever, I don't care - as long as it is useful. I'm not going to confuse it for HAL 9000.
> Google's custom silicon on their Pixel phone makes the GCam app faster
Well, the Pixel's "Google Tensor" chips are indeed specialized in AI. They are actually rather mediocre in everything except AI, so the more AI Android has, the better the Pixel phones look...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
