Not enough personality: Google Now becomes Google Not Anymore

Google is rebranding its screen-scraping data guzzler Now On Tap, as it buries the entire Now initiative under the onslaught of its multiplatform chatty “Assistant” project.

Only two years ago, Now On Tap was heralded as “Android’s next killer feature” (CNet) and even “the future of Android” (ComputerWorld).

But Now On Tap tiptoed across a privacy line previously thought to be sacrosanct.

For decades in personal computing, what went on between you and your app was a private matter strictly between you and your local file system. But this displeased the All-Seeing Eye of Sauron Google. Men (and Elves) had forgotten that it was their purpose to provide an endless stream of personal data to the Dark Lord Google, in return for fresh and relevant weather and traffic information.

Private applications were one area the All-Seeing Eye couldn’t actually see. So with Android Marshmallow 6.0. Google expanded its Now service to suck in the contents of whatever app you were running, if you held down the (real or virtual) home key.

App developers found blocking the suckage was possible... it just wasn’t very easy. Now On Tap never really caught on: it required two steps to activate. Android Police reports that all references to Google Now are being erased in the latest beta of Google’s Search application.

The Now cards are being superseded by Google’s Assistant, a two way replacement for the old card-based nagware, which was unveiled at Google’s I/O conference in May. The other difference with Assistant? It wants to be your imaginary friend.

"One of the things that we’re working on is how to make [Google Assistant] relatable. How does the character think of itself in a way that you can relate to? What is its childhood?”, one Googler whose job is “crafting” the robot’s “personality” told a conference in May.

You’re supposed to care more (and thus send more personal data to Google) if you can be tricked into imbuing the creepy robot data guzzler with human traits.

Google's new Allo messaging service is really just another data funnel for Google Assistant, which is always recording in the background. Google admitted this week that when it promised back in May that it would automatically delete "transient" Allo chat logs, what it meant to say was that it would store Allo Chat logs permanently. ®