Unity's Dash now includes Amazon searches

[SteveRiley]

Mark Shuttleworth explains
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1182

It makes perfect sense to integrate Amazon search results in the Dash, because the Home Lens of the Dash should let you find *anything* anywhere. Over time, we’ll make the Dash smarter and smarter, so you can just ask for whatever you want, and it will Just Work.

The Home Lens of the Dash is a “give me X” experience. You hit the Super key, and say what you want, and we do our best to figure out what you mean, and give you that. Of course, you can narrow the scope of that search if you want. For example, you can hit Super-A and just search applications. But if you throw your query out to the Dash, we need to be a smart as possible about where we go looking for answers for you.

In 12.10 we’ll take the first step of looking both online and locally for possible results. The Home lens will show you local things like apps and music, as it always has, as well as results from Amazon. Note – these are not ads, they are results to your search. We don’t promote any product or service speculatively, these are not banners or spyware. These are results from underlying scopes, surfaced to the Home lens, because you didn’t narrow the scope to a specific, well scope.

Someone files a bug against the terminal, asking for CLI equivalency
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...l/+bug/1055766

Dear "root owning" overlords,

When using grep recursively I only get local results. I declare this a bug for two reasons:

1. The output is boring.
2. The terminal has more than 2 lines!!! It's an unefficient use of my screenspace.

I believe the reason for this is that the grep command only searches locally for things I am actually looking for, I kind of expect the results I get from my codebase and as such it removes any sense of mystery or something new and exciting to spice up my dull geek existence. That's boring, grep -R should also search amazon, so I get more exciting results.

This is less dull and also maximises the use of my terminal and hence increases my productivity.

Please can you change the grep warez to have this feature, and just install it on my machine while I'm down the pub, after all you do "erm, have root", so it should be easy for you to do :-)

[whatthefunk]

That is ridiculous. If you were trying to search for an app on your computer and your computer was searching the whole of the internet, the chances of it being right are very slim. Example: using Kubuntu's search thing, I can get LibreOffice products by only typing only "lib" into the search field. When searching with "lib" on Amazon I get 104,271 results, none of them being LibreOffice. In order to eliminate all Amazon results I have to type "libreo" thus requiring more typing on my part. Give me a menu any day of the week.

[NickStone]

You've never used Unity have you?

Unity uses "Lenses" You have several Lenses for different types of searches. An audio lens will search only audio files on both on your computer and online and splits the results in to what it finds on your computer and what it finds online. Its actually quite a good system.

You can find something very similar for KDE in Mandriva 2011 and ROSA 2012.

[whatthefunk]

You've never used Unity have you?

Unity uses "Lenses" You have several Lenses for different types of searches. An audio lens will search only audio files on both on your computer and online and splits the results in to what it finds on your computer and what it finds online. Its actually quite a good system.

You can find something very similar for KDE in Mandriva 2011 and ROSA 2012.

I have, but the dash thing drives me nuts so never really bothered to learn more about it. So is Amazon on a different lens? The article made it sound like Amazon searches will be included on the home search lens...

[NickStone]

I have, but the dash thing drives me nuts so never really bothered to learn more about it.

So what about the Dash "drove you nuts"? I actually like the idea of typing in file name or part there of to search for an app or document. To me, it is just as easy to type in a name of an app (or the first few letters) then select one of the options it comes up with. Of course I also still like the menu system of locating apps to run.

[sealbhach]

At first I thought this was a typical Linux community over-reaction but I've seen people point out that you would be sending local hard drive searches to Canonical. I just dont like that idea at all. I want my offline activity to be private and partitioned from my online activity. e.g. see here a comment by someone who has tried it out: http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comme...g_lens/c6d3l43

[whatthefunk]

So what about the Dash "drove you nuts"? I actually like the idea of typing in file name or part there of to search for an app or document. To me, it is just as easy to type in a name of an app (or the first few letters) then select one of the options it comes up with. Of course I also still like the menu system of locating apps to run.

I think its faster to click through a menu. Rather than type a few letters and look for the name of whatever Im looking for, its much easier and faster to make a few clicks in the menu. Also, sometimes I cant remember the name of what Im looking for and typing a description takes a lot more effort than making a couple clicks. I dont think anything could be faster for me to use than my current KDE setup with panel quick launchers to programs I use a lot, launchers to programs I use sometimes in the favorites section of the application menu, and everything else organized by program type in the menu.

[james147]

Krunner can also search the web, just type in "gg: search term" and it will search goggle for search term or "amazon: search term" for amazon ... and it can use any of the konqueror web short cuts.

[SteveRiley]

Canonical reacts
http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/09/27/...search-update/

A quick update on the online dash search feature.

The shopping lens feature is currently in the 12.10 development branch and undergoing extensive testing; thanks to Nick Skaggs for rallying folks around this additional testing to assure quality.

You will be able to disable the feature if you wish. There is work going on to have a toggle switch in the settings to disable it. Note that this will affect all online searches (e.g. Gwibber).

