Amazon Echo Show(amazon.com) |
Amazon Echo Show(amazon.com) |
I'm not kidding at all, although I can sympathize this might seem a touch ridiculous. Billions were made off the "its kinda like a tricoder or a ST:TOS communicator but its mostly a phone". Its highly likely a lot of money will be made selling each member of the general populace a handful of ST:TNG communicator buttons in or around 2030. Schools will spare no expense to make sure each kid has one "for security and learning purposes only of course". Your music service will be part of the communicator badge ecosystem or it won't exist much longer, and so on.
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-HIDC10-Personal-Discontinued-Man...
For me this product makes sense for elderly in the digital age to keep them connected.
It works! :D
Am I the only one that's creeped up by that?
-Orwell, 1984
> "But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another--slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
> "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley re marked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."
https://quote.ucsd.edu/childhood/files/2013/05/postman-amusi...
The way it'll be rolled out to achieve that large enough installed base to become normalcy will be strictly positive enforcement.
All carrots to start out because there's too much legacy propaganda in western dead white male culture that no one reads anymore. After the tipping point is reached, then the carrots get put away and the sticks come out.
The answer, in a kind of trivalent nutshell, is: (1) emotional stress, (2) physical vanity, (3) a certain queer kind of self- obliterating logic in the microeconomics of consumer high-tech."
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
Every time a new Echo is released, the warnings go out. If you don't want one, don't get one.
In the meantime, the cellphone that you carry with you everywhere will report your location, voice, etc much more effectively.
Here's a 2 year old Echo story, maybe we can recycle some of the comments?
At any rate, the quote would be better served when discussing Snowden style revelations, because we know for a fact that people in the US security apparatus could (and did) abuse their ability to spy on the internet behavior of everyday American citizens without due process.
I am not against any category of products, but as a person who likes to own and manage fewer devices, I like my devices to be versatile.
In the meantime, you can connect an Echo Dot to a Play:5 (or any other Sonos speaker that has a line-in): http://www.sam-mallery.com/2016/12/5-tips-for-using-amazon-e...
Of course, that button is a handy indicator for Amazon to know when to record stuff :)
(I had to search to make sure this didn't already exist, and I'm surprised it doesn't.)
"Show me pictures of my family" (stock photos)
"Show me my vacation photos" (synthesizes a photo of me at the grand canyon with my waifu)
Only wish the outer shell on this one looked a bit nicer / slicker.
Really want an "Alexa" type replacement for smoke detectors. Location seems perfect for speakers / music in a house.
Scary to think that privacy for average consumer is basically dead.
You can install hangouts duo on IOS, but likely not on alexa. You can install Alexa on Android (not through google play). You can't install facetime on Alexa or Android.
These three are very different in terms of hardware and price.
this functionality will probably need a custom firmware tho.
Max Headroom, episode ABC.1.3 "Body Bank"
Paula: " ...what's that?"
Blank Reg: "It's a book!"
Paula: "Well, what's that?"
Blank Reg: "It's a non-volatile storage medium.
It's very rare. You should have one."
Paula: "Stuff it!"
That show was way ahead of its time.
// Blank is beautiful!
It wouldn't be a social problem as legacy social media is so yesterday, only auntie and grandma still use facebook and corporations and bots are now the majority users. You just know grandma is going to get into the weirdest flamewar ever on myspace or ICQ or twitter with your social media bot avatar.
I think it would be useful to have a bot run my linkedin for me. A form letter to respond to recruiter form letters. Every week it goes to Google Trends, runs a query on "computer language" to find the trendy framework of the week, and ta da I am now an expert on linked-in for "computer graphics programs in c language with output" "what does pdf mean in computer language" "computer in hindi language" and sure you laugh today, but normies (like HR gatekeepers) google for this kind of stuff all the time, and if my bot's effort posting gets me jobs you're not getting, well, we'll see who gets the last laugh ...
4chan by voice. What could go wrong?
"With the Alexa App, conversations and contacts go where you go. When you’re away from home, use the app to make a quick call or send a message to your family’s Echo. Alexa calling and messaging is free—to get started download the Alexa App."
Alexa is now in the messaging and communication game.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-...
A phone number works anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, with anyone who has a phone. All e-mail providers work with each other. I don't care who you're with, and I wouldn't even have to know except it's usually part of the address. SMS works no matter which provider we both have.
It feels like we're taking huge steps backwards. Instead of sending a message to a phone number or e-mail address, I'll use iMessage or Google Hangouts or Skype or Slack or.... Video call? We can do FaceTime or Hangouts or Skype or....
Will these things start interoperating with each other eventually, or are we just doomed forever?
And SMS is also frustratingly non-universal. After years of having cell service with one of the large providers, I switched to Fi last year since I was going to be out of the country a lot. The biggest annoyance has been most short code SMS not working. Each SMS shortcode is only supported on a provider-by-provider basis.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just pointing out that even your examples of open, interoperable protocols are instances where we've traded some of that open interoperability for convenience.
Slack is an outlier because you don't actually need to communicate with everyone in the world on Slack.
But for others, it would be completely unreasonable to ask your acquaintances to pay to install Skype to talk to you. And you probably wouldn't pay for Skype if it didn't interop with whatever other people were paying for.
In a world where switching costs for consumers are so low, interop becomes less important because you can ask your contacts to install an app if it's useful enough.
There are plenty of working open standards to do the basics, its if you want to do anything beyond the basics that you end up in a walled garden.
Bonus points if there is a standard way to 'get a call' or 'search for a contact' that cuts across the video conf apps.
