Smart home addicts relying on Nest for their HVAC can now hook the learning thermostat up to an Insteon automation system, integrating it with their lighting, security, and more. The … Continue reading
Reasonably priced name brand 4KTVs may still be on the horizon, but affordable 4K monitors are quickly coming within our grasp. This 28" Dell 4K Monitor is down to $560 today, and a great deal if you’re dying to get 4K on your desk. [Dell]
This week it’s been made apparent that Google’s regulatory final step in acquiring hardware company Nest has been finalized as of February 7th. In an SEC document made public today, … Continue reading
Google announced the Nest Labs acquisition back in mid-January. The purchase price was set at $3.2 billion in cash, and as we learned, the Nest team would be welcomed into … Continue reading
Lots has been going on at Google recently with Google buying Nest, the company famous for smart thermostats. Google also recently sold off the Motorola Mobility unit at a massive … Continue reading
Google today sold Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion. While many speculated that Google would release phones after it bought Motorola in 2011, it didn’t happen — Motorola remained a partner like other Android OEMs. Recently, Google acquired Nest, and TechCrunch has learned that Google has big plans for the team behind the connected device company.
Google will keep the Nest group intact inside the company. The new division will still work on hardware devices, but not necessarily thermostats or smoke detectors. In fact, Google would like Fadell to work on gadgets that make more sense for the company. Will it be a phone or a tablet? It’s unclear for now.
While Nest first became popular with its thermostats, Google didn’t buy the company for these devices. First and foremost, the company wanted to snatch the great product team.
Nest founder and CEO Tony Fadell used to work for Apple on the iPod and was a founding member of the iPhone development team. Many people working in hardware consider him one of the best executives that understand both hardware and software — he is comfortable working at the intersection of the two.
Moreover, Fadell managed to attract great Apple engineers when he started working on Nest. They wanted to follow Fadell’s plans and were good engineers. And that’s exactly what Google was looking for when it acquired Nest.
When it comes to budget, Google is willing to let the Nest team use as many resources as it needs. In other words, the company is getting serious about consumer hardware, and Motorola was just a false start.
Google will keep Motorola’s patents, and it seems pretty clear now that Google only wanted that from the get-go.
Acquiring Nest and selling Motorola now make more sense when you put these two things side by side. Something was missing with Motorola. With Nest, Google finally has the right team and mindset to create and produce gadgets.
Tony Fadell Says It’s Up To Apple If They Want To Keep Selling Nest Products
Posted in: Today's ChiliIt wasn’t too long ago that Nest, the company behind the smart thermostat developed by former Apple employee, Tony Fadell, was acquired by Google for a whopping $3.2 billion. Safe to say many were surprised by this as given the design of the Nest thermostat and the fact that Fadell used to work for Apple that Nest would have been a logical acquisition for Apple, sort of like to bring Fadell back into the fold, and also to prevent their competitors, namely Google, from getting ahead. Oddly enough this was not the case. In fact it was even reported that Google was the only serious bidder for the company, which makes us wonder where was Apple in all of this.
In any case despite Apple’s silence on the matter, Fadell has come forward and stated that despite the acquisition by Google, he has no plans on pulling the Nest smart thermostat from Apple’s stores. In fact he states that the ball is pretty much in Apple’s court as to whether they want to continue their relationship with Nest, despite now being a Google-owned company. Speaking to Bloomberg, Fadell stated, “We want to make sure that we offer those things to them [Apple customers], and it’s for Apple to figure out whether or not they want to continue.” What do you guys think? Will Apple remain interested in carrying the Nest thermostat in their stores? After all it would almost be like Apple promoting Google’s products (by extension). We guess we will just have to wait and see, and if you stop seeing Nest thermostats in Apple’s stores, we guess we have our answer.
Tony Fadell Says It’s Up To Apple If They Want To Keep Selling Nest Products original content from Ubergizmo.
Nest CEO Tony Fadell Promises That Future Privacy Policy Changes Will Be ‘Opt-In’
Posted in: Today's ChiliNot too long ago word broke that the company behind popular wireless smart thermostats, Nest, had been acquired by Google for $3.2 billion. This is actually one of Google’s most expensive acquisitions, its right up there with YouTube and Motorola. Despite the fact that the Nest team is now part of a much bigger company with significantly more resources, not a lot of people are happy about the acquisition, in fact some have heavily criticized it due to privacy concerns. Addressing those concerns, Nest CEO Tony Fadell has revealed that any future changes to the company’s privacy policy will be opt-in, and that Nest will be “transparent” about the changes made to the privacy policy.
Fadell made these comments at the DLD Conference in Munich. He said that right now no changes are planned, and that all user data will remain in “Nest’s world.” Though he doesn’t rule out the possibility of changes being made to the privacy policy down the line entirely, saying that whatever changes are made, Nest will be transparent about it and that customers will be able to opt-in to them if they want to. Its not hard to understand why Fadell wants these concerns to subside, part of the reason why Nest would have agreed to an acquisition would be the opportunity to expand exponentially, and with Google writing the cheques, its going to be a lot easier than ever before.
Nest CEO Tony Fadell Promises That Future Privacy Policy Changes Will Be ‘Opt-In’ original content from Ubergizmo.
This of you looking to continue using Nest devices in the future now that Google owns the lot will find a comment from the company’s founder to be particularly inspiring … Continue reading
Nest’s Tony Fadell Says Any Changes To Device User Privacy Policy Will Be Opt-In, Transparent
Posted in: Today's ChiliNest CEO Tony Fadell was at DLD in Munich today, giving his first on-stage interview since his company was acquired by Google in a massive $3.2 billion deal last week. Fadell and Nest had already made clear that the acquisition wouldn’t change how Nest treats user data, but he went a step further today, assuring users (via TNW) if there were to be any changes in the privacy policy under Google, they’d be opt-in and made fully transparent to users.
Fadell is clearly seeking to reassure users who think that as part of the Nest deal, Google will be able to harvest data gathered by the thermostats to help power its efforts to compile a more complete profile of its users for the purposes of advertising and monetization. Fadell already spelled out that there would be no change in the current privacy policy for Nest, which mandates that info only be used to improve Nest products and services and not shared with anyone else.
Later, however, Fadell admitted that the policy was subject to change. Google has frequently altered its privacy policy and user agreements to give it greater access to and use of user information. A good recent example is when Google announced it would be using Google+ user profile pictures in ads unless people opted out of that program, hence Fadell’s emphasis on the opt-in nature of any data sharing arrangement between Google and its new subsidiary Nest.
The comments from Fadell today might reassure some users, but they’re also a pretty clear indication that Nest will eventually be changing its user policy, and that part of that change will be some kind of dialog that will ask if Google can user your data, in the same way that you’re prompted to do so when you sign in to Maps and other products. Transparency around the changes means only that they’ll spell out what’s happening, which is actually only what they’d be required to do in order not to cause a massive user furor.
Google and Nest have the potential to do great things together for users and consumers, but don’t expect that to happen without users giving up some more of their precious data to the search giant. All that remains to be seen is how that will happen, and what people get in exchange for that access.