Skip to content

You're not alone: This email from Google's Gemini team is concerning

Technology
298 182 1.8k
  • MitID is hard-required to sign into anything government or personal information required. Previously people would be handed a key-card (a white, fold-out card with a bunch of numbers on it. The numbers were one-time use, so the card would eventually run out, requiring a replacement after a few months).

    These key-cards have been completely phased out. Now there is the MitID app or a key-device that is almost impossible to get (you'll basically have to prove that you don't have/can't use a smart phone).

    The MitID app has almost no features at all. It's specifically used for authentication. You log into the gooberment website or bank website, then a encrypted, constantly changing QR code pops up. You open the MitID app on your phone, scan the QR code, and then you gain access.

    This is all run through the private security company the Danish government has hired, called "NETS".

    I'm sorry you have to deal with this shit

  • That used to be true but no longer. For anything but gaming Apple's M series chips are amazing.

    I'm a 30+ year Windows and Linux user and developer that preferred machines I could build myself. A few years ago switched jobs and was given an M1 Pro for work... it's incredible how good, fast and low power the M series are. I've used my laptop 8 hours straight without plugging it in. That's simply not doable with any other machine.

    I still dislike their walled garden, and for high end gaming Apple's a no-go, but for most things it's hard to argue with how good they are. The machines may come at a premium, but they are high quality, work great and for battery use they don't have a rival.

    For anything but high end gaming, my kids 8 year old Chromebook is awesome and can still run for hours without a battery charge. And it cost $250 new 8 years ago.

    Tbf, I'm not in the market for a new device though. I'm happy you enjoy yours.

  • You're right, I'm an abuse enabler because I made an observation about companies being shitty. Very well said.

    Surely overreacting to my correct observation that did not reflect on you directly will make you seem more reasonable.

  • I was never a "Mac" person. But I took the leap to escape windows with the Mac studio ultra. I use video and photo edit tools a lot. Used my existing peripheral devices. Expensive but the most silent and powerful machine I've ever owned. Software is my only complaint at times but I'll live with it. I'll definitely continue down M series for my main device.

    In context of the larger thread, I need to figure out how to get graphene on my current phone. I nerfed the AI crap Samsung was forcing on me. But who knows if I got everything. I'll assume I didn't. Fdroid or graphene... That's my summer project.

    There's not really anything to figure out there days. Pretty sure if just installs through a chrome based browser.

  • I wish it had been. Circles were so much better than FB groups etc

    Ya it was pretty good. It was also pretty great for all the niche community groups. It had great photography, music, open source software, I remember Bernie Sanders was big early on on Google+ well before he ran for president. Google+ was the shit compared to Facebook/Instagram/Twitter. Google just fumbled by giving up on it too soon and not recognizing how good they had it with the photography and hobby interests groups. Their best shot at competing with Instagram and Twitter

  • I've been GrapheneOS on my pixel7pro since march and I have no complaints. Everything works, and I have control over what apps have access too. The only thing I will say is that if you need the camera to take gr3at photos, its not nearly so good with grapheneOS. I pretty much always have a mirroless camera with me anyway so it dosent bother me. I just use the phone camera for quick snap shots

    If you want you can install Pixel Camera (official Google camera) from Aurora Store, and deny it Network permissions and any other permissions you want. It still works pretty well for point and shoot but I can't speak for every single feature. Also you can install simulated services that the Gcam requires to function, without having to run Play Services.

  • Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

    I swear all of this was predicted to happen by open source advocates of the 80s and they'd be called alarmists/whatever and then 30 years later you had Snowden leaks and all the surveillance bills and now Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all advertisement companies mining data through the software and devices they sell

    The best people can do is just keep using and advocating for Linux adoption. Try out degoogled Android or a more traditional Linux phone device. Need more users and funding to get the software kinks worked out. They're not as good as the high end Android and Apple stuff, but it's a process

  • Linux has become good enough to replace desktop operating systems.

    Now, we are back at square one. I’ll be the first to inaccurately declare, “This will be the year of the Linux phone.”

    Android... is a Linux phone..?

  • I've been Android and Windows user for pretty much all of my life. Vehemently anti Apple because of the company and I've thought the products are trash. I've been 100% Linux for over a year and a half, and if this Gemini stuff comes through, I will not have an android phone either. I have a Pixel and my old still functional Pixel. I need to try installing grapheneOS or something else and trial it to see if it will work for me.