They used to. We have open or defacto standards for texts, chat, voip, and video calls. We had/have free and paid clients available. They withered on the vine, without support from the big players.
I don't know why more messaging services use XMPP to bootstrap their userbase. It would allow you to switch to a new service, while you could still talk to your friends that haven't moved yet.
Otherwise I'd see a use of this device for small kids (parents would protect them from generic chat apps, and they're not good at typing yet) and people who put their phone in random places in the house and only check when they actively want to do something on it.
This is also absolutely going to kill Nucleus[1] which was the first device released with Alexa Voice Service integrated and was heavily hyped by Amazon at the time.
We reached an interesting point in time where the internet incumbents (Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon) can copy and extend any interesting idea quickly. I remember those days when Microsoft and Intel were ruling the world.
Presumably everyone who would even consider buying this already has a computer at home, which does that better anyway.
Sort of a post-iPad reaction to the failure of tablets.
- This is way less creepy-looking than the Amazon Look (https://www.amazon.com/Echo-Hands-Free-Camera-Style-Assistan...), but it is actually very similar.
- It is great to add a screen to the Echo. Just more feedback on interacting with it, and possibility to watch YouTube, Netflix, etc. casually.
- It doesn't have the same cool minimalism as the Echo. The Echo sits on my counter and looks nice when not in use. I think this one looks much clunkier.
- I definitely want to try one.
I like their approach from the business perspective. Give the people a voice controlled speaker. Give them a remote! Now, give them a voice-controlled camera! Now, give them a voice-controlled screen! Soon, give them <insert novel sensor> and let them go hands free! Rinse-repeat.
They would fail the certification because apparently people didn't know how to test, or used fake numbers to make phone calls and complained the call would not connect, or the certificate validation (that was working before) would fail, etc. All sorts of things. VERY frustrating process. I wouldn't make any change, submit the skill again for certification and get different results.
Now they announce their own calling feature, a week after finally approving our update.
I do not want what amounts to an always-on black-box surveillance device in my home and I simply do not understand why other people think it is okay. I honestly don't.
Down with this sort of thing!
90% of my interaction with my standard echo has been "what's the weather".
Even when I want visual controls for music, I'd rather pull out my phone than walk over to a screen.
Maybe they've gone with this form factor because of the 2x 2" speakers? But why would I want that when it could be plugged directly into my home audio setup?
Or maybe it's so they can include a touchscreen? But I thought the whole point was hands-free conversational interaction?
I guess I'm missing the point of this. Why would I, as a normal consumer, get this instead of a regular Amazon Echo?
This seems like a nice step in that direction but I've been spoiled by the low cost of the Echo Dot, which when it's on sale is so cheap it can be a stocking stuffer. I don't think I could pay $229 for the first generation version of the Show, but will likely get its cheaper, more advanced iterations.
Friend 1: Where do you want to go to the movies tonight? .. Friend 2: I dunno Alexa have any good suggestions? Alexa: Star Trek is playing x:00 at X theatre. Things of this nature.
Which reminds me, I've got a Keurig to hack...
It's not helping that big companies like Amazon want to establish themselves as _the_ hub for IoT.
As soon as they get the ability to play specific episodes (it knows what you're asking, it just can't do it yet) and hook it up to the knowledge graph? Ok Google, show me the Futurama episode where Hermes loses his job on living room.
What if a government compelled them to activate this to spy on someone?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3473799-Alexa.html
So if you have any evidence to back up your claim you should post it and claim your 5 minutes of celebrity.
I only ask this because, if there is some company that genuinely cares about their customers, it's Amazon but from personal and anecdotal experience.
Ideally, you could authorize people to call you by giving each person/entity a different token that authorizes them to call you. Then if that person/entity sells the token to 3rd parties, you not only know who sold you out, but also you have the ability to revoke that token easily.
Hopefully Google, Samsung or Microsoft(?!) will sell open hardware/firmware that isn't subsidized by collecting information.
Amazon is basically following the CueCat strategy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat#Failure
> The company's response to these hacks was to assert that users did not own the devices and had no right to modify or reverse engineer them. Threats of legal action against the hackers swiftly brought on more controversy and criticism.
For your other comment, what kind of command-response skill could be monetized? Surely for the majority of use cases, the Alexa skill should remain free with your purchased/subscribed product on the other side? E.g. the "skill" to read NPR should always be free, but NPR is still monetized via subscription or commercials.
The only example that jumps out at me would be Amazon Echo Games, something like text-based adventures built for voice. Otherwise, skills themselves are just a gateway to an already monetized service, no?
I wish I could install OK Google on Echo.
Edit - looks like you can, with a custom skill - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR-LVPMU7F4
Everyone speculating on Apple acquisitions should be considering a Sony or LG buyout. I own stock in neither.
Either way, I'd imagine you would want to wipe it completely. Can't wait for the iFixit teardown.
If you can think of a way to have an artificial assistant of that class without being tied in to a corporation, I'm all ears.
Seriously, these boxes should have a pair of eyes drawn on them as part of the design, to remind the user that they are being watched.
For example, I got an Amazon Tap because I liked having a physical button to enable the mic. They then released a setting in the Alexa app that allowed it to always listen when toggled on (yes, I realize if I truly cared about privacy that a button like that is just an illusion and they can record whenever they want).
That was fine, I tried it out in situations where I didn't have a free hand (doing dishes for example). It had red notification lights that came on when it was always listening which reminded me the setting was on. This is also important because of the way the battery drains when it is on.
