Nest is a company that if you haven’t already heard, designs smart thermostats and now smoke and carbon monoxide detectors for your house. The idea was that the thermostat would be able to learn from your habits and use those habits to save you money on your energy bill. Both the thermostat and the new smoke/carbon monoxide detector can be remotely monitored when connected to your home wi-fi. The feature of being able to monitor and control the temperature in your house or know if a fire has started with an alert anywhere with your smartphone is pretty amazing. See our other blogs including Google Now that you know a little more about Nest, what do you know about Google? Google started as a simple search engine with great results and has slowly built itself into a goliath tech company. Recent developments in the company look like something out of science fiction, which really is the best kind of technology. Google Glass is a great example http://www.google.com/glass/start/ of what kinds of bleeding edge tech Google is currently working on. They want you to have a simple yet amazing experience with minimal effort. The information of the world at your immediate disposal. Now imagine these two companies working together. This is only the beginning of an unbelievable journey into the future   When I was a young kid growing up in Arkansas I was super interested in technology and I always thought the day would come where you could walk in your door, say “Hello, House” or something like that and the wheels would start clicking. Lights would come on at your verbal command be it whispered or not. Heating and Air controlled to fit your comfort level and designed to give you absolute control no matter where you are is just the beginning for Google. Imagine your entire house being at your command, or getting real-time data on how much water your using, or what your energy efficiency is for a single day. It really is something to think of all the possibilities that could soon be a reality for society.   While the reaction to this kind of technology seems to be highly anticipatory, there are a couple of facets that could be a deal breaker for quite a few of us, at least for now. Technology that is capable of doing all the magical stuff we want it to do comes with two costs, one is the whopping retail price you'll pay and the other is the cost in privacy. Google glass comes in at around $1500 if you can get a spot in the explorer program to try it out. The Nest thermostat is the most expensive you’ll probably ever buy at $249.99, and the carbon monoxide/smoke detector is $129.99. If those prices are scary to you think about the privacy issues that arise with systems like these. If Google were to develop products controlled by your voice or over the internet in any way, there will be a data trail. A possibility that someone else out there could see what you see. Google has some of the best security in the world but it doesn’t help that they along with many other internet giants are forced to share their data with other not so reliable entities.