back to article Google wants to KILL apps with the 'Physical Web'

Google thinks apps are clunky, energy-wasting permission-hoarders that should die a fiery death. It wants everything in the world to broadcast a URL linking to information about itself. Mountain View's plan popped up on GitHub and at Physical-web.org, where The Chocolate Factory explains its belief that one ought to be able to …

  1. dan1980

    I like the helpful graphic showing "advertisement data". Yep.

    (Yes, yes, I know what it's saying.)

  2. Steve Knox

    There's an app for that.

    "Walk up and use anything".

    Yeah, there's an app for that. It's called "hands".

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Less energy-wasting how exactly ?

    So you walk up to an object that is broadcasting information about itself 24/7, and that is more efficient ? Somehow less energy-wasting ?

    1. petur

      Re: Less energy-wasting how exactly ?

      I assume this was meant about the mobile device. Currently the system is TX/RX, where the new system would be RX only, thus being much more efficient.

      The other side is already transmitting so not much change there.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Have objects automatically sling ads at us?

    Who in the hell would want this, except a company that makes its living selling our personal information to target ads at us??

    I can see it now, walk by a Coke machine and have it tell me even though I always drink Pepsi and haven't had a Coke in months, how about a free Coke to show me what I'm missing. Walk by a pizza joint and have it tell me I haven't ordered a pizza in two weeks, $5 off if I order a large pepperoni and sausage in the next 30 seconds. Walking by a car dealership and have it tell me my car is out of warranty, they'll give me extra trade-in credit on a new car that's got a great 7/70 warranty if I buy today. And Google, supplying that information about me needed for those ads, makes a few cents each ad.

    What a shitty future Google wants to create for us. Guess their engineers all watched stuff like Blade Runner and Minority Report and thought those futures didn't look as dytopian as they look to normal people.

    1. Mike Bell

      Re: Have objects automatically sling ads at us?

      You've just described an ad man's wet dream there. I don't want to live in a world like that.

    2. DaLo

      Re: Have objects automatically sling ads at us?

      Read the article. This system as it stands would not be able to do any of that. It doesn't know who "you" are. It wouldn't know about your car about when you last ordered a pizza, whether you drink Pepsi. It is a one way communication without login so you would have to actively choose to connect and use the 'app'.

      Beacons already exist and can fire messages at you with knowledge of some details about who you are so this is actually a much more privacy conscious system.

      Yes, yes it may start that way but Google, the xyz do no evil, mega corps might bait and switch etc etc However that would require a new system and protocol so you would know that it is being planned.

      1. VinceH

        Re: Have objects automatically sling ads at us?

        It is a one way communication without login

        It is a one way communication between the beacon and the app on your phone.

        The app on your phone, OTOH, is communicating with a server on the internet (from where it's going to fetch the URL transmitted by the device).

        Meanwhile the thing with the beacon is probably going to be connected as part of the Internet of Pointless Things - it, too, will be communicating with a server.

        There will be (if not in the initial "let's big up the idea and get Joe Public excited" phase, or even in the earliest versions that come out - but somewhere down the line) "anonymised" data going from your phone to the server(s), to help the server(s) to know if there are any offers or personalisations that will be appropriate or make the "experience" more relevant to you.

        "so you would have to actively choose to connect and use the 'app'."

        Well, yes - until it becomes stock Android (and is then licensed - or reinvented by - Apple et al). Then it's only that you tend to leave mobile data switched off* that protects you from this insanity.

        * Well, I do, anyway. I only switch it on if I need to use it, otherwise (and afterwards) it's off.

        1. DaLo

          Re: Have objects automatically sling ads at us?

          But that is only if you choose to interact with that URL or use an App that sends all the details off to a server.

          As it stated it would work more like QR codes, these are advertising themselves to you all around the place but it is only if you choose to use an app to read them to see the information they contain. The app you use to read them could be a passive barcode reader or it could be one which analyses what you look at.

          If you actually visit the URL then they will know that you have, but this would be the same if you typed in a URL on the front of the vending machine.

          1. VinceH

            Re: Have objects automatically sling ads at us?

            "But that is only if you choose to interact with that URL or use an App that sends all the details off to a server."

            Exactly, but the point I was making was that the one app to end all apps* that Google were talking about is an option now but in the long term I can see it being stock Android/OtherOS - by which I mean it comes with the devices, installed and enabled from the get go. Interacting at that point will be simply a matter of passing within range of things transmitting one of these signals.

            As explained in the article? It's all innocent and one way, and there's no tracking, etc - but you have to be truly naive to think that the story ends there and we can therefore live happily ever after.

            Call me a cynic and a grumpy, paranoid old fart if you like... and I'll agree with you wholeheartedly.

            * Insert obligatory LotR [mis]quote here, replacing ring with app.

  5. Grade%
    Stop

    Ubik

    My goddamn fridge will be screaming for a nickel every time I walk in the kitchen.

  6. Fluffy Bunny
    Facepalm

    Happy April 1st. Oh. No, wait, I just checked the calendar.

  7. frank ly
    Facepalm

    Possibilities

    " ... smart devices can broadcast URLs into the area around them. ...Any nearby display such as a phone or tablet can then see these URLs and offer them up to the user."