Recently I went to switch it on, and no red lights. There was no visible indicator my Tap was listening or not.
Why would they decide to remove that?
My echo is right next to the TV.
Presumably, they could come out with an Amazon Echo-fied TV sometime in the future though, but their priority of device releases seems careful and calculated.
Amazon Echo first, to see if there's even any market for digital assistants.
Amazon Echo Dot next, to extend their reach in the house.
Amazon Echo Look and Show third and fourth, released at roughly the same time, to extend their reach into some of people's everyday behaviors.
I imagine they have a roadmap that is aligned to other everyday behaviors and prioritized against what is easier to aid with a AI-powered digital assistant. Changing behaviors are never easy, so presumably, they are targeting ones that are less habitualized, under-served, or not currently served at all.
With that theory in mind, TV is already a well-served need, so it wouldn't be a high priority to Amazon Echo-fy just yet.
Also, it doesn't tie you to having to have a TV in a location you want one.
For watching anything long and serious, I would definitely send it to my TV.
Watching random videos while washing the dishes though is great.
Apple is the juggernaut and is likely to overthink its product offerings and how it affects the ecosystem of existing devices. Just like the Kindle, Amazon is ready to flood the market with SKUs to see what sticks. They're building their brand in hardware very quickly and leading the market with the strongest connected home ecosystem.
Not just the Kindle devices, but also a growing range of Amazon Basics store-brand products, including batteries, headphones, Bluetooth speakers, paper shredders, towels and sheets, yoga mats, ... the list goes on and on. While many are undoubtedly existing products with the Amazon name stamped on them, Amazon has generally been building a lot of experience working with suppliers/manufacturers.
This seems to be the case, they are taking a short release cycle iterative approach to get it into the customers hands fast. Very lean-startup-esque.
Apple on the other hand is more of a luxury brand. The dynamics with luxury brands is a bit different and high-end product development is more involved. Customer retention and brand consistency is critical to their business. And given their track record and ability to attract talent they don't seem to have much of an issue with doing a yearly waterfall-esque style release.
I'm not sure it makes sense for them to push out a high volume of products. They seemed to operate best when they had a few focused offerings in each category. If they want to expand they should hit new markets instead of flooding one with lots of options (which seems to be the way Tim is going).
But otherwise I agree, Apple tends to pigeonhole their 'ecosystem' into everything, which smells of valuing internal business goal instead of consumer values.
Source: ;)
With a screen now, it's like my own personal drive-thru to order whatever, products, food, whatever amazon is selling.
Silly me.
You can't buy one, and if you try developing for it, you can't test or demo anything that is location-based.
And this is why the Echo will ultimately lose the market to every other voice assistant.
You need to link the skill with a RingByName account in order to use it. Yes, it works well. However, Amazon's speech recognition from Alexa is a challenge for names. Works fine most of the time for American names, but it struggles with foreign names. Results also vary depending on the accent of the user, so our skill always repeats what it got from Amazon to make sure users don't call someone else. We had to do some "magic" in the backend to try to find a contact even though an exact match wasn't found, which works very nicely.
Clearly you've done this calculation but come up with a different answer. Assuming there is some utility there, it must be the surveillance aspect that is the problem. If you got an Echo, what harm do you think you would likely experience?
If I need peace of mind away from home, I can simply plug in a webcam or connect the otherwise-airgapped security system to the network while I'm away. If I want a hands-free mic, I can buy one with a power switch and connect it to whatever setup I need it for.
If amazon releases hardware that makes it verifiably possible to have such setups, more power to them I suppose. But as likely they won't, as they prefer "all-in-one" solutions that give them "last-mile level" control over how their devices get used, I will probably never buy such devices from them.
I used it a bit, but turned it of permanently after one day I logged in to my router and saw that Echo was generating noticeable amount of traffic even though no one was at home.
I think the only way I could try always on device again is if company like Amazon would provide API and I would create the always-on device.
In short I want to be in control what is being sent and what isn't.
While portable devices can be a useful tool, far too many people are addicted to the dopamine hit they get by hitting "refresh", and/or distracted by shiny tech baubles.
"Alexa turn on/off the lights" "Alexa turn my home temperature to 20 degrees" "Alexa play Sublime FM Radio" "Alexa turn on work mode" -> scene activates for working "Alexa turn on sleep mode" -> scene activates for going to bed "Alexa turn off my tv"
Its mainly OpenHab on a raspberry pi that enables all this. However some things (like my thermostat) are directly connected to the Echo.
Also things like the Chromecast dont work well with the Echo. So i'm lost there.
Otherwise its great.
Getting the screen and speakers subsidized by the lock-in is a pretty intriguing model. Not sure I could get the hardware at that price point elsewhere. Will be interesting to see if there's a modding community that develops.
A 7 day forecast is probably better with the screen.
>Even when I want visual controls for music, I'd rather
Clearly it's for the Karaoke capability :)
On the other hand, Google Assistant is unsurprisingly better at recognizing voice, give more information about everything. I am going to soon dump my echo for a home, just waiting for the Google IO to see if there will be a home-2.
That's about it right now, I don't use it for anything else. I find you really need to enunciate your words otherwise it just gets confused and gives up (that's a UK midlands accent for you though...)
I would not mind full home integration to where it detects me by my phone if not my saying I'm home and turning lights on if needed and more. (better yet, get me phone integration so that it knows when I am coming home after an hour or so away - knows I am on my street and stuff turns on)
technology is going to give everyone a personal assistant at home and one day it may just follow you. (Dave, while we are in the store don't forget to get the eggs)
- step by step cooking tutorials that auto pause until you say "alexa, play/preview next step" - multiple named timers on the screen - shopping lists are way better visually - video calls to cooking tutors (I wonder if there's a market for this?)
