When Google Burps, We Swallow

Yesterday, I was checking out the “new and improved” Google Now feature on my iPhone, and when I pulled up the weather card, I was met with this remarkable temperature:  125 degrees in the light rain in Jersey City at 11:18 in the morning.

What?

Huh!

I quickly checked my other favorite weather site — forecast.io — on my iPad, and learned the actual temperature in Jersey City was a balmy, but humid, 75 degrees with scattered rain.  A 50 degree bogus increase in temperature is a really bad result from a company you pay to trust.

It was a little alarming to see how bluntly and boldly Google Now delivered the absolutely wrong — and dangerous! — temperature.  Sure, mistakes happen, but there was no subsequent notification, or even acknowledgement later, that the 125 degree temperature was a hiccough in the Google world — and that should concern us all.

When Google burps, we all involuntarily swallow.

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