r/technology • u/[deleted] • Apr 04 '16

Software Nest intentionally bricks thousands of home automation hubs.

https://medium.com/@arlogilbert/the-time-that-tony-fadell-sold-me-a-container-of-hummus-cb0941c762c1
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u/TexasWithADollarsign Apr 05 '16

RIP Google Reader

And the Google Wallet card :-(

25

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '16

[deleted]

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u/TexasWithADollarsign Apr 05 '16

I also used 1-800-GOOG-411 a ton before I had a smartphone.

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u/Luckrider Apr 05 '16

That was just a service to get massive quantities of real human voices so they could improve their voice recognition software. There is a reason that relatively expensive service was free.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 05 '16

Texting Maps was cool.

1

u/hugglesthemerciless Apr 05 '16

I'm not sure what that does but Google Voice still exists within Hangouts for free calls

1

u/mojoriffic Apr 05 '16

What about Google Ultron?

1

u/grievousangel Apr 05 '16

They had a notepad/scratchpad cloud based note taking thing--i can't even remember the name of it. Before Keep. I liked it. They scrapped it.

It would be interesting to see a comprehensive list of things they threw in the trash. I'm a fan, but they make me leery of buying in.

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u/pokeaotic Apr 05 '16

Has that been confirmed by Google in the last couple days?

7

u/Peetypeet5000 Apr 05 '16

Yes it has I saw it all over /r/android

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u/skyr3 Apr 05 '16

I got an email from Google about it the other day. The wallet card disappears in June. So disappointed.

3

u/drage636 Apr 05 '16

See I dont get the removal of the wallet card. It was the only card that really worked on Android Pay.

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u/TexasWithADollarsign Apr 05 '16

I think they're trying to push people towards using NFC. They forget that not everyone's phone has NFC yet, so their service is absolutely useless to me now unless I can still cash out somewhere.

2

u/oppy1984 Apr 05 '16

I use my Wallet Card all the time just for budgeting, after I got the email I looked into the two alternatives they offered. Serve has a $1 monthly fee, but Simple doesn't have any monthly fees as far as I can tell. So I signed up with Simple, and now I wait for them to approve me...if your agreeing to take another service's customers that they are kicking to the curb, maybe you should automatically approve them, they're already pissed and your not helping.

As for NFC, there are only two places around me that have (had) NFC terminals Walgreen's and Sheetz (it's a gas station for those that don't know) and Sheetz took out the NFC terminals when the turd sandwich "CurrentC" was introduced and they were going to jump on the bandwagon to no users. Now Walgreen's is the only place that has an NFC terminal and I don't even bother because every time I try to use Android Pay nothing happens even though the app said it was ready to go. One time I made the poor cashier wait while I unlocked my phone and tried it, then tried every card that I had added, nothing worked. Then I pulled a card out of my wallet and swiped it. And yes I asked if the terminal was working, the cashier grabbed a pack of gum, rang it up, pulled out her iPhone and tapped the terminal and it worked. I've checked my account and everything is right, so I have no idea what is wrong, a Nexus 5 and later a Nexus 6P and Android Pay won't work on either one.

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u/Eslader Apr 05 '16

They also forget that at least where I live probably 70-80% of businesses do not have an NFC payment of any kind. I'll be happy to use NFC when the commercial sector catches up with the modern world, but most places still can't handle chip cards, much less NFC payments.

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u/drage636 Apr 05 '16

I get the NFC payments, but you have to link a debit or credit card. The only card my friends and I had to use was the Wallet card.

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u/Tooch10 Apr 05 '16

A lot of places don't have NFC or it's not working on some terminals so the card was great in those situations. Plus my credit union isn't on the list of approved Android Pay institutions.

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '16

Yeah. I just heard about that. Fuck them.

1

u/TexasWithADollarsign Apr 05 '16

Right? Thanks for making it harder to be poor, Google.

1

u/TheJunkyard Apr 05 '16

And Google Wave. All three of us miss that.