Voice Is the Next Big Platform, But Amazon Already Owns It (backchannel.com) 229
Six million homes already have an Amazon device with it Alexa voice assistant -- about 5% of all households. But Backchannel argues that Amazon is already dominating the race to become the operating system for future voice-activated devices, with Forrester tech analyst James McQuivey pointing out that "having microphones in your environment is a lot more convenient than pulling out your phone."
The Alexa-enabled Echo is a true unicorn, one of those rare products that arrives every few years and fundamentally changes the way we live... After years of false starts, voice interface will finally creep into the mainstream as more people purchase voice-enabled speakers and other gadgets, and as the tech that powers voice starts to improve.
Despite competition from Google Home, and a rumored "Home Hub" from Microsoft, Amazon "has a two-year jump on its competition, having first introduced the Echo speaker in November 2014," notes the article, adding that Amazon also "opened its platform early to third-party developers." (Alexa now has more than 5,000 "skills".) They argue that Amazon is already winning the war of the operating systems by familiarizing consumers with "a new computing interface -- a voice devoid of a screen -- that will eventually grow to be more ubiquitous and more useful than our smartphones... Soon, you'll speak your wants into the air -- anywhere -- and a woman's warm voice with a mid-Atlantic accent will talk back to you, ready to fulfill your commands."
Despite competition from Google Home, and a rumored "Home Hub" from Microsoft, Amazon "has a two-year jump on its competition, having first introduced the Echo speaker in November 2014," notes the article, adding that Amazon also "opened its platform early to third-party developers." (Alexa now has more than 5,000 "skills".) They argue that Amazon is already winning the war of the operating systems by familiarizing consumers with "a new computing interface -- a voice devoid of a screen -- that will eventually grow to be more ubiquitous and more useful than our smartphones... Soon, you'll speak your wants into the air -- anywhere -- and a woman's warm voice with a mid-Atlantic accent will talk back to you, ready to fulfill your commands."
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
While in general I like the idea of a woman fulfilling my every command, I'm not sure it's worth it if she's constantly keeping tabs on me.
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No the problem is when she talks and won't shut up when it's your turn to listen
Re: Hmm... (Score:2)
Welcome to married life honey...
Re: Hmm... (Score:2)
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Voice? (Score:2)
Oh yeah, just what I need. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some remote server listening in on everything I say, filtering every word, analyzing each sentence, etc.
Say one wrong thing, and the appropriate authorities are automatically informed and dispatched automatically. Tax evasion? IRS shows up at your door. Diesel fuel and fertilizer? FBI. Feel like killing your manager who's been driving you nuts all week? Local police.
Sign me up.
I don't understand why none of this stuff operates locally. It's always some remote server in the cloud. I remember having IBM ViaVoice (back then I think it was called "Voice Type Dictation" or "SimplySpeaking") on my goddam Pentium 75mhz computer. After about an hour of training, it would nail mostly everything I said. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that we don't have the hardware resources necessary to perform local speech-to-text and text processing inside your house without ever touching the internet.
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Re:Oh yeah, just what I need. (Score:5, Informative)
It is always listening (if you do not turn the mic off), it does notify you when it accesses the cloud service and... it does process locally for its activation word. Its supposedly not always streaming your voice to the cloud (since you'd wind up noticing that on your internet usage anyways). Processing voice isn't the problem, its the decision engine behind there that figures out what you wanted from the words input and then serves it up to you. On your device, this would be painfully slow, since it does require an AI of its own. So... stream voice to cloud, use eleventy-bajillion processors to do it all and the device is dumb and therefor cheap on the customer end. All the Echo, Dot, Siri, Cortana really do is record, stream, and playback your data... that's called an MP3 player and should be as cheap as one. That should be your complaint, that these things cost more than 20 bucks when they are the definition of a dumb terminal.
From https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?pop-up=1&nodeId=201602230#Question10
"Amazon Echo and Echo Dot FAQs
Amazon Echo and Echo Dot are far-field Alexa-enabled devices.
1. How do Amazon Echo and Echo Dot recognize the wake word?
Amazon Echo and Echo Dot use on-device keyword spotting to detect the wake word. When these devices detect the wake word, they stream audio to the Cloud, including a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word.