    The possibilities for mischief (and worse) are endless.

  8. jphb

    So, if I understand this correctly, every gadget in the neighbourhood will be continuously broadcasting URI information on the assumption that people walking or driving past will be continuously looking at a display of all the broadcasting gadgets in the neighbourhood (rather than looking where they're going). What does "continuously" mean in this context? How often do devices broadcast? How much energy does all this consume? How much radio frequency spectrum? What happens when device broadcasts clash with each other - will there be a race to higher power and more frequent broadcasts causing further clashes etc., etc.,

    Sometimes I think advertising should be made a criminal offence.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why would there be clashes it would use current radios, you wouldn't need a new RF chip for this. The same as devices broadcast their Bluetooth availability or an SSID on WiFi

  9. Suricou Raven

    A whole eighteen bytes of URI.

    Guess they really want people using goo.gl? Because at eighteen bytes, you're going to need a short domain name.

  10. RyokuMas
    Big Brother

    Of course Google want to "kill apps"...

    ... the actual developers of the apps have too much control over exactly what happens to the information they gather and use.

    Looking at the current situation, a tinfoil hatter could argue there's evidence that Google are trying to out-Microsoft Microsoft here:

    1) Embrace the web, by grabbing up as much real estate as possible, and offering free versions of various web essentials (search, email etc) to get people to buy in.

    2) Extend the web by providing an increasing number of services and APIs for people to use, cross-pollenating these by leveraging the previously seeded Google-brand web essentials.

    3) Extinguish the web (as we know it) to create an information super-state, governed, regulated and controlled by Google Plc. - every bit of data about us is Google property, privacy no longer exists, and anyone who dares challenge the new world order is quietly erased from the Googleweb.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Of course Google want to "kill apps"...

      This seems to do the opposite. It is much easier for Google to get data when the user has apps than this.

      All this does is allow a device to advertise a URL to carry out a function on the machine. Google doesn't get involved in that process at all (unlike Microsoft TAG for instance) and the URL would just point to the vendor's server.

  11. Frankee Llonnygog

    So, objects would say Bonjour?

    I hope there will be zero config.

  12. Kirstian K
    Black Helicopters

    Security Settings?

    So what about the fact different web'app's would need different permissions to devices on your phone/pad/tab? you give one site access to you phones camera/microphone etc,

    and hey presto ALL web apps have access to those items (as the browser is currently a single security point). now you can browse to any site, and in theory not know if they are listening to you, or watching you etc, or (read facebook messenger T&C) watching your every move for marketing/spying practically, purposes (one app I wont be downloading)..!

    I for one will always download an app for anything I 'trust', and lock down the browsers, and having a locked down browser means no useful app would ever really work this way.

  13. Fred the Dancing Wonder Pig

    Great...

    That'll put a damper on visits to the sex shop now; really don't need google to know I like the blow up pink donkeys...

    But really, what's different than BLE beacons here except for google forcing everyone else to expose their bits for them to assimilate?

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Google doesn't know you like the blow up pink donkeys?

      If it didn't it does now.

  14. Robert Helpmann??
    Childcatcher

    Unicorn Crap

    ... is still crap. Just look at the quote:

    It claimed security could be afforded through the use of URL obfuscation or log in requirements, tokens that rotated addresses, or IP address restrictions. Spam too could be fought initially through traditional search engine mechanisms.

    Given Google's current approach to security and privacy, this looks a lot like dressing crap up in a fairy tale and trying to sell us all on it. Their only concern with security is how it affects them. Likewise with spam (they hate the competition). In what world should everybody be able to use anything? Isn't that kind of openness and accessibility the opposite of having security?

  15. Adze

    Banksy

    I wonder how you could apply the principle in his open letter on advertising (have a look here if you've not seen it: http://static2.thedrum.com/uploads/drum_basic_article/110260/main_images/bansky-bottle_0.jpg) to something delivered electronically?

    I'm sure a brighter spark than I will figure it out and there will be much hillarity when the 'smart' machine in the gents, instead of asking if you'd like "Anything for the weekend sir?", informs you "Don't buy this chewing gum, it tastes of condoms!"

  16. Yugguy

    This is just blanket advertising

    This is the equivalent of J.Jonah.Jameson's flying, blaring billboards shouting abuse at Spiderman.

    I would do the same as I do to all the ads I have to skip on Youtube, add the company to my list of companies I would NEVER buy from.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    This could get fun...

    ...The Kinky Escort Agency,

    Hi, your husband visited last week and he was asking about 3 in a bed sessions. 10% off 3 in a bed sessions, 20% if you arrange the booking.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ...rushes off to buy sáfeurls.com and an address in Russia...

  19. Sure-Man

    Dishing, the evolution of phishing.

    You heard the term "Dishing" here first! Who needs 'random' phishing anymore when the internet of things can start "dishing" out random, short URLS to your devices? Users and their dumb device will be desensitized to what a suspicious URL looks like and just start accepting everything. Next, thing you know breadcrumbs are being dropped everywhere serving up mischievous URLS that our device will just accept. PWNage will ensue. But hey, an ad pushers gotta eat too, right?

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