From the article: ... ... Sort of like basic web analytics, but for offices :-)
From the article:
A device federal public servants call "the little robot" began appearing in Gatineau office buildings in March.
It travels through the workplace to collect data using about 20 sensors and a 360-degree camera, according to Yahya Saad, co-founder of GlobalDWS, which created the robot.
"Using AI on the robot, the camera takes the picture, analyzes and counts the number of people and then discards the image," he said.
...
After the pilot program in March, VirBrix is set to return in July and October, and the government hasn't ruled out extending its use. It's paying $39,663 to lease the robot for two years.
...
The federal government denies that the robot has anything to do with getting employees into the office three days a week come September.
Jean-Yves Duclos, the minister of public services and procurement, said the government is instead using the technology as it looks to cut its office space footprint in half over the coming years.
"These robots, as we call them, these sensors observe the utilization of office space and will be able to give us information over the next few years to better provide the kind of workplace employees need to do their job," Duclos said in French.
Sort of like basic web analytics, but for offices :-)
Why can’t they just plug the software into their security cameras? And if it’s just counting people, why can’t they just put a badge reader on the door and make people badge in? This seems excessive.
Why can’t they just plug the software into their security cameras? And if it’s just counting people, why can’t they just put a badge reader on the door and make people badge in? This seems excessive.
Agreed, this sort of thing even if done for benign reasons (doubt it) needs to be minimally invasive. No one is going to be comfortable with boss-bot rolling around behind them while they work.
Agreed, this sort of thing even if done for benign reasons (doubt it) needs to be minimally invasive. No one is going to be comfortable with boss-bot rolling around behind them while they work.
Huge % this just gets used for the kinds of dumbass micromanaging that people with nothing better to do turn into careers. You do need your employees to be productive and to work well, but people...
Huge % this just gets used for the kinds of dumbass micromanaging that people with nothing better to do turn into careers.
You do need your employees to be productive and to work well, but people have different work styles and low and behold just about every study in the world shows that mental breaks help. Still we want everyone at their desk solely focused on their task every minute of every day as if that somehow won't just burn them out and provide crap output.
I know the article claims it's to reduce office space footprint, but you don't need a robot to do that (and cramming people in even tighter is also not ideal). The only silver lining on this is that I expected this program to cost at least $200,000 so they aren't wasting a ton of money on it.
It reeks of nepotism or some kind of payout to me. If I were involved, if start looking at who approved this kind of thing. What a waste of tax dollars. Ok, so the bot ostensibly does these...
It reeks of nepotism or some kind of payout to me. If I were involved, if start looking at who approved this kind of thing. What a waste of tax dollars.
It's paying $39,663 to lease the robot for two years.
Ok, so the bot ostensibly does these things:
Counts people
"gathers information on air quality, light levels, noise, humidity, temperature and even measures CO2, methane and radon gas."
It also takes pictures. Even if that's the primary goal, why would they need a robot for that?
It does this to meet the business objectives:
The aim is to create a better work environment for humans — one that isn't too hot, humid or dim. Saad said that means more comfortable and productive employees.
The technology can also help reduce heating, cooling and hydro costs, he said.
I'm 100% sure this could all be handled with static sensors and no cameras. The heating and cooling savings is nonsense in my experience, people have different temperature comfort levels and will either fiddle with the thermostat or bring in personal heaters and fans. I don't know what hydro costs are.
I'm not sure if that's true, since Google has a lot of other sources of information. It looks like sharing is controlled by the account holder - that is, the website gathering analytics has...
I'm not sure if that's true, since Google has a lot of other sources of information.
I don't know how often people turn it on, though, and these settings seem rather vague about what it's used for.
One thing I can say, though, is that years back when I used Google Analytics for my blog, it gave me things like what countries people were coming from (deduced from IP address), which pages were popular, which sites were linking to mine and how much traffic was coming from them.
It didn't give me information connecting visits to particular people. Maybe you could hook that up if your website required logins, but that seems risky.