2. How do I know when Amazon Echo or Echo Dot are streaming my voice to the Cloud?
When Amazon Echo or Echo Dot detect the wake word, when you press the action button on top of the devices, or when you press and hold your remote's microphone button, the light ring around the top of your Amazon Echo turns blue, to indicate that Amazon Echo is streaming audio to the Cloud. When you use the wake word, the audio stream includes a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word, and closes once your question or request has been processed. Within Sounds settings in the Alexa App (Settings > [Your Device Name] > Sounds), you can enable a 'wake up sound,' a short audible tone that plays after the wake word is recognized to indicate that the device is streaming audio. You can also enable an 'end of request sound' that will play a short audible tone at the end of your request, to indicate that the connection has closed and the device is no longer streaming audio.
3. Can I turn off the microphone on Amazon Echo and Echo Dot?
Yes, you can turn Amazon Echo or Echo Dot's microphone off by pushing the microphone on/off button on the top of your device. When the microphone on/off button turns red, the microphone is off. The device will not respond to the wake word, nor respond to the action button, until you reactivate the microphone by pushing the microphone on/off button again. Even when the device’s microphone is off, Amazon Echo or Echo Dot will still respond to requests you make through your remote."
All that aside, yes they could change this with a firmware update and you'd never know. And that would be why I will not be buying or using one. To find out they did it i'd have to commit a federal felony (thanks DMCA!)
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That should be your complaint, that these things cost more than 20 bucks when they are the definition of a dumb terminal.
You're not just paying for the dumb terminal, you're paying for access to the mainframe for the life of the device. Not a great pricing model, but it's not the only device that depends on the company not just abandoning a device you've already paid for.
Oh yeah, just what you HAVE (Score:3)
I don't know about you, but most people are already carrying a device with these exact capabilities (except it generally has much more powerful hardware):
The smartphone.
o Microphone
o High powered multicore CPU
o Always-on connection to the net
Yep, check, check, and check.
But wait, there's more!
o Video camera
o Redundant location hardware (GPS and tower-triangulation)
o Motion sensors
o Significant on-board storage capacity for offline buffering
o Already k
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It means no such thing. It just (in this particular case) means I can actually do things you can't, presuming you have no Echo. We call such assertions "fact-based statements", or, alternatively, "descriptions of objective reality." They do not change their truth value based on "weighting."
Re: Oh yeah, just what I need. (Score:3)
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Does the size of the outgoing traffic correlate with the amount spoken after the trigger word or does it correlate to the length of time since the last transmission?
I've actually watched this. They are generally around the same size each time, which makes sense since the commands are usually only a single sentence at most.
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My family and I have often joked about, "If someone only has the audio of what's going on ..." when we're getting really sarcastic against each other.
This kind of surveillance would be troublesome, and reminds me a bit of a joke from a decade ago about the FBI, NSA or whoever it was monitoring WoW voice chats and freaking out over lines such as, "We're going to need a few more priests if we're going to raid the citadel." and so on.
Re:Oh yeah, just what I need. (Score:5, Insightful)
"I don't understand why none of this stuff operates locally. "
It's the fault of the couple of dozen missing IBM Watson type computers in your basement.
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Your phone has this hardware. Try saying ok Google and asking her how far something is away?
A little late... (Score:4)
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The worst threat to freedom are happy slaves. Methinks you qualify.
Scaling things up (Score:4, Informative)
I don't understand why none of this stuff operates locally. It's always some remote server in the cloud. I remember having IBM ViaVoice (back then I think it was called "Voice Type Dictation" or "SimplySpeaking") on my goddam Pentium 75mhz computer. After about an hour of training, it would nail mostly everything I said. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that we don't have the hardware resources necessary to perform local speech-to-text and text processing inside your house without ever touching the internet.
The problems are scaling it up and the finer small details.
Regarding speech :
Modern offline text-to-speech technology is able to handle about 95% accuracy. (Being able to feed back based on past context to tell which homophone makes more sense, etc.) /. and especially outside of steno communities), they can mostly speak what they want and only fix here and there (only a single word every 20. Or about a word every 2-3 sentences).