I do see the Echo Show sitting on the kitchen island, but at $229, not so sure.
I remember when I first saw an iPod Nano with the color screen and the scroll wheel that magically scrolled up and down by just moving your finger around it without actually turning a wheel. It seemed like magic. Same thing when I first saw the iPhone/iPod Touch. Apple's products were very carefully designed and only released when they were perfect, and very rarely failed to wow you.
Amazon on the other hand, always seems to rush things to market and then see what sticks. I understand that this is largely their ethos, but when it comes to Amazon hardware, I've found myself pretty cynical towards it because they've released so much poorly-executed crap over the years. Even with Alexa, I like many others, find that it's pretty much useless for anything beyond playing music or setting a timer.
Having an Echo, I saw this and my first thought was "meh." I have a feeling that if Apple released a similar product category, that wouldn't be the case.
"Apple's products were very carefully designed..."
It seems like the big pitch they're making right now is on communications, but there are loads of reasons why I can imagine it being useful. Most mornings, I ask Alexa about the weather. Usually, the voice response is all I need, but occasionally, there are storms in the forecast, and there's a big difference between "60% chance of thunderstorms" and "here's the radar image".
Traffic is another good example. You want to know that there's a 30 minute delay on your route to work, but it's more important to know where so you can plan your route around it.
Just look at human interactions. We mostly communicate by voice, but that doesn't mean that we attempt to provide every answer as spoken conversation. If I ask my hypothetical assistant what a lemur looks like, he or she would grab an image from Google -- not spend 5 minutes giving me descriptions of dimensions and colors.
Back when I used Android, Google Now seemed to really do this right (if creepily): it figured out when/where you commuted and would give you a heads-up before you left, offering to plan a route around the trouble. More useful since you take your phone with you. Also you didn't have to ask.
The selling point of this genre of devices seems to rest on the utility of voice control, but this products only innovation is a built in display.
My TV takes 15 seconds on average to start up, and then another 3 or 4 to have sound. There is no easy way to turn them on and off in a reliable manner, and for some unknown reason many disable CEC by default...
Not to mention that having to choose between watching something on TV and using the device is an annoying decision to make in a lot of cases.
I think the key part of the screen is how it functions as output rather than as input. It can "fail" more gracefully when it has no idea what you're talking about, or when there are troubleshooting issues.
And on that point, I have sort of come to the same conclusion that these home assistants would be best as plug ins to a TV with HDMI pass through. Keep the audio input interface but default to a video output interface that overlays on your TV, somewhat similar to what the Xbox used to do with snapped windows.
Very much disagree. My TV is not in the part of the house I spend most of my time, and when I'm watching TV I almost certainly don't want a bunch of stuff overlaid on top of whatever I'm watching. I could conceptually see something like this working in my kitchen/dining room, but not if I have to put a TV there just for that.
Wait - is "HDMI passthrough" a thing ?
I wouldn't think so - HDMI has copy protection on it and so an HDMI passthrough device would need to MITM the normal signal ...
Would be very interested to know if this exists and if so, how it works ...
It's really handy but "Hey Siri" works maybe 30% of the time. I don't really use it anymore. The worst part is that Siri can't integrate with other music apps, other note taking apps, other video players, or pretty much anything. So it's incredibly crippled despite being able to parse my requests.
If Alexa can fix that, this would be pretty neat.
Until Alexa, I hadn't tried Siri since its initial launch years ago. I was surprised to see that its AI/NLP was as good as Alexa's. So the killer feature really is the convenient and reliable interface provided by the Echo's mics.
You answered your own question. Not every device used in a home (remote control, light switch, thermostat) needs to be replaced with a full tablet computer, even if it could be.
An always on dedicated device that lives in one location with excellent array mics is going to be more useful to me than a tablet that I have to locate and turn on before I can use it.
I also had an old Moto Defy I kept for years and years plugged into a wall outlet as a dedicated tune-in audio device. Listen all I want to TuneIn and it wouldn't eat my phone's battery because my old appliance phone was on a charger and my phone was unused in my pocket or whatever. After a couple years on the charger, maybe it was the heat, I donno, the battery bubbled up as they do before they blow up and I got rid of it.
I had a nexus 7 and my kids have had two generations of ipads and there is no perfect stand out there. There are some the fold and collapse when you don't want them to. There are some that hold nicely as long as you're not plugged into charging. There are some that work but look ugly and cluttered. Its a hard problem, apparently. You folks will laugh but my kids solution to the problem of too many devices and not enough space for charging is a device pyramid. I've noticed the main difference between harder-core older computer users and noob/kids is tolerance of dust, grease, and dirt on the screen, so a pyramid of devices on a desk makes sense to kids and noobs even as a more experienced professional who looked into screens 10 hours per day WTFs about it.
Portable is a fail for appliances. I don't want my kids leaving Alexa in a laundry basket or between the cushions in the couch. I don't want to step on it at night. I don't want one more thing to yell at my kids to put it down and go to sleep its your bed time. No one wants a portable surround sound system or a portable toilet or a portable microwave oven. Or even more utilitarian, contemplate a portable hot water heater. A jetboil is nice when I'm camping and drinking my tea but I wouldn't want to replace my houses hot water heater with a jetboil at every sink and over the shower. A portable outside air temperature thermometer is a good analogy where not knowing where to look to see the temperature is not a feature.