Just because google didn’t pass it on to the web admins who plugged it in, doesn’t mean google isn’t harvesting that data for their own benefit. Given how much “fingerprinting” has become part of...
It didn't give me information connecting visits to particular people.
Just because google didn’t pass it on to the web admins who plugged it in, doesn’t mean google isn’t harvesting that data for their own benefit.
Given how much “fingerprinting” has become part of modern digital advertising, I’d be genuinely surprised if it wasn’t sucking up as much data as it possibly could
Well, yes. It's probably useful data for reCAPTCHA, among other things. But I'd be surprised if they used it when the analytics admin turned it off. Google has a lot of lawyers. A lot of people...
Well, yes. It's probably useful data for reCAPTCHA, among other things. But I'd be surprised if they used it when the analytics admin turned it off.
Google has a lot of lawyers. A lot of people are gunning for them, including many governments. So I think they do generally abide by legal terms. (Unless someone screws up, and sometimes they have and they got in trouble.)
When the terms are vague, it's for a reason. Which might just be that they don't want to have to be constantly revising them.
From the article:
...
...
Sort of like basic web analytics, but for offices :-)
Why can’t they just plug the software into their security cameras? And if it’s just counting people, why can’t they just put a badge reader on the door and make people badge in? This seems excessive.
Agreed, this sort of thing even if done for benign reasons (doubt it) needs to be minimally invasive. No one is going to be comfortable with boss-bot rolling around behind them while they work.
Huge % this just gets used for the kinds of dumbass micromanaging that people with nothing better to do turn into careers.
You do need your employees to be productive and to work well, but people have different work styles and low and behold just about every study in the world shows that mental breaks help. Still we want everyone at their desk solely focused on their task every minute of every day as if that somehow won't just burn them out and provide crap output.
I know the article claims it's to reduce office space footprint, but you don't need a robot to do that (and cramming people in even tighter is also not ideal). The only silver lining on this is that I expected this program to cost at least $200,000 so they aren't wasting a ton of money on it.
It reeks of nepotism or some kind of payout to me. If I were involved, if start looking at who approved this kind of thing. What a waste of tax dollars.
Ok, so the bot ostensibly does these things:
It also takes pictures. Even if that's the primary goal, why would they need a robot for that?
It does this to meet the business objectives:
I'm 100% sure this could all be handled with static sensors and no cameras. The heating and cooling savings is nonsense in my experience, people have different temperature comfort levels and will either fiddle with the thermostat or bring in personal heaters and fans. I don't know what hydro costs are.
Web analytics are a privacy nightmare. Google Analytics is a primary mechanism for siphoning up user data.
I'm not sure if that's true, since Google has a lot of other sources of information.
It looks like sharing is controlled by the account holder - that is, the website gathering analytics has options.
I don't know how often people turn it on, though, and these settings seem rather vague about what it's used for.
One thing I can say, though, is that years back when I used Google Analytics for my blog, it gave me things like what countries people were coming from (deduced from IP address), which pages were popular, which sites were linking to mine and how much traffic was coming from them.
It didn't give me information connecting visits to particular people. Maybe you could hook that up if your website required logins, but that seems risky.
Just because google didn’t pass it on to the web admins who plugged it in, doesn’t mean google isn’t harvesting that data for their own benefit.
Given how much “fingerprinting” has become part of modern digital advertising, I’d be genuinely surprised if it wasn’t sucking up as much data as it possibly could
Well, yes. It's probably useful data for reCAPTCHA, among other things. But I'd be surprised if they used it when the analytics admin turned it off.
Google has a lot of lawyers. A lot of people are gunning for them, including many governments. So I think they do generally abide by legal terms. (Unless someone screws up, and sometimes they have and they got in trouble.)
When the terms are vague, it's for a reason. Which might just be that they don't want to have to be constantly revising them.
(Also, the GDPR does apply to Google.)