- Which is damn cool already (it's only 1 in 20 words that need to be fixed ! Fucking impressive !!!)
- And is pretty useful to dictate toughs for those people who speak faster than they type (i.e.: most random joe six-pack outside
- But that's completely useless on the scale of things which are required for Siri- / Alexa- / Cortana- / Whatever- type of constant speech flux of commands. The point is to completely do away with keyboard and mouse. Not to have to pull out a keyboard (or pull out your smartphone out of your pocket) to correct every third sentence you speak to your home assistant.
The only practical application would be speaking in robotic rigid sentences. "Military-type radio speak" rigidity
(Strict word ordering: "[name], [order: [verb] [noun] ]". Fixed protocols : AI should ack what it understood and ask for confirmation "[user], you ask me to [verb] the [noun] ?", and user should confirm/correct "Yes do it [=fixed sentence] / No [=fixed sentence], [followed by new order]")
That is the kind of speech protocol that leaves very few ambiguity and risks of error (that's why it's used by military, law enforcement, catastrophe responders, or simply people working outdoor with very noisy radio conditions - ski teacher of a club spread accross mountains in my personnal experience).
That could work nearly flawlessly with modern tech.
But it is very far from the "having a casual discussion with your assistant" experience that most companies are wanting to sell.
To reach that level of fluent conversation, current experience shows (100% fully autonomous real-time text subtitling, 100% fully autonomous real-time translation, etc.) that you needs several orders magnitude more accuracy (think 99.9% accuracy. Only one missed word every thousand. Or in practice an error every day or so). And due to the law of diminishing returns, that means fuck-tons more of processing power. Several data-centers worth of processing in your basement.
(Don't believe me ? Look at youtube auto-generated subtitles. And Google certainly throws more processing power at them than simply a desktop computer).
And all the above is only about *parsing* the speech (i.e.: getting the speech-to-text accurate enough). Then you need to make *sense* out of the speech.
Again, with modern technology, making the system react to a bunch of preset command is trivial (the kind where you write a plug-in to get new commands supported) and could probably be handled on raspberry pi.
But again the things that these companies are trying to sell to random users are much more complex : "Having a natural conversation with your assistant".
That require three things : ...coupled with analysis of reject / mis-interpreted command... (most probably by huma
- tons more of processing (good bye, raspberry pi)
- tons more of reference data (much more than a few commands that the user has custom pre-configured)
- fuck ton of data gathering... (recording every command spoken by every user)
-
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Mouse clicks, soft keyboard presses, and screen touches are required for nefarious reasons around the home, still.
"Alexa, got to Literotica and read me a story about mother-son sex."
"Alexa, play 'Debbie does Dallas' on the TV."
"Alexa, call my mistress so we can have voice sex."
Silence is golden.
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I don't understand
You should get that written on a shirt.
why none of this stuff operates locally. It's always some remote server in the cloud. I remember having IBM ViaVoice (back then I think it was called "Voice Type Dictation" or "SimplySpeaking")
The ability to dictate words and understand them in context is what separates your Pentium 75 from the multimillion dollar IBM Watson. But since you think it can be solved more easily I'm sure the worlds top AI researchers would like to hear from you.
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No remote server is listening to anything you say until the local device hears the key word.
Glad to hear you spent an hour training your 75Mhz Pentium to recognize your voice, but that's why voice recognition never took off. Alexa requires zero training and that's why millions of people use it.
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I find it incredibly difficult to believe that we don't have the hardware resources necessary to perform local speech-to-text and text processing inside your house without ever touching the internet.
We do, feel free to use Pocket Sphinx [sourceforge.net] or Julius [julius.osdn.jp].
Jasper [github.io] will let you use multiple backends including the 2 above plus Google and AT&T.
Some remote server listening in on everything I say, filtering every word, analyzing each sentence, etc.
Why not just assume the NSA is always listening unless you take steps to avoid it? NSA is more than welcome to listen to my son's requests for Kids Bop and how many timers I set in the Kitchen. It's also not that difficult to get out of range of Alexa or go offline.
