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Google Home

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Re: Google Home

#91

Post by DrPhish »

timpark wrote: post #24
cheald wrote: post #19

When I was younger, I dreamed of something like this. Voice control for my home! A Star Trek computer that I can interact with conversationally! I just say what I want and it happens! Now, I just see an internet-connected microphone in a software black box which I can only interpret as a giant frickin' security liability. I want this, but unless it's open source top-to-bottom, I won't ever actually put one in my home…

An open alternative seems to be https://mycroft.ai/ (I heard about it a while back, but I didn't back it so I haven't read the latest updates)

That's a step in the right direction, but I won't be adopting any similar tech until it can be self hosted (and preferably live on a non-routable vlan, maybe with proxy access to white-listed websites)

Re: Google Home

#93

Post by arien »

balls187 wrote: post #15
free2rhyme214 wrote: post #10

Competition against Amazon Echo is always positive for consumers.

Yes, except I trust Google FAR less than I trust Amazon--simply because Google has permeated in many more facets of my digital life (gdocs, gmail, chrome, maps, search, etc). Amazon just has my shopping history.

There is a lot that can be extrapolated from your shopping history, more than you think (e.g. if you've got a new house, a baby, if you have health problems, if you're a geek, if you like drinking or not...). And it's not just your shopping history that gets saved. It's your searches (whether you purchased or not), whatever links you searched/clicked to get to Amazon, your wishlists, and so on.

This can be said for any website or app you visit regularly. How deep they go and whether they act on this data or not is in question, but Data Analyst positions are becoming increasingly popular for a reason.

Re: Google Home

#94

Post by mod »

dmritard96 wrote: post #23

I think the most interesting thing in the echo and now google home narrative is that these are subsets of phones. Speakers, microphones and internet connections with only two substantial differences - they are powered 100% of the time and they have better speakers/acoustics. It will be interesting to see if those are substantial enough to overwhelm the obviousness of doing these through the phone in your pocket.

I've toyed around a bit with making a phone very capable with voice commands and it's not easy. Lots and lots of tinkering.

I would love for there to be something out there akin to what echo has, with programmable skills, and hopefully able to put things onto a chromecast. I would have a lot of fun tinkering with that.

Re: Google Home

#95

Post by grownseed »

The page linked here is basically an ad with no content (yet it manages to have a scrollbar no matter the window size...). Tried to look for actual specs but couldn't find anything, does anybody have anything more substantial?

On another note, is there a way to just get some sort of remote microphone array (I think that's what it's called on the Echo) and set up Alexa/Google/Cortana/... directly on a PC?

Re: Google Home

#96

Post by heptathorp »

lazyjones wrote: post #51

What's the business model for Google Home? Will it suddenly splurt out an advertising message in the middle of the night, or will it rather include subtle product placements in otherwise harmless answers? Remember, it's made by a company that thinks it's appropriate to put text ads on the first spots of your search results, in increasingly confusing ways.

The business model is they sell the device.

Re: Google Home

#97

Post by mod »

Grazester wrote: post #71
romanovcode wrote: post #17

Haha, no thank you. i don't want google to listen to everything I say in my house. Next thing you know it's going to tell me is "Smith! Put more effort in those crunches!".

You say that like its a bad thing. I busted my back yesterday at the gym with improper form on a dead lift. If I had some kind of assistant watching me to correct my form then I would not be eating pain killers now trying to get an appointment to see a doctor all while having tingling sensations in my feet.

The difference is requesting it or not.

You should probably work with a trainer until your form is correct.

Re: Google Home

#98

Post by sickbeard »

Remember when voice commands for your computer came out? It was cool but nobody talks to their computer. They won't be talking aimlessly in their kitchen either.

Re: Google Home

#99

Post by angryasian »

darawk wrote: post #77
angryasian wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets stop this nonsense. They don't sell access to your personal information. There is nowhere that I can buy your personal information from google. What they sell is access to your attention. When advertising, I'm looking for people that match these characteristics, and what I'm purchasing is the possibility to show you an ad if you match certain criteria.

That doesn't mean that they don't collect that information, however. They collect it, and then they use it to target ads at you. A simple, plausible way this might invade your privacy in a meaningful way is that your home conversations will start being factored into the ads that your shown. Knowing this about Google, I can infer based on the ads shown to you, to some extent, what you are talking about in private. Gra…

I don't understand this. Every company collects personal information. How do you think itunes delivers recommendations to get you to buy more music you like ? Yes just about every single company you use is collecting information on you and using it some way that benefits them.

Re: Google Home

#100

Post by koolba »

mevile wrote: post #59
koolba wrote: post #42

RFP - Request For Project 1. Train Google Home to recognize Amazon Echo's voice as its owner. 2. Train Amazon Echo to recognize Siri's voice as its owner 3. Train Siri to recognize Google Home's voice as its owner 4. Kick start some kind of endless loop between the three of them.

Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either. My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have completely different voices and we use it without problems.

> Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either. My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have completely different voices and we use it without problems.

By owner I mean the voice that it's trained to respond to (not in an authentication sense). See [1] and [2].

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

[2]: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/83995/20150913/ios-9-inclu...

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