Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser • Hacker News Board

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#31

Post by IshKebab » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:39 PM UTC

tchow wrote: post #21

IshKebab wrote: post #3

Yeah it's a clone of the trivial parts of the Echo, but not the difficult parts that are necessary to make it great, specifically: * Beamforming microphone array (this is a real clone: http://www.xmos.com/products/microphones ) * Wake-word / hot-word detection ("Ok Google", "Alexa", etc.) * Intent recognition / NLU

wow, that microphone array you linked costs USD$750! Are there any cheaper alternatives?

Not that I've found yet, but the actual hardware on that board costs something like $10-15, so someone could easily make one.

The high price is because it's a development board. (I think it's a silly to price development boards highly, but it is very common.)

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#32

Post by bazzargh » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #3

Yeah it's a clone of the trivial parts of the Echo, but not the difficult parts that are necessary to make it great, specifically: * Beamforming microphone array (this is a real clone: http://www.xmos.com/products/microphones ) * Wake-word / hot-word detection ("Ok Google", "Alexa", etc.) * Intent recognition / NLU

It does have wake word detection, and even has that code right there in the article. It matches on jarvis/nervous/service/travis as the first word in the phrase, because those are the words that get returned by the speech recognition when he says 'jarvis'.

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#33

Post by IshKebab » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:40 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #22

IshKebab wrote: post #3

Yeah it's a clone of the trivial parts of the Echo, but not the difficult parts that are necessary to make it great, specifically: * Beamforming microphone array (this is a real clone: http://www.xmos.com/products/microphones ) * Wake-word / hot-word detection ("Ok Google", "Alexa", etc.) * Intent recognition / NLU

I'm not sure why posters on HN are so eager to shit on other people's work. Maybe something to do with arrogance or insecurity (leading to a need to bash on others)?

I didn't mean to shit on it, only the disingenuous title.

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#34

Post by detaro » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:41 PM UTC

monteslu wrote: post #19

detaro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I interpreting it right that Pagenodes basically aims to be node-red, but in the browser?

The goals are similar. PageNodes does its best to leverage newer browser capabilites. WebRTC, WebUSB, SeviceWorker, offline support, etc.

Ok, so less "prototype in the browser, then offload to a server once it works", but more for local "app" type things? Interesting idea, has some limitations but also opens up tons of interactions that are harder for a server-based solution (webcam, ...)

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#35

Post by benlower » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:44 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #3

Yeah it's a clone of the trivial parts of the Echo, but not the difficult parts that are necessary to make it great, specifically: * Beamforming microphone array (this is a real clone: http://www.xmos.com/products/microphones ) * Wake-word / hot-word detection ("Ok Google", "Alexa", etc.) * Intent recognition / NLU

$750 for the mic?!? (http://www.xmos.com/buy?product=20258)

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#36

Post by samrocksc » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:51 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #34

monteslu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goals are similar. PageNodes does its best to leverage newer browser capabilites. WebRTC, WebUSB, SeviceWorker, offline support, etc.

Ok, so less "prototype in the browser, then offload to a server once it works", but more for local "app" type things? Interesting idea, has some limitations but also opens up tons of interactions that are harder for a server-based solution (webcam, ...)

Bingo! It's always evolving too. We do use a lot of experimental flags from the browser, this helps work with up and coming features as well for learning about new APIs very easily.

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#37

Post by givinguflac » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:55 PM UTC

AnkhMorporkian wrote: post #28

kayoone wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if true, not sure why you wrote such a snarky comment. This obviously is a side project of the author and just serves as an inspiration, it's not like he is asking money for it or anything.

I think it's probably because the headline called it a clone, which sort of implies 1:1 feature parity. It's neat, but it's not a clone.

There are plenty of "iPhone clones" that don't come close to feature parity, so it seems a bit picky.

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#38

Post by outworlder » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:55 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #3

Yeah it's a clone of the trivial parts of the Echo, but not the difficult parts that are necessary to make it great, specifically: * Beamforming microphone array (this is a real clone: http://www.xmos.com/products/microphones ) * Wake-word / hot-word detection ("Ok Google", "Alexa", etc.) * Intent recognition / NLU

I thought that "beamforming" only applied to actively emitting signals, so that the waveforms would cancel/reinforce each other, to get the desired "direction". I have no idea how that works for microphones. Google is not very helpful, I get lots of hits for products.

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#39

Post by xyience » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 6:57 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #31

tchow wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow, that microphone array you linked costs USD$750! Are there any cheaper alternatives?

Not that I've found yet, but the actual hardware on that board costs something like $10-15, so someone could easily make one. The high price is because it's a development board. (I think it's a silly to price development boards highly, but it is very common.)

I'm curious, how would you recommend they be priced?

Re: Jarvis: an Amazon Echo clone in your browser

#40

Post by Jaruzel » Thu, Apr 21, 2016, 7:07 PM UTC

This article is a bit out of my comfort zone (I'm not a web app developer), however it does link to a GitHub repository by Amazon, that I was unaware of, which shows how to configure a Raspberry Pi as an Echo clone in quite a lot of detail. This is something I can do and have bookmarked it for a rainy day. So for that alone, thanks for the submission!