Planning a terrorist attack? Go to a college bar. Good luck getting any SST to work in there. Or outside, or
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It's everywhere nowadays and more often than not, you can't opt out making me hate many modern services. Yeah, I understand I ca
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They are all the same.
The One and Only (Score:2)
Exactly, and when you get to Valhalla, you'd better have got that right, or no feasting for you, thrall.
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No problem. I'm down with the magic underwear [google.com], floating [urbandictionary.com], and bubbling. [blogspot.com]
Re:Oh yeah, just what I need. (Score:5, Insightful)
And everyone in the room is heard, each noise, appliance, looking for digital filtration, notation, and archiving while the folly of Big Data pours over such stuff, conflates, infers, and makes decisions based upon it, then rats the info to anyone who would pay.
Then there are those that won't pay, just merely barge in with (or without) a warrant or writ of assistance to mangle the data for The State's purpose.
Unicorn my ass. Rat Fink Stool Pigeon.
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a warrant or writ of assistance
You misspelled "lettre de cachet".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Methodologies (Score:2)
It's very important to realize that while this is true right now, it may not remain true. Hardware and algorithms tend to improve. We know with absolute certainty that such a result is possible — because humans can do it. Personally, I am of the opinion that hardware/software will get there, and not too long from now, either, but it is just an IMHO.
Prior to that, however, for
Six million Alexa installs... compared to? (Score:5, Informative)
Six million Alexa installs... compared to?
A billion Apple devices with Siri... http://www.theverge.com/2016/1... [theverge.com]
Uh, who owns it again?
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I came here to say exactly this. Those 5,000 Alexa "skills" are going to be ported over to Siri in 3, 2, 1...
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Sit in your chair in the living room and say Hey Siri and let us know how well your phone in the other room responds ...
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I came here to say exactly this. Those 5,000 Alexa "skills" are going to be ported over to Siri in 3, 2, 1...
eh, not really. At least not for home automation anytime soon. Apple HomeKit is kind of a pain in the ass. Yes, they require extra security which is always nice, but integrating stuff into it is a huge headache. Alexa is about 1000x easier to deal with.
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Different market. If your have to wake your phone up first, it's not voice activation. Time will tell if this new market goes beyond the hobby/enthusiast crowd, but for now the home automation geeks are going nuts for Alexa. Yes, the same crowd that sees no problem with internet-controlled light bulbs.
IMO, some killer app will emerge in the next couple of years to make it mainstream. The potential laziness-enablement of voice activation is just too high for it not to.
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Different market. If your have to wake your phone up first, it's not voice activation.
Not sure how Siri works, but on certain Android devices (ones with low-power speech processing hardware) Google Now can be triggered by saying "OK Google" without having to wake your phone up first.
Re: Six million Alexa installs... compared to? (Score:2)
Re: Six million Alexa installs... compared to? (Score:2)
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Didn't the summary point this out? People don't want to pull their phones out to talk to them ....
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At any household I've been at with any regularity, everyone's phone is already out, and either in its owner's hands or sitting right next to them. It would probably take more effort to have "Alexa" hear you from across the room/house than it would to talk to your phone. Granted my sample size is only about 5, but this doesn't strike me as abnormal behavior these days.
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Siri is just a frontend, like talking to your comcast/directv/dish box, she is just there to ingest your pcm data and then ship it off to nuance or rovi servers. Thats where the real magic happens turning that pcm in text and returning context and intent data as json/xml formats which is then easily parsed by any device. The majority of companies offering any sort of voice type service run through one of these companies
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Siri has a different purpose. It's not about dictation or basic searching. It's not about a phone or a personal device. It's about a generic home assistan, a device in the house, a device that forms a hub to your smart home. Siri at present had a different purpose.
Just like Yahoo and MySpace? (Score:2)
So just as Yahoo once owned the search space and MySpace the sweet spot now occupied by Zuckerberg, Amazon already "owns" the voice operated OS space? Incidentally the 5% figure looks mighty suspicious, is this the global stats or just the "American" figures? Is owning the American market (Apple) the same as owning the global market (Android)?
