I wonder what conversation at bloomberg resulted in adding all of those extremely distracting (and annoying) animated gifs..
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The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
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Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#12"An e-commerce company wouldn’t seem like an obvious leader in [augmented reality]." Amazing that even today articles are still calling Amazon an e-commerce company. I wonder if this is an image Amazon actively cultivates or if it's just consistently lazy reporting?
It's possible the author of the article knows that Amazon is now a tech company as well, but is assuming that their audience does not yet realize this. My impression is that people who don't work in tech don't know this; I have explained many times to people outside of our world how Amazon is one of the most important tech companies in the world, and that discussion always starts with a puzzled look from them.
Yeah, that's kind of my take as well. But I put that in the lazy reporting category.
Seems like it would be worth the paragraph explaining the misconception and helping people realize why the seemingly weird stuff Amazon kinda does makes sense.
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#13I really want an Echo, I just can't justify the cost. And the cheaper options don't have the listening mode which nerfs the whole appeal.
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#14I wonder what conversation at bloomberg resulted in adding all of those extremely distracting (and annoying) animated gifs..
I agree with you, however I did enjoy opening up the developer console in Firefox and deleting all of the obnoxious background.
Thank you! That works for chrome too. Right-click => inspect, then on the highlighted line the inspection window right-click => delete element.
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#15"An e-commerce company wouldn’t seem like an obvious leader in [augmented reality]." Amazing that even today articles are still calling Amazon an e-commerce company. I wonder if this is an image Amazon actively cultivates or if it's just consistently lazy reporting?
How would you classify them? (genuinely curious) Everything they offer centers around consumerism, and separating your money from your wallet in exchange for some product or service. Even things that don't quite fit into that category (the tech stuff) are ultimately there to facilitate the purchasing of said goods and services.
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#16> You can use Alexa to turn off the lights, ask it how much gas is left in your car, or order a pizza.
I'm getting a bit tired of these examples. Is there a comprehensive list of things Alexa can do?
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#17I really want an Echo, I just can't justify the cost. And the cheaper options don't have the listening mode which nerfs the whole appeal.
The full echo happens to be on sale today, and the Echo Dot (which doesn't include the full speaker, only a smaller one, and you can plug it into your own) is about half the price, and does still have the always-on listening mode.
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible the author of the article knows that Amazon is now a tech company as well, but is assuming that their audience does not yet realize this. My impression is that people who don't work in tech don't know this; I have explained many times to people outside of our world how Amazon is one of the most important tech companies in the world, and that discussion always starts with a puzzled look from them.
Yeah, that's kind of my take as well. But I put that in the lazy reporting category. Seems like it would be worth the paragraph explaining the misconception and helping people realize why the seemingly weird stuff Amazon kinda does makes sense.
Don't feel bad -- we at Bloomberg always get classed a "media" company when the media properties came about a decade after the software (& hardware). It's just easier to say because it fits better into public expectation. To most people Amazon is e-commerce because nearly everyone buys things from them online or via mobile apps.
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#19I wonder what conversation at bloomberg resulted in adding all of those extremely distracting (and annoying) animated gifs..
Holy crap that is annoying. Is there a way to pause all animated gifs in chrome? Congratulations, Bloomberg, you captured the essence of a Geocities site. This has to be a not so subtle graphic design joke.
I opened up Chrome Developer tools and added img { display: none } which hides everything but the top banner, which you can scroll past ;)
Re: The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo
#20I really want an Echo, I just can't justify the cost. And the cheaper options don't have the listening mode which nerfs the whole appeal.
I got early access to pre-order (can't remember why) at $99 and almost didn't do it. I'm SO glad I did. It gets used all day every day. I grab the last two eggs and say "Alexa, add eggs to the grocery list", hands are full of mess while cooking, "Alexa, set a timer for 5 minutes", etc. The fact that it works with my home automation hub is also nice, when I'm across the room and want the lights off, or want the garage door closed. I could live without it for sure, but it just makes things easier. The voice recognition, especially from far away is incredible. I don't have to yell, or say things exactly right (like in my car).
Knowing what I know now, I'd pay full price- especially with the new functionality and apps that get released every week it seems. I've even written a few of my own.
The speaker itself is just okay, we play music on it all the time for the kids, but there are way better Bluetooth speaker setups, so if that's your primary goal you won't be that excited.
If you can afford it and have a routine of any sort throughout the day where checking the weather, traffic, maintaining a grocery list (especially when you might not be the person going), getting a news briefing or listening to a podcast are part of it, then you'll find it useful immediately. If you don't, to get your money's worth, you'd want to start a routine of sorts.