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Google Home

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Re: Google Home

#201

Post by vthallam »

narrowrail wrote: post #190
vthallam wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! I find it so hypocritical of people who seems to be extra careful about their personal information. I understand this makes sense for some people, but for most of the others, Google using your meta-data to show things which might interest you and by also helping you with great applications is cool. Not everyone wants to pay for things to get privacy.

You appear to be saying that people who value privacy are hypocritical because you want free stuff and do not care about privacy. I can't find the logic in your comment.

It's hypocritical because not all people who talk about privacy, pay for a good service!

Re: Google Home

#202

Post by manachar »

mbrock wrote: post #151
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…

The Free Software Foundation, in its texts, often uses the phrase "the free world" to mean the realm of computing without proprietary restrictions, surveillance, etc. Approximately since Snowden, I've become more and more convinced about both the fragility and the value of this free world. And today, I basically see the tech giants as colossal enemies. Career-wise, henceforth I will avoid proprietary systems and dedi…

Freedom has always been fragile and eagerly bartered away for perceptions of safety and prosperity.

Re: Google Home

#203

Post by slg »

atmosx wrote: post #125
slg wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a shady business, a nefarious government, or a malicious hacker and I wanted to eavesdrop on you, I would probably attack the vector that spends much more time by your side and can easily hide its data connections from you, e.g. your mobile phone. As long as these home automation devices ride on your own personal network, it is easy to monitor to what extent they are sending data back home.

whats the argument here? We shouldn't care about privacy because we have iPhones? we shouldn't tight the seatbelt wheb driving because we're going to die by cancer in the long run anyway?

My argument is that you should prioritize your worries and these devices are a lesser threats than phones. To use your analogies, I wouldn't worry about tightening my seatbelt or getting cancer if I am in the back of an ambulance on the way to the hospital for some other life threatening issue.

Or perhaps a better analogy, I wouldn't stress about keeping the windows of my home locked if I never locked my front door.

Re: Google Home

#204

Post by mbrock »

CaptSpify wrote: post #196
mbrock wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, people with experience in speech recognition, please chime in! Just the other day I was looking at CMU's Sphinx project for speech recognition. It seems quite capable, even of building something like this Google thing, but I haven't tried to actually use it. Large-vocabulary recognition probably needs something better than a Raspberry Pi... so, just use a more powerful CPU. Yes, Google has an incomprehensibly en…

I have an RPI running Sphinx. It's OK, not great. The biggest issue I have is that you have to pre-define commands.

Your own custom software based on Sphinx?

Is it PocketSphinx?

I was mostly interested in automated transcription, didn't look much at the live recognition stuff.

Re: Google Home

#205

Post by gkya »

protomikron wrote: post #173

Ok, controversial opinion: "[...] and manage everyday tasks" What exactly do we want to automate at home? I think this whole home automation and smart home stuff is complete bullshit. Obviously there are some nice things, like "play me song xyz", but IMHO it is completely oversold. There are just not that much things to automate at home. And this does not mean that I think 640K are enough memory for everyone.

- Keep geeky friends out of home?

I'm definitely not entering a room with this thing.

Re: Google Home

#206

Post by jvolkman »

ryan_lane wrote: post #188
ilogik wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you do, it can still record audio, and transmit it when you take it out

The carrier needs to remotely tell the device to enter into a special mode, so a faraday bag would be an effectively method to block this.

Until the next time you take it out of the bag to actually use it.

Re: Google Home

#207

Post by amelius »

mbrock wrote: post #151
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…

The Free Software Foundation, in its texts, often uses the phrase "the free world" to mean the realm of computing without proprietary restrictions, surveillance, etc. Approximately since Snowden, I've become more and more convinced about both the fragility and the value of this free world. And today, I basically see the tech giants as colossal enemies. Career-wise, henceforth I will avoid proprietary systems and dedi…

But do you think that free software can keep up against these giants? In the near future, it will all be about having large amounts of data, and processing power; it will be less and less about the actual algorithms.

I'm afraid the only way out will be to rethink the economy.

Re: Google Home

#208

Post by CaptSpify »

mbrock wrote: post #204
CaptSpify wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an RPI running Sphinx. It's OK, not great. The biggest issue I have is that you have to pre-define commands.

Your own custom software based on Sphinx? Is it PocketSphinx? I was mostly interested in automated transcription, didn't look much at the live recognition stuff.

It was pocketsphinx. Automated transcription would probably be pretty sad.

Re: Google Home

#209

Post by danellis »

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…

Does everything else in your house run open source firmware?

How does source being available tell you whether your device is secure? Are you auditing it, then building and installing the firmware yourself so you know that the binary matches the released source? Are you doing the same with the bootloader?

How far are you willing to take your paranoia?

Re: Google Home

#210

Post by danellis »

scrumper wrote: post #143
Analemma_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire keynote just keeps highlighting that one sentence from the end of Maciej's wonderful http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm "Yesterday ... I realized how long it had been since I looked at a new technology with wonder, instead of an automatic feeling of dread." EDIT: Speaking of Maciej, if you're not already following him on Twitter, today is the day to do that. He's having a field day…

He is a phenomenal writer. Just realized I've been reading him for well over a decade now.

Ah, you knew the dog before it came to school.
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