    If Linux isn't an option for me in the future for whatever reason, I will be purchasing a Mac. I will never have a Windows machine for the rest of my life if I have any say in the matter, work being the obvious and uncontrollable exception. The fact that I'm even entertaining the idea of owning an iPhone or a Mac is really telling about how far Android and Windows and enshitified.

    Apple isn't gonna have your back on this either you minds well run to foss forever if this is gonna be your Hill to die on

  • I've been Android and Windows user for pretty much all of my life. Vehemently anti Apple because of the company and I've thought the products are trash. I've been 100% Linux for over a year and a half, and if this Gemini stuff comes through, I will not have an android phone either. I have a Pixel and my old still functional Pixel. I need to try installing grapheneOS or something else and trial it to see if it will work for me.

    If Linux isn't an option for me in the future for whatever reason, I will be purchasing a Mac. I will never have a Windows machine for the rest of my life if I have any say in the matter, work being the obvious and uncontrollable exception. The fact that I'm even entertaining the idea of owning an iPhone or a Mac is really telling about how far Android and Windows and enshitified.

    I've been using GrapheneOS for a couple months after having tested it on an older phone for a while. I'm really loving the level of control I have over what I give apps access to. If you have a spare Pixel to test on I definitely recommend it! I've been getting away from all Google stuff and finding free open source and self-hosted alternatives. I'm running in the opposite direction of all the AI and data-farming.

  • Is it really the people or just a subset of people that use Lemmy, the vast majority of people seemingly don’t care as is evidenced by the sheer number of people using things like social media.

    What might be important to use in this echo chamber isn’t reflective of society on the whole.

    I've been trying to tell people for 15 years. It hasn't worked a single bit. It's frustrating that people think they have nothing to hide when their carelessness and lack of tech knowledge is ruining the future of the next generations. I just can't try to explain it to everyone. They don't link the relation at all. I thought maybe eventually, they would just get it, but here we still are...

  • Nextcloud sucks in many ways, but it is functional and works for me.

    It has always worked fine for me. The occasional upgrade process is manual but literally just a command.

  • Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

    This has got to be a prank.

  • Apple isn't gonna have your back on this either you minds well run to foss forever if this is gonna be your Hill to die on

    For sure, as long as that's a viable option for me, I'll do it, but if I don't have that option...

  • I've been GrapheneOS on my pixel7pro since march and I have no complaints. Everything works, and I have control over what apps have access too. The only thing I will say is that if you need the camera to take gr3at photos, its not nearly so good with grapheneOS. I pretty much always have a mirroless camera with me anyway so it dosent bother me. I just use the phone camera for quick snap shots

    Hey, what camera do you use? My phone is showing its age and I was thinking of getting a secondhand pixel, but I've also been looking at cameras to stand in for the phone camera.

    I was thinking I should go for beginner friendly and small.

  • Did you find a Google Drive alternative?
    I'm strongly considering Peergos, but still kinda shopping around.

    I just use Syncthing. No cloud, just keeps any folders I choose on any devices synced with one another. Never had a problem, and while the files yes accessible on the internet technically, they're not stored anywhere except the devices that have access to them. Works like a charm.

  • I swear all of this was predicted to happen by open source advocates of the 80s and they'd be called alarmists/whatever and then 30 years later you had Snowden leaks and all the surveillance bills and now Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all advertisement companies mining data through the software and devices they sell

    The best people can do is just keep using and advocating for Linux adoption. Try out degoogled Android or a more traditional Linux phone device. Need more users and funding to get the software kinks worked out. They're not as good as the high end Android and Apple stuff, but it's a process

    Do you have any good material to degoogle Android??

  • I swear all of this was predicted to happen by open source advocates of the 80s and they'd be called alarmists/whatever and then 30 years later you had Snowden leaks and all the surveillance bills and now Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all advertisement companies mining data through the software and devices they sell

    The best people can do is just keep using and advocating for Linux adoption. Try out degoogled Android or a more traditional Linux phone device. Need more users and funding to get the software kinks worked out. They're not as good as the high end Android and Apple stuff, but it's a process

    I've been struggling with figuring out how to get google off my phone. I don't know if I'm doing a bad job of searching or if I'm just dumb, but are there any good communities in Lemmy you can recommend on the topic?

  • Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

    I don't have Gemini loaded to my phone and I have Google assistant voice command disabled

    But a few days ago I was having a conversation with my son next to me on the couch with my phone sitting on the arm of the couch.

    When I asked him a question, gemini answered with a prompt on the screen I have never seen before and haven't since.

