Boot up: Google 'Nearby'?, big data myths, Tim Cook's mistake

Caution: computer at work. Photograph: D. Hurst/Alamy

A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Privacy as a competitive vector >> AVC

Fred Wilson (whose venture capital company has invested in DuckDuckGo):

assuming that Google's search volume keeps growing at 15% per year, DuckDuckGo would be doing 1.7% of Google's daily search volume in three years.

So there is certainly a market out there for people who will accept a slightly weaker product in exchange for privacy. It's not 25% of the market. It may not even be 5% of the market. But I believe it is well north of 1% of the market.

And if that is the case, are there other big product categories out there other than search where privacy could be used as a competitive vector? How about email? How about messaging? How about maps? How about browsers?

I think we are going to see this play out in the coming years. DuckDuckGo is making it work. Why won't others do the same?

Surprising that Wilson hasn't noticed other companies already emphasising privacy in their products such as email, messaging, maps and browsers.

Exclusive: Google will soon introduce 'Nearby' to let other 'people, places, and things' know when you're around >> Android Police

Users, according to our information, will also be able to choose who (and presumably what) they are visible to. This will limit the ways that Nearby can automatically interact on a user's behalf.

While it's still early in its life cycle, and settings don't appear to be fully built out yet, it's easy to imagine Nearby coming in handy for extremely targeted Wallet offers, reminders, or other location-based interactions, but the important part here is that a user wouldn't need to interact with their phone or tablet to let other devices (be they mobile or otherwise) know they are around, and switching on Nearby once would allow the functionality to work with all of a user's devices.

This would open up the possibility of automated functionality in tons of spaces beyond the commercial world, from home automation to everyday user-to-user interaction, to the interaction between your own devices. This is especially interesting in light of Apple's recent announcement of Continuity, an iOS and OS X feature that allows Apple-made devices to interact with each other in really smart ways automatically, based on proximity.

Basically, the same sorts of functions as iBeacon. Disquieting, however: "When Nearby is turned on for your account, Google can periodically turn on the mic, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and similar features on all your current and future devices." Remotely turn on the microphone? All your current devices? All your future devices?

The right way to copy >> David Smith

What I have found very frustrating is that I haven't been able to define what is acceptable in a manner that comes anywhere close to the importance I think this topic demands. Too often I am left with just an I'll know it when I see it definition.

With that in mind I present a game that I came across this evening. I think it perfectly encapsulates the positive side of the issue in a way that is hopefully instructive to showcase. The game in question is FlappyGolf.

Smartphone market share and usage by country - Apr-May 2014 >> Tech-Thoughts by Sameer Singh

Sameer Singh:

While market share of shipments is certainly a leading indicator for install base (and consequently, usage), it only gives us a part of the story. Contrasting regional market share and usage share (as a proxy for install base) may give us an even better understanding.

As always, I've sourced the figures for shipment market share from Kantar while usage share figures are from Statcounter. Usage share (or browsing share) isn't an ideal proxy for install base as it could be skewed towards higher end devices. However, the trends in usage share could give us a fairly good understanding of the underlying install base.

A tiny technical change in iOS 8 could stop marketers spying on you >> Quartz

At the core of such tracking is the MAC address, a unique identification number tied to each device. Devices looking for a Wi-Fi network send out their MAC address to identify themselves. Wireless routers receive the signals