News:  Google to acquire Fitbit, valuing the smartwatch maker at about $2.1B.

How does this acquisition make your life better?   What can possibly go wrong?  "Nothing," based on this reassurance from Fitbit's CEO:

“With Google’s resources and global platform, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone,” Fitbit co-founder and CEO James Park said in a statement.

Fitbit has 28 million active users worldwide and has sold more than 100 million devices. The company said that its privacy and security guidelines won’t change and that it will continue to be transparent about the data it collects and why. Fitbit said that it never sells personal information and that its health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads."

Uh huh, just “trust me.”  All that history of personally identifiable information going into Google's Big Data?  “Can't wait” until we inevitably get fully-government-controlled healthcare (Elizabeth Warren must be salivating over this acquisition).  The federal bureaucrats will love this level of invasive information and will “find a way” to get their hands on this data.  I’m envisioning a variation of “Hal 9000” pestering me, coming out of R&D “synergy” from this acquisition: 

• Casey, exercise more.
• Casey, eat better.
• Casey, you only slept six hours last night. 
• Casey, you're not doing enough aerobics. 
• Casey, drink more water.  
• Casey, I know what you did last night.
• Casey, if you don't comply, we will raise your healthcare premiums; should you not respond affirmatively to our guidance, we may need to cancel your “right to healthcare coverage”.  
• Casey, you seem angry!

This acquisition sounds like the incubation of "Siri from Hell."  I just pray Siri doesn’t marry Alexa.

Somewhere, Orwell and Huxley are patting themselves on the back for their prescience.