I'll remain Luddite on this (Score:5, Funny)
I have no desire to talk to my devices and I definitely don't want them listening to me either.
I spent about 5 minutes playing with Okay Google on my phone and it wasn't very good and about 6 months later it finally responded to some music I was listening to and I realized I had never turned it off.
And it really pisses me off when I am going through some voice prompt system and I can't just press a number for my response - it insists on a voice response. No, we don't speak the same language and your voice recognition system sucks.
I also was very resistant to using a mouse and I also keep a pen and note paper in my desk.
I was wrong about mice I guess - they are actually useful.
But I see know use in these Alexa thingies. I could see getting a sarcastic parody device though. "Hey, Alexis, what's the weather like today?"
"Look out the window, you moron! It's December. It's probably cold. Either that or it's very cold. It might even be snowing!"
Just thinking of some of the commercials I've seen....
1) Alexa, turn off the lights. Okay, haven't we had this technology ever since the Clapper was a thing? Clap On! Clap Off!
2) Alexa, order more tape. Okay, right - like I order so much tape that Alexa knows what brand I buy, what kind I need and I'm not even concerned at all about the price because of course I'm going to get it from Amazon.
3) Alexa, what's the weather like in Miami? If I really cared, I could easily look that up on the internet.
This doesn't even pass the "Wow factor" test let alone the "do I need or even want it?" test.
And I'd be willing to bet that within 5 minutes of getting one I'd be going all Samuel Jackson on it. "English, motherfucker. Do you speak it?"
"Say 'what' one more time! I dare you!"
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...and listen to everything in mic range. (Score:5, Insightful)
(read in a woman's warm voice with a mid-Atlantic accent) ...and your computer will listen to everything in mic range. No need for that activity light on the mic/camera; it was operated by proprietary (read: always untrustworthy) software to begin with, and wasn't present on trackers (a more honest name for the devices also known as cell phones, mobile phones). You'll come to expect omnipresent listening, ostensibly waiting for you to give the command to signal that the computer should do something for you so you feel like you're in control. But in reality your computer has been doing something for so many proprietors all along—letting an uncountable number of parties spy on you. Because you brought these devices and services into your home, your car, and your workplace. Revel in the convenience of never really knowing if you're alone.
And don't worry: they're not spying on you for your safety. The spying "feature" works on your tracker, your home computers, and various needlessly Internet-enabled devices like your next refrigerator, a child's toy, a lightbulb socket, and more.
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Hell, it was even in TFS!!!!
having microphones in your environment is a lot more convenient than pulling out your phone.
I'm sure that the NSA wholeheartedly agrees with this.
I see potential problems with this. (Score:2)
Now, I'm a person given to sudden outburst. When I drop something heavy on my foot, or knock over something, I'll normally shout "F*ck me!".
I suspect that would be problematical in a voice activated environment and wound not lead to matrimonial harmony.
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Especially if you also have a highly impressionable robot. The consequences could be quite serious.
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I don't care how many times you've seen Cherry 2000, don't ever ever marry robots, cyborgs, or androids.
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ALL households? (Score:2)
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For USAians, including US based companies, the USA is the world. I'm used to that already, being a non-USAian.
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Yeah, but you probably have healthcare. So there's that.
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Indeed. You're totally correct there.
Also it may be hard to believe and go against popular opinion especially in that part of the world, but trust me, when you actually need it, it's really nice to have. Unfortunately I have direct personal experience with the matter...
Stasi (Score:5, Funny)
I live in Berlin. When I explain voice platforms to people, I roughly say: "in former times, they came into your flat, installed mics and even fixed the wallpaper whenever cabling was necessary. When you were back in, all was done and clean. *All costs where taken up by the state*".
These days you gotta pay for it. And you gotta fix the cabling mess yourself. Now tell me Socialism was worse!
Oh please (Score:4, Interesting)
Google won.
Google knows where I live, work, where airport is if I travel, what flight I am, when restaurants in my area close etc.