Alexa already does more things than I'm interested in having her do. Something that does more is even less interesting than you'd imagine.
Unlike my experiments above, this new thing apparently just works yet costs about the same. I'll take the product that actually works.
The first case is the "want" factor that others have mentioned on this thread. It's less that I "need" an Echo in my home, and more that it makes certain activities easier: I can get measurement conversions, set timers, and pause my movie while my hands are occupied cooking in the kitchen; I can get the weather forecast while putting on my shoes on the way out; and now, I can also answer calls and send/receive messages while my hands are occupied. It's less that I couldn't do that with my phone or computer and more that Echo-like devices make this more convenient.
The second case involves the fact that there is a comparatively small, but still significant portion of the population that cannot effectively use touch devices to do the things that the rest of us can easily do with our phones. The people who "need" this kind of device the most, in my opinion, are those suffering from paralysis causing them to be unable to use their hands or fingers with enough dexterity to operate a touch screen, or unable to use them at all. These devices are real life-changers for this group, since they can now control lights, their television and other entertainment options, and talk to their loved ones -- all activities that were difficult, expensive (requiring specialized devices), or impossible before.
In addition to this first group, there are also those who often have difficulty figuring out how to use computer/touch screen technology, even though they are physically able to -- the elderly are probably the first example that comes to mind. It's much, much easier to just set up an Echo Show and be able to "drop in" on your grandmother and chat, than it is to get her set up with an iPhone or a computer and teach her how to Skype or text.
So all in all, most people will get this for the "cool" factor and because it makes their lives a little easier, but some people will gain a huge benefit from it.
"Alexa, play Kendrick Lamar on Spotify."
Just like that, I have music throughout the house and in the front and back yards. You can also get more specific with commands in order to limit where the music plays, what music service is polled, etc.
It is much easier than pulling out a device, navigating to the application, typing in a search string, selecting the artist, and clicking shuffle playback for all of the artist's songs.
Because so far I've never had any luck whatsoever with anything else.
How do you have this set up? Does it integrate with some other home audio control system you have, or do you have an Echo plugged into each space and the music plays directly off them? Is there a way to play your own mp3 collection instead of streaming services?
So much faster to speak it out now that their recognition is so damn accurate.
My wife fought me on it until I noticed she too was using Siri more, although the UX with Siri is not as great as Google's Assistant IMHO.
Sad that Google + Facebook pulled out of federation a long time ago. We could have had bring-your-own-client cross-network all of this stuff. We still can, but realistically we won't.
Who's going to provide that at no cost?
My mom doesn't have an echo, doesn't know what an echo is, and probably wouldn't ever spend the money on one even if she did. She's about the only person in my life that would EVER consider an Echo to be "the new PC". And quite frankly I can't imagine her giving up her laptop for one of these in a million years.
This could pretty much describe the iPad as well. To me, Amazon is betting way too heavily on voice as the optimal way to interact with hardware. I know that it's cool because it hasn't ever been done well before, but in practice the utility just isn't there for the vast majority of use cases. When you think of all the different visual ways that a tablet enables a person to interact with the machine, and then compare that to an entirely voice-operated machine, it feels like taking a step backwards.
Beyond the issues with dialects and accents - those will eventually be solved with better learning/adaptation algorithms - I've always felt voice interfaces very... limited. Perhaps it will enable more 'social' experiences, but 3-5 people can be in a room and use their devices (laptop/tablet/etc) more or less as they do now. If/when devices with 'voice interactions' are the norm... how will I get any privacy from those around me? And simultaneous voices will present some ongoing problems (until, maybe, personal voice recognition, vs just 'voice', is achieved?)
In what way? You can accomplish all these things for free with your existing phone, Google Assistant, IFTTT, and very little effort. If you do it this way, your virtual assistant won't be as dumb as rocks either.
Sorry, but Alexa is still riding on the short bus.
There's a reason it never took off, and it has nothing to do with corporate mendacity.
Disagree. This is entering a far less saturated somewhat new market. A very focused communication/consumption device where the tablet is trying to be a laptop.
None of these messaging apps care if you install their product or not because there are so few people who share your views.
(I believe that operators generally have much tighter regulations and laws governing what they could actually do with that, but regardless - besides the point)
Sure, for personal devices, but with business devices, installing an app can be a multi-month approval process.
Edit: I see I wasn't the only one whose brain short-circuited for a second.
An Amazon Echo isn't a needed device. It just makes certain actions easier (e.g. playing music, checking the weather, listening to the news, etc), all of which can be satisfied with a cellphone and computer too. But the key is, it makes these actions EASIER.
For someone who's already indoctrinated to an Amazon Echo device, I can see the barrier for purchase being lower than someone who doesn't have one. For such a customer, the appeal again is that it makes even more actions EASIER.
Being able to see your baby monitor, make a phone call, check the news, see who's at your front door (integration with doorbell video services coming up, I'll bet!), etc, are all achievable by other means. But this family of devices makes them all EASIER.
I think that's the key here. And granted, these devices aren't going to appeal to everyone. But for those that already have the gateway drug/device that is an Amazon Echo, I can see them investing further into this ecosystem of devices.
Amazon is betting on these children growing up with an Echo in the home which can be a nice way to catch up with your kids' activities while still at work or on your way home.
Child: "Alexa, record a message for mom."
Alexa: "Recording message."
Child: "Mummy, don't be late. But you promised to undo my hair when you return from work. My head hurts."
Ever tried using FaceTime or Skype with poor vision/ dexterity?
