Oscar Wilde once wrote that “on mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends”. The Irishman would have been a fan of Google Now, the web company’s rival to Siri, Apple’s snarky voice-activated virtual personal assistant.
Google Now is less chatty than Siri. It pre-empts your questions by analysing what Google already knows about you. It then selects the snippets of information you need at the moment, presenting them as beautiful index cards. Available on Android phones, Google Now might soon also be coming to our browsers.
It is the archetypal anti-hassle machine. Catching a flight later? Since your reservation is in your Google-run inbox or your Google-run calendar, Google Now would show a reminder, tell you what weather to expect on arrival and map the best route to the airport, checking traffic conditions beforehand.