All the geeks in my IT department say OK Google when does X close? Or OK Google how far is X when looking at traffic while we drive. Amazon already lost and I see no value in such a device. Our phones know all the information based on habits and can even track traffic
Wait for us, we're the leader... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is still trying to live in its halcyon days when it seemed Microsoft could kill competition's products just by announcing that they had a similar product in beta.
.
If it weren't for Microsoft's stranglehold on corporate computing, Microsoft would have been a footnote by now...
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Has anyone even tried Cortana? It sounded cool and useful according to the hype until I tried it. So far Google Now is not advertised and the only thing as close to Star Treks LCARS where it can actually do useful things like tell me when a restaurant closes or give traffic updates or when my next flight is while I am driving. Google Now **actually useful **
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Amazon has benefit of doubt-which G & M lost (Score:2)
needs a lot of work (Score:3)
Apart from the fact that both Amazon Echo and Google Home are Internet-connected listening devices, they just don't work very well. Recognition is still quite imperfect, there is no notion of a dialog or context with these devices, and extensibility and interoperability is at the whim and business convenience of the companies making these devices.
Speech recognition and AI should function be local, not cloud-based; they shouldn't be tied to one or the other "ecosystem", and they should be locally extensible. And they need to work better than the overpriced, underperforming, bloated gadgets Google and Amazong are shipping. A company that delivers that may "own" voice. Right now, Amazon owns the voice market in the same way Chiapet owns the pet market: its product is related to the real market in name only.
Of course (Score:2)
"having microphones in your environment is a lot more convenient than pulling out your phone."
I'm sure the NSA/CIA/FBI would agree wholeheartedly.
I disagree mostly (Score:3)
Voice won't come to the home until there is a hybrid system between home and industry. One where most of the voice processing is in the home as well as the "A.I." that will decide how to interpret what you said. The home system will understand the "gist" and consult corporate systems depending upon your "privacy" settings.
paranoia ? (Score:2)
We've seen this before. Not Alexa, but the paranoia that new tech brings.
When telephones began to intrude into ordinary homes there was panic. My father was an insurance salesman (think 'Death of a Salesman') and had to install a telephone so customers could reach him. I clearly remember being at the dinner table when the phone would ring. Everyone froze in place, fork halfway to mouth. Dad would nod his head toward Mom, indicating that she should get it. Mom indicated 'No way! That's your customer.' - both
Who needs this? (Score:2)
I never oder anything from Amazon. Or maybe once or twice per decade.
I also don't really listen to music (or anything else) at home. I enjoy the silence, after being inundated by sounds and voices all day around at work.
And I certainly don't want everything I say being transmitted to a server at some place and having it influence the products I get presented on my next visit to that web-page (or other web-pages, via ads and cookies).
People whose lives literally revolve around shopping online or offline shou
The same as video phone and smart watches (Score:2)
This is a technology that people think they want when it is science fiction but as soon it is actually real no one cares.
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If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em ! (Score:2)
You may recall some of the ploys used by Captain Kirk when dealing with a wayward computer. Mr. Spock found his approach puzzling. Basically, Kirk would ask the computer a question that had no logical reply. (darn, I can't think of one at the moment, but how 'bout "Everything I say is a lie..." followed by "I love you!", etc.) At any rate, the computer would stutter confusedly and always end in a satisfying cloud of smoke.
An excellent question to ask Alexa would be "Why does the porridge bird lay his egg in
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it could be replaced though (Score:2)
IMO, Amazon "owns" the market the same way Palm, and then Microsoft, owned the PDA segment back then, or Blackberry for smartphones: they had it all, didn't make it good enough to be mainstream, and then Apple came and in 24 hours it was over for the other 2.
Amazon very well might keep its lead, but someone who does it better faster could come and steal it all.
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Follow the money (Score:2)
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i highly doubt that (Score:2)
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What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
Winds of change (Score:2)
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This. There is also the problem of latency and reliance on internet connectivity, the sooner voice processing gets back out of the cloud the better I think.
