What Google brings to the Nest party, infrastructure that performs and scales

GigaOm’s Om Malik.  Or maybe it should be Om Malik on GigaOm posts on why Tony Fadell decided to team up with Google.

Nest’s CEO Tony Fadell explains why he teamed up with Google: it’s about infrastructure

by Om Malik

17 HOURS AGO

8 Comments

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photo: (c) Pinar Ozger

SUMMARY:

In an interview, Nest’s CEO tells us why a union with Google is a good idea (hint: infrastructure and scale) and how he can now get back to designing killer product experiences.

Here are parts that emphasize the google infrastructure.

In an interview with Gigaom following the announcement of the deal, Fadell told us how he wants to refocus on designing product experiences instead of spending his time on scaling and infrastructure — something that’s long been at the core of massive Google. It’s certainly “not about laptops and phones,” joked Fadell; it’s more about a marriage of hardware, software and services, he explained. And the deal has been under discussion for a long time, he noted, Sergey Brin was the one who originally told Google Ventures to start a discussion with Nest.

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Will Google’s server infrastructure come in handy in a few years? Absolutely. Will their ability to work with algorithms help us? Absolutely. There are a lot of short and long term benefits, but in reality they are going to help us get to new markets at a much faster rate — especially, overseas. I see there are a lot of customers in countries were we are not there yet.

My wish list of what Nest ship after Google acquisition, A Managed Router for the Home

Google acquired Nest and details are in the press release.

Nest, Google and you.

Today is undoubtedly an exciting day for all of us at Nest, but it’s also meaningful for you, our customers. I’m sure you have questions about whattoday’s news means for you, the Nest Thermostat, and Nest Protect. While Tony answered many of the broader questions regarding our new partnership with Google, I thought we’d talk product – my favorite!

When you look at stuff in the home the thermostat and smoke detectors are kind of important, but not as important as internet access in the home.  Without Internet connection the Nest thermostat and smoke detector are kind of dumb.

So how about if Nest ships a Home Router that is managed device that Google’s smart people with Nest can give us a more highly available internet?

This seems so obvious i hope this comes true by the summer.  You’ve got to believe that the Nest team had gone through the use case and numbers to create a Nest Router.

Nest says Safety shouldn’t be annoying.

How about internet connection should not be annoying!!!

A simple thermostat UI.  Green things are working.  Red Internet connection is down.  Google knows your home router has lost connection and is figuring out why?  DNS problems.  Local internet provider issue.  Hard reset required.  “push here to reset”  Or timeout without internet connection, then hard reset yourself. 

Wouldn’t it be great if home routers worked like your smartphones.  Android in Routers.

Water vs. Agile project methodologies

I am about ready to jump on a webinar on Agile and Waterfall methodologies.

Agile Meets Waterfall: How to Manage Multiple Methodologies

January 14, 2014
11:00am — 11:59am PST

SPONSORED BY

FEATURED PANELISTS

Rich Morrow founder / head geek,quicloud LLC

Dave Ohara Founder, GreenM3

Jesse Dowdle Director of Engineering,AtTask

MODERATED BY

Cormac Foster

Agile methodologies have had tremendous success in task-oriented teams and are increasing their penetration into the enterprise. Still, Agile is just a tool, and not all projects, business processes, and corporate cultures are natural fits. But managing multiple methodologies can be an enormous challenge without the right approach.

Since I am talking on the subject I decided to write a bit first as notes to myself.

So, what is Waterfall Methodology?  Here is a post that compares Waterfall and Agile.  I’ll pull out nuggets that gives you the high level concepts.

What is the waterfall methodology?

Much like construction and manufacturing workflows, waterfall methodology is a sequential design process. This means that as each of the eight stages (conception, initiation, analysis, design, construction, testing, implementation, and maintenance) are completed, the developers move on to the next step.

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Advantages of the Waterfall Methodology

1. The waterfall methodology stresses meticulous record keeping. Having such records allows for the ability to improve upon the existing program in the future.

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Disadvantages of the Waterfall Methodology

1. Once a step has been completed, developers can’t go back to a previous stage and make changes.

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What is Agile?

Agile came about as a “solution” to the disadvantages of the waterfall methodology. Instead of a sequential design process, the Agile methodology follows an incremental approach.

Developers start off with a simplistic project design, and then begin to work on small modules. The work on these modules is done in weekly or monthly sprints, and at the end of each sprint, project priorities are evaluated and tests are run. These sprints allow for bugs to be discovered, and customer feedback to be incorporated into the design before the next sprint is run.

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Advantages of the Agile Methodology

1. The Agile methodology allows for changes to be made after the initial planning. Re-writes to the the program, as the client decides to make changes, are expected.

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Disadvantages of Agile Methodology

2. As the initial project doesn’t have a definitive plan, the final product can be grossly different than what was initially intended.

Steven Levy Benefits from Snowden Crisis, gets 2 hrs with NSA executives

Most of us are familiar with Steven Levy and his writing.  Steven is most know for “In the Plex"

From the In the Plex  blog:

The Googleplex Goes Hollywood with “The Internship”

During the months I spent researching In the Plex, I often encountered the term “Googliness.” It was kind of a puzzle from Lewis Carrol. You can’t understand the company unless you grasp the meaning of this term, but of course the term means nothing unless you have a sense of Google’s essence. "Googley" is also as much an aspirational value as a descriptor. When Googlers use the term, they are referring to their optimism, constructive ambition, brains, technical prowess, and 

I have had the chance to sit in media briefings with Steven and met others who worked along Steven.  It is kind of funny to thing that I have researched the writer. :-)  It important to know a writer if you want to interpret what they write.  

Steven just posted on his 2 hour interview the NSA.

I Spent Two Hours Talking With the NSA’s Bigwigs. Here’s What Has Them Mad

• BY STEVEN LEVY
• 01.13.14

What I liked best in Steven’s closing comment on how he thanks Snowden.

Dark times as these may be at Fort Meade, it’s good for the nation that the closed-mouth agency is opening up more to the press. Personally, I owe Snowden some thanks. He finally got to me into the NSA.

What really pissed off the NSA is Snowden triggering the PR crisis.

They really hate Snowden. The NSA is clearly, madly, deeply furious at the man whose actions triggered the biggest crisis in its history. Even while contending they welcome the debate that now engages the nation, they say that they hate the way it was triggered.

Who is Open Compute Summit worth it to attend? Check out the sponsors

It can be hard to figure out what the impact is to Open Compute and its Summits.  The fifth summit is coming up on Jan 28-29, and I have gone to all of them.  

People will many time ask is Open Compute worth it?  Who is using it?  

I don’t have a clear answer.  One way I’ve used to judge the worth is what vendors are sponsor the event.  Here is the current list.

For the data center crowd note that Emerson, IO, Rosedin Electric and Schneider