All Echos have better mics and better sound than my cellphone for this use.
It's not about not "wanting to touch anything" - the voice interface is slower and less flexible than a visual interface in a lot of ways, but it's also more consistent and easier to memorize key interactions.
Other than net browsing (which I find woefully underpowered on mobile even today) and listening to music, I rarely if ever use this thing's auxillary functions. Most of the "defaults" are just clutter reminiscent of the pre-smartphone vendor days (complete with the "but look, you can make them less visible, just move them around!"). Can relate on the distraction bit as well, as that used to be a bigger problem for me.
It's one less thing to fiddle with every day and that's my sole appeal for home tech ... devices that reduce the amount of babysitting I have to do to achieve a desired outcome.
Take your pick, I'm sure the list goes on. That's the beauty of a strawman argument, there's no shortage of fields to ship it off to.
Shutting things back down seems to be a bit more challenging, though. The TV recognizes the PS3 turning off and returns to live TV (the last thing I really want it to switch to, but whatever), but the whole system teardown is a bit more complicated.
Presumably, people are less likely to spend as much time in their closets as in a kitchen or office, so they probably wouldn't use the full suite of Show capabilities there as much.
The scale of the Show is probably too large to look good on a small dressing table or side table; whereas space may be at less of a premium in the kitchen, living room, or office.
The Look is a much prettier / cleaner / more modern design, which fits better in the intended use case of a "style assistant" - you have to associate style help with someone whose own sense of style is good.
Look is much cheaper to manufacture: missing the big screen and the relatively large speakers (and the amplification circuitry to drive them).
If you needed one device to satisfy both use cases as well as they each do their own, you'd have to have all the cameras of the Look plus the screen and speakers, etc., of the Show, meaning the price would probably end up more like $299, which is a big difference in the world of consumer electronics.
Amazon likes team to have independence and ownership of their own roadmaps and destinies. If the Look team is closely aligned with the Apparel category and reliant on a bunch of visual processing algorithms, that might be completely different from the Show team's needs and dependence on two-way communications and messaging platforms.
That's also really cool about team independence at Amazon. It seems like it'd be a good way to combat people feeling lost in a big company. Thanks for writing up your thoughts!
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/ford-turning-cars-amazon-alexa...
Maybe they're just better at keeping it a secret (given the parent comment by the throwaway id). If Amazon can figure out a way to get self-driving car aligned with a) Alexa, b) logistics, c) prime membership, and/or d) driving shopping to their marketplace - then they are obviously working on it.
Or maybe, typical Amazon, they're already working on Amazon Engine, in parallel with Amazon Wheels, in parallel with Amazon Windshield, and Amazon Steering Wheel, and we'll have something that can be used as a car in a few years.
Drones let them ship things much faster to customers for cheaper than existing techniques and its easy to see how that helps their business. Margins of existing players in this space are typically much higher, which is something Amazon likes to go after (just look at pre-AWS hosting costs).
Blue Origin (another Bezos company) was technically first to land a rocket, and gloated about it. But SpaceX has a more useful implementation as of now.
Sure, you can still SMS worldwide, as long as they have a cell phone. But non-phone devices are becoming very common. What if you want to send or receive messages on your tablet or computer. (This works OK in the Apple world, but only because they hack it by routing SMS through your phone.)
Video calls don't even have that.
E-mail, for example, was different. I started using online services when you had AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy, etc. all in their own little worlds. That didn't last very long before they all bridged their internal e-mail systems to the internet and everyone could talk to each other.
Actually, not necessarily. At least with my provider (AT&T), I can set up my Mac as a validated device for WiFi calling, so I can do SMS and actual phone calls without using the iPhone as a relay.
It is a miracle that the web itself has survived as one of the few open interoperable protocols. Though I think this golden period will soon end, strangled by the death of net neutrality on one side and proprietary walled gardens on the other.
Ultimately, a commons is not compatible with unrestricted capitalism.
I had hope for Hangouts, but Google dropped the ball big time in terms of user complexity and quality of product as they are wont to do.
Sure, bringing everybody together would be tough. You'd need a lot of discussion and probably glue/bridging code between different services. But it could be done! None of the big services are even trying to integrate with each other.
No I'm not saying that at all. Of course people will buy these things. It's just really creepy to me that we've gotten to this point as society where people willingly accept having a webcam and microphone connected to the biggest corporation in the world sitting in their living room, able to monitor anything at any time. People don't realize how much power they are giving to these companies. Do you really think they won't start listening in to conversations and using key phrases to modify your advertising profile? How far do we let these things go?
People aren't good at preemptively adjusting behaviours if it is beneficial to them in the short term. Just look at saving money or the economics of gym memberships.
Once there are news stories about the privacy costs of using an always-on microphone in your home then people will become wary of purchasing such a device. The conceptual threat will become a real threat.
But in the meantime, as these devices are new and the real life human interest stories of lost privacy are still rare, it's easy for people to look beyond those risks for what they see a significant gain. And not everyone is oblivious to the risks, they just don't care or hide behind the "I've got nothing to hide" fantasy.
Being able to ask a digital assistant questions at anytime is a very useful thing. I would personally love to have such a device if the cost was more accessible (as I don't need it that badly) but the privacy stuff is also a road block for me. But regardless most of the people I know would probably be able to look past that.
That being said, there are a number of cases where products became less popular as the risks became better known and it was harder to look beyond them. And the social pressures is also another factor. Such as having a friend visit who is uncomfortable talking in a room with a listening Alexa - that type of thing could ultimately put downward pressure on the service.