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I disagree, moving the bits from your digitized voice to the cloud takes little time. Moving the voice processing locally means you have to have a more powerful computer locally that is only used 1% of the time. That is not an efficient solution. Moving the smarts off the local device means a less complex, more energy efficient device that is going to be less expensive and more reliable. The same device will work 10 years from now while the processing needs might grow by orders of magnitude as more comp
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Maybe hipsters will like it but no grown up is going to automatically want it. You might recall the introduction of digital watches in the 1970's and the attendent mockery. New technology is often labeled as unicorn territory by the thieving bastards that take our money off us but people are not necessarily as infantile as they might appear. There is a solid fashionable retro movement gaining ground in the market place for things like vinyl records and artisan everything. Lets face it the fashionable input
Hey Alexa (Score:3)
Me: Give all my personal information to Amazon.
Alexa: I've already done this. I also noticed you were out of salad dressing, so I ordered you a case of "Bezos' Own" and put it on the 1 month subscribe and save plan.
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Mostly because there's a huge difference between using one finger to swipe a small screen and lifting your arm and reaching over your keyboard and moving your arm across the screen.
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Which *IS* a huge market. Does anyone here in the tech community consider their privacy worth less than the convenience of an always on microphone in your house which could be used by corporate, government, or criminal adversaries to spy on your household? And if so: Do you also feel that phone, automobile, and public tracking should be enshrined as part of our daily lives? Flag as Inappropriate
Dude . What privacy?
And the operating system is..... (Score:3)
Clearly written by someone with a background in marketing, not programming or hardware. Amazon is NOT an operating system, despite what the salesman says. Echo uses FireOS which is a fork of Android. So the operating system that us running voice in the home is controlled by Google,not Amazon. And these folks have still not learned that, with the exception of context specific tasks (like switching room lights on and off) an interface that requires the user to self-generate commands is less useful to the
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If Amazon forked Android then Google doesn't control FireOS.
Point and click requires picking up a device, unlocking it, pulling up an app and then pointing and clicking. Is that easier than asking Alexa something like "Alexa, when is the next full moon?". Alexa doesn't require the rigorous syntax required to use a command line either. Want to know if it will rain then ask in any number of ways and it is likely Alexa will understand what you are asking and give you an appropriate response.
I've given Amaz
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You are correct that Amazon has the capability to control FireOS since it is a fork under the GPL. But they won't do it. Amazon will never add any substantial content to FireOS because they would have to provide the source code to the public (and back to Google). Amazon is not interested in operating systems. They will accept what Google gives them. That's fine but it's not what the author of the article was implying. In fact, the author does not seem to know what an operating system is.
Asking simple
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Same here. Besides it being a choice target for all kinds of criminals and the criminally minded (like the NSA), one has to expect that all that is being said will make its way into personality profiling at the vendor.
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Clearly written by someone with a background in marketing, not programming or hardware. Amazon is NOT an operating system, despite what the salesman says. Echo uses FireOS which is a fork of Android. So the operating system that us running voice in the home is controlled by Google,not Amazon. And these folks have still not learned that, with the exception of context specific tasks (like switching room lights on and off) an interface that requires the user to self-generate commands is less useful to the general public than a point and click visual system. This is why most people use a mouse or trackpad rather than the command line.
The device OS is pretty meaningless. Except for a few phrases (such as it's "attention" phrase) all the heavy lifting is done on Amazon servers, not locally on the device. The local OS is just there to collect, package, and shuttle the voice commands to the cloud, and to accept and pass on the response. The back end is the important part here.
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I saw an ad for home and wondered who was going to buy it. Again, Google comes in at a high price point. The echo is $50. Home is over $100. Amazon released the original to Prime member for $99. Most people shop from Amazon. Amazon missed the boat on the phone, hard to compete with Samsung, but the integration on Alexa is pretty sweet. There are a number of smartphone integration skills that do not require any s
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Good comparison between GUI and command line! Selecting from predefined, context-dependent choices is far, far simpler than unconstrained command entry for the user. It is also about the limit of what voice-recognition can do these days.
Incidentally, calling the outer interface layer the "OS" already shows that the writers here are utterly clueless.
Re: Alexa Conflict (Score:2)
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Perhaps not in your household, but there are lots of places in the US where "OK, go gal!" is still considered acceptable when talking to one's girlfriend/wife/daughter.
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