    It still creeps me out

    I looked up what the prompt for gemini is supposed to lol like and this looked nothing like that. It looked more like a popup dialogue box from a browser but the only browser I use is opera and it is set as default

  • Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

    im using OP12R and uses google, but i dont if it has gemini as integrated in it as a pixel does?

  • Former and current Microsofties react to the latest layoffs

    Technology technology
    20
    1
    85 Stimmen
    20 Beiträge
    127 Aufrufe
    eightbitblood@lemmy.worldE
    Incredibly well said. And couldn't agree more! Especially after working as a game dev for Apple Arcade. We spent months proving to them their saving architecture was faulty and would lead to people losing their save file for each Apple Arcade game they play. We were ignored, and then told it was a dev problem. Cut to the launch of Arcade: every single game has several 1 star reviews about players losing their save files. This cannot be fixed by devs as it's an Apple problem, so devs have to figure out novel ways to prevent the issue from happening using their own time and resources. 1.5 years later, Apple finishes restructuring the entire backend of Arcade, fixing the problem. They tell all their devs to reimplement the saving architecture of their games to be compliant with Apples new backend or get booted from Arcade. This costs devs months of time to complete for literally zero return (Apple Arcade deals are upfront - little to no revenue is seen after launch). Apple used their trillions of dollars to ignore a massive backend issue that affected every player and developer on Apple Arcade. They then forced every dev to make an update to their game at their own expense just to keep it listed on Arcade. All while directing user frustration over the issue towards developers instead of taking accountability for launching a faulty product. Literally, these companies are run by sociopaths that have egos bigger than their paychecks. Issues like this are ignored as it's easier to place the blame on someone down the line. People like your manager end up getting promoted to the top of an office heirachy of bullshit, and everything the company makes just gets worse until whatever corpse is left is sold for parts to whatever bigger dumb company hasn't collapsed yet. It's really painful to watch, and even more painful to work with these idiots.
  • Windows 11 finally overtakes Windows 10 [in marketshare]

    Technology technology
    32
    1
    63 Stimmen
    32 Beiträge
    190 Aufrufe
    H
    Yeah, and its most likely only due to them killing Windows 10 in the fall, which means a lot of companies have been working hard this year to replace a ton of computers before October. Anyone who has been down this road with 7 to 10 knows it will just cost more money if you need to continue support after that. They sell you a new license thats good for a year that will allow updates to continue. It doubles in cost every year after.
  • 9 Stimmen
    6 Beiträge
    36 Aufrufe
    F
    You said it yourself: extra places that need human attention ... those need ... humans, right? It's easy to say "let AI find the mistakes". But that tells us nothing at all. There's no substance. It's just a sales pitch for snake oil. In reality, there are various ways one can leverage technology to identify various errors, but that only happens through the focused actions of people who actually understand the details of what's happening. And think about it here. We already have computer systems that monitor patients' real-time data when they're hospitalized. We already have systems that check for allergies in prescribed medication. We already have systems for all kinds of safety mechanisms. We're already using safety tech in hospitals, so what can be inferred from a vague headline about AI doing something that's ... checks notes ... already being done? ... Yeah, the safe money is that it's just a scam.
  • Trump Mobile launches $47 service and a gold phone

    Technology technology
    129
    1
    357 Stimmen
    129 Beiträge
    580 Aufrufe
    S
    Why mention it? Because the media has a DUTY to call out a corrupt government! Because they're not doing their job!
  • Texting myself the weather every day

    Technology technology
    4
    15 Stimmen
    4 Beiträge
    27 Aufrufe
    G
    Even being too lazy to open the weather app, there are so many better and free ways of receiving a message on your phone. This is profoundly stupid.
  • How will the space race affect our environment? (Video 25mins)

    Technology technology
    1
    1
    16 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    10 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet
  • An earnest question about the AI/LLM hate

    Technology technology
    57
    73 Stimmen
    57 Beiträge
    252 Aufrufe
    ineedmana@lemmy.worldI
    It might be interesting to cross-post this question to !fuck_ai@lemmy.world but brace for impact
  • The largest cryptocurrency money-laundering ring

    Technology technology
    26
    326 Stimmen
    26 Beiträge
    137 Aufrufe
    ulrich@feddit.orgU
    It has their name and where it came from so. Yes? That's not what I asked. Are you expecting people to direct link everything even when it is already atributed? I mean is that really too much to expect of people? To simply copy the link where they found the information and post it along with where they shared it?