Anecdote time. I remember turning on my iPhone and briefly seeing a picture of myself from earlier that day. I don't think I had ever used the front camera on the phone up until that point. My phone was spying on me. It was the creepiest and most unsettling feeling seeing that picture of myself where it should not have been. There were lots of reports of this sort of thing at the time. And I was surprised to see it happen to me. Not entirely pleased with Apple but Google is worse.
Yeah, I had that realization as I was typing this. I think the crucial difference here though is that having a powerful computer with GPS and an internet connection in my pocket is a life changing technology that empowers me as an individual. These new products from Amazon are nothing but another vector for collecting your personal information disguised as a convenience. It's like those "As seen on TV" products. Useless nonsense that solves a specific problem already covered by more general tools.
This seems like an obvious product for those who completely buy into the Alexa ecosystem.
My feeling is that some company is gonna do that eventually, use the set top box as the home hub, but there are some convenience issues to be figured out.
And add a feature to listen to commands like "Show me X on my phone" or "Send this to my phone" and it will display whatever you just asked for on your iPhone. Or even "Send this to [contact name]".
What I haven't seen is something like the electronic-paper Kindle... a calm display. Most of the time I have my laptop and tv on quick shut-down because the ambient light feels grating (maybe it's the feeling of losing energy? not sure why it annoys me). A calendar or XKCD board would be awesome.... have the echo just populate a poster with stuff that's slightly irritating to lookup... this leads into an idea of having 'settings' for the environment/ room...hmm
I just checked, they list location data back to 2009.
I've recently installed Owntracks on my phone and have started logging all my location updates, so soon I may be able to just drop the google location tracking.
I agree that video conferencing is rather fragmented but I'm honestly not sure how much that has slowed adoption. People just don't want to use video in a lot of cases. Essentially all my internal calls are on a videoconferencing system and I doubt I turn on the webcam 25% of the time. (We do use screen sharing a fair bit though.)
It is conspicuously absent on any other platform; even Android tablets can't use Duo, let alone a Linux, Windows, or macOS machine. So it's a hell of a walled garden.
The Echo is a neatly packaged surveillance device that's disguised as a.. What are these things called? Voice assistants?
As with pretty much every IoT device, these things can be broken into by malicious actors and then they get to listen in too. Next thing on the list is that Amazon can do whatever it wants with those recordings and I highly doubt they're only listening in after you mention certain keywords. More likely that's just the trigger to flip the "answer back" switch. And last but not least we should not forget about the surveillance agencies, who will get unrestricted access to this one way or another.
In the grand way of things, this is just another method people are letting themselves being monitored. Just another small step towards total authoritarian control by mega-corporations and dictators. We have to step up and stop this from happening while we still can, or else there won't be any privacy left for anyone of us and the next generation will just grow up with it "being normal".
And before you ask, no, I don't have a smart phone. I have a very dumb phone that I can only use to call someone with or get called myself and more often than not I don't carry it around with me.
The cost here is whatever you can imagine happening if every utterance and the implied judgement of your character escaped into the wild should a keen hacker, nefarious internal actor, or simply a product manager raised by wolves goes ahead "liberates" your data feed. Amazon want to compensate us with, what? ... looks like voice commands and a marginal reduction in search effort, particularly when searching for things they want you to buy from them.
Careful now.
The Echo was very, very bare bones in terms of functionality at the start. There were like half a dozen basic commands and that was it, so my guess is people who saw the Prime invitations for it didn't think it was even worth the $99. I just scrolled through my inbox to find the oldest "What's new with Alexa" message I was sent from January 30, 2015, and it mentions adding Pandora/Spotify support as well as making the companion phone apps available, so those didn't even exist for the first few months Echo was for sale.
[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/607691307/ubi-the-ubiqu...
It's a hack that might work for something personal, but I wouldn't be comfortable selling a product that did this.
But I would be interested in a device that could pull it off. Doubly so if they were cheap enough to get one for each TV.
The "smart" booting up does take 20 seconds, but as you can see in a laptop going to sleep to wide awake should take less than a second.
Just because smart TVs are poorly designed doesn't imply there's a technical limitation to display technology. Its technically possible to make a useful smart TV, even if there are none today.
But in any case, I think the last ten years of iPhone and iPad releases do somewhat agree with me.
A voice assistant is only as useful as its ability to understand speech. If it can't tell anything from half of my music library then it's not worth much to me.
Sadly but somewhat hilariously, the thing which might prevent them a bit from offering exclusive-to-their-network content is the fact that in the US, you often don't have a choice of which ISP to go with, so if I really wanted some content which was exclusive to ATT's network, I simply can't switch off of Comcast (apartment building with no other option, past 3 apartment buildings were the same) since they've so successfully monopolized markets.
Edit: on the beginning: http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2014/04/chapter-3-part...
As for not being tied to where you have a TV, for $200 you can buy a 40"+ 1080p TV, for $100 you can have a really nice IPS 22" 1080p monitor. Probably better than this tiny thing.
My TV takes a good 10 seconds to start producing audio after the google chromecast 'on' command. Putting the screen in themselves gives them control of that experience.
> When you see the Netflix Recommended TV logo, you’ll know the TV has passed a rigorous evaluation process.
> TV Instant On
> Your TV starts up instantly and apps are ready to use right away, just like your smartphone.
Build the other thing in to your thing, and all those problems go away.
My TV supports it and fails randomly to wake up, googling it at the time, a flurry of other TVs models were mentionned as not working properly. I think there was a ATP episode on the topic, with the same conclusion: it works sometimes, if you're lucky.