This is worrying. The shopping lens (note the name) actually controls all online search activity?

[NickStone]

Canonical reacts
http://www.jonobacon.org/2012/09/27/...search-update/



This is worrying. The shopping lens (note the name) actually controls all online search activity?

In what way is it worrying? The way I see it, you type in a keyword in to the dash it brings up results it finds on your computer as well as searching the web and displays results from that as well. To me it is no different to using your favourite search engine to locate information.

The only concern for me would be if it sent personal details stored on your computer over the web, but I've read no information that it will do that.

[SteveRiley]

In what way is it worrying? The way I see it, you type in a keyword in to the dash it brings up results it finds on your computer as well as searching the web and displays results from that as well. To me it is no different to using your favourite search engine to locate information.

It's worrying because it reflects a bit of sloppy thinking, twice now.

The first aspect of sloppy thinking is the assumption that sending all searches to the Internet is a good idea. It isn't. Yes, I've read a number of statements about how a person can opt in to foo, or opt out of bar, but that's largely handwaving. I have trouble envisioning a realistic scenario in which I would search for the title of, say, a movie that I know is somewhere on my hard drive and have the search result include not only the file in question but also links to purchase the same or similar movies online.

The second aspect of sloppy thinking is bundling all online search under the moniker shopping lens. Shopping is a distinct activity from searching Twitter, but now these two aspects have been conjoined. Gwibber <> Amazon, so why should the search tool not make the same distinction?

[NickStone]

It's worrying because it reflects a bit of sloppy thinking, twice now.

The first aspect of sloppy thinking is the assumption that sending all searches to the Internet is a good idea. It isn't. Yes, I've read a number of statements about how a person can opt in to foo, or opt out of bar, but that's largely handwaving. I have trouble envisioning a realistic scenario in which I would search for the title of, say, a movie that I know is somewhere on my hard drive and have the search result include not only the file in question but also links to purchase the same or similar movies online.

The second aspect of sloppy thinking is bundling all online search under the moniker shopping lens. Shopping is a distinct activity from searching Twitter, but now these two aspects have been conjoined. Gwibber <> Amazon, so why should the search tool not make the same distinction?

Yeah I can understand your second point but I'm still not convinced about your first point. If your looking for a video on your computer and the search comes up with suggestions of a similar video on Amazon or where ever then whats wrong with having that information after all you don't have to click on the links to purchasing anything.

Also I've read on OMG Ubuntu http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/o...n-ubuntu-12-10 that the shopping lens for example will help to generate income for Canonical which surely will be good for everyone using Canonical products (Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu) in the long run.

Canonical says that the feature ‘extends what was already introduced in the Music and Video Lenses’ by offering ’a “more suggestions” results category …to searches performed from the home dash.’

The boon for them is that they get a small % cut from every purchase made through the Dash (or the web-app mentioned yesterday), as Oliver Ries explained on the Ubuntu Development mailing list yesterday:

“…if a user clicks the item and purchases it, it will generate affiliate revenue that we can invest back into the project (in a similar way to how we generate revenue from the Firefox search
bar).

We have found affiliate revenue to be a good method of helping us to continue to invest in maturing and growing Ubuntu.”

[SteveRiley]

Yeah I can understand your second point but I'm still not convinced about your first point. If your looking for a video on your computer and the search comes up with suggestions of a similar video on Amazon or where ever then whats wrong with having that information after all you don't have to click on the links to purchasing anything.

Unless I specifically opt out or choose an alternate lens, the default behavior is to send all searches online. That's a waste of bandwidth, a waste of time, and an invasion of privacy. It's also overloading the functionality of the Dash, too. "Search my computer" and "Shop for stuff" are not the same activities. I'm opposed to bluring what should remain a sharp distinction.

Also I've read on OMG Ubuntu that the shopping lens for example will help to generate income for Canonical which surely will be good for everyone using Canonical products (Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu) in the long run.

The revenue comes only when a purchase is made. I have no problem with a separate lens that helps generate additional income for Canonical. It's the integration that's unwelcome.

[NickStone]

“It makes perfect sense to integrate Amazon search results in the Dash because the Home Lens of the Dash should let you find *anything* anywhere.”

“Over time, we’ll make the Dash smarter and smarter, so you can just ask for whatever you want, and it will Just Work.”

“They are results to your search. We don’t promote any product or service speculatively, these are not banners or spyware. These are results from underlying scopes, surfaced to the Home lens, because you didn’t narrow the scope to a specific, well scope.”

“…they are not paid placement, they are straightforward Amazon search results for your search. So the Dash becomes a super-search of any number of different kinds of data. Right now, it’s not dynamically choosing what to search, it’s just searching local scopes and Amazon, but it will get smarter over time.”

“We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf. Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.”

The full article here...http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/m...adware-feature

[whatthefunk]

“We are not telling Amazon what you are searching for. Your anonymity is preserved because we handle the query on your behalf. Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.”

I dont like that attitude at all.