I do have some mailing lists running from it, so it's possible it helped me that their users are making sure mails from it doesn't end up in junk folder.
Anyway, I would encourage anyone to run their own mail server, to prevent large provider doing what you're mentioning. Google already did this with XMPP. They made GTalk interconnected with rest of XMPP server, but as soon as they got a large base they disconnected from the rest and made their own proprietary network.
Yes, each provider does support their own short codes, but this is not a great example of SMS being "non-universal"
A short code is just "dialling sugar" for {country_code} + {network_code} + {short_code}.
Think about it this way: It would be kind of like trying to access the following url: http://news.ycombinator
Do you need it on .com? .co.za? .io?
So in other words, if you are roaming and you want to use a short code. Just prefix with {country_code} + {network_code}.
The routing should work correctly, the switch (msc) routing tables will have the country code + network code, and route the message correctly to your network. If your network has been configured correctly, it will be able to respond.
There is nothing inherently in SMS that prevents it working. Though carriers can choose to block short codes to other networks (usually to avoid fraud). Your carrier would then need to include request the roaming partner white list a set of allowed short codes.
Source: used to work with SMS gateways for a living.
That said, short codes are rapidly becoming obsolete since data has become ubiquitous and everything is online now. The only one I ever use is voicemail.
I wish. With the prevalence of using SMS for 2FA, short codes are very much in use. When you've got a provider that doesn't work with most short codes, you run into a frighteningly large number of difficult situations. Some providers will give you a "I didn't receive the text, call me" option. Some (grr...Venmo) don't. But it's one of those features you don't realize how often it's used until it doesn't work for you.
What country are you in?
The way I have seen them configured is they work from off-net if you prefix with correct codes.
Remember the foreign switch,smsc or ussd gateway is going to route the message if it has the correct prefix. The Routing (b number analysis) is looking up a prefix, to send it off.
It is up to your home operator to correctly handle this.
Source: 10+ years working with mobile operators
Google, Hotmail, etc, all work just fine. Just make sure to set up DMARC (DKIM+SPF) and TLS by default.
It was a while ago, if I recall correctly the block seemed to be ip based (it reported my ip not domain-name). I host with vpsdime, while it is a vps and thus to be expected I don't seem to be on any other lists.
DMARC, PTR, no open-relay, encryption, etc., all set up on my end. The email I was trying to reach was in fact an (important to me) gov't adress. Ended up using my old gmail for that instead.
If Google Fi is using SMS-enabled wireline numbers as opposed to mobile numbers then there could be additional complications.
I've run on-Prem email for years in different capacities. It isn't nearly as difficult as its often portrayed.
But there are useful sample config files online, and once it's running it just works.
Email interoperability is at LEAST as good as phone interoperability, which was the GP's point, I think. But all of these things are more walled gardens than you might think.
Regarding inbox deliverability from dynamic IPs (like you'd have with a residential connection), it might work sometimes for short messages with no attachments to people you've corresponded with before, but I wouldn't expect general deliverability to be very good. You have the same problem with botnet infections / malware-based spam here as well; home PCs are much more likely to get infected with that kind of stuff (though WordPress exploits are VERY common on servers), so many people running mail servers will just straight up block dynamic IPs from big ISPs and assume that nothing of value was lost. Personally, for low-volume mail such as what a home server might send regarding maintenance or alerts, I'd recommend using a service like mailgun and hooking up to that with SMTP. It's a lot easier than running your own mail server, you won't have to deal with inbound spam if you're only sending, it works well with minimal setup, they guide you through each step, etc etc.
I run an email server with ten domains on it. Hotmail blocked me once, but I had no problem getting that lifted. No other issues for over five years now.
I have more of a problem with mail going the other way. I use a number of online spam traps to avoid spam, and my gf's Yahoo account often gets bounced by them.
Specific Yahoo servers regularly get flagged for spam, and if you're using a Yahoo account your mail will be filtered by many, many servers if it's sent from one of those IPs.
Those were the days that I don't miss.
I've also found that disabling the 'instant on' feature of my TV makes it perform much better. When I used the standby mode, apps would occasionally crash or stop responding after a few hours. The only way to get them to work again was to unplug the TV.
I never have to unplug the TV now that I've disabled instant on.
That being said, I own a Samsung TV, which has the worst software of any TV I've used, except for Philips, which was worse only because the TV I owned didn't support SSH keys longer than 48-bits or something really stupid like that.
Ideally I'd be able to purchase a non-smart TV that turned on instantly, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
I don't understand why a signal coming in through HDMI signal has 9 milliseconds of lag on my cheap monitor, and 46 seconds on my fairly nice tv. In gaming mode the tv has something like 35 ms of lag.
I've seen TVs that have enough input lag that you get noticeable audio sync issues if you use an external audio system. That's ridiculous.
I think they consider that a feature. For the record, I absolutely agree as a consumer that TVs just need to be awesome display panels with a recent remote and sufficient inputs. But I understand why the manufacturers may not want to buy into that.
I grew up with a TV that would immediately turn-on when you pressed the button (you could even hear an audible sound from the TV set), and the cable TV remote (it was separate in the 80s too) could change channels at 4-5 per second (this is when channels surfing was born because they would render so fast).
Vizio has a line of OTA-free displays, but they still have a Linux kernel. This is a good start, but going back to whatever RTOS they use to have would be better.
[0]http://www.lg.com/us/business/commercial-display/displays-tv...