Teach kids.
Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#42Here's a weird one that bothers me.
When Siri reroutes me because a faster route is available, describe to me what the old route was, what happened and what the new proposed route is.
Usually I have to pull over and review what's going on because it makes really dumb decisions.
Actually I guess if it navigated better that would be a better fix.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#43I really want a fully-featured podcast player that syncs with an app on my phone. I want to be able to manage subscriptions, ask about new episodes, play episodes at different speeds and generally use the kinds of features that the good podcast apps have.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#44There are lots of privacy issues involved, but it'd be cool if Siri/Alexa/Cortana/etc count respond correctly to something like "Remind I need to ask my brother about whatever the next time I see him", sort of a social-fencing rather than a geo-fencing.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#45A conversation should be able to establish a "Reference", as in a "frame of reference", and from that establishment a context for use of in-context words in the conversation. This would be similar to launching an app on the desktop, with the difference here being new audio cues and the end-user being able to use in-context technical or slang language in their vocal commands to the digital assistant. End-users should be able to create and package Frames of Reference and then share them, establishing shared communications (technical jargon, slang) within end-user communities. These Frames of Reference are additionally, and quite simply, Internet Of Things submissions that end-users personalize to their specific devices and interests. This effectively makes the voice enabled digital assistant the UI for the Internet of Things. I could even see the popularity of given Frames of Reference being proxies for marketing demographics.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#46There are lots of privacy issues involved, but it'd be cool if Siri/Alexa/Cortana/etc count respond correctly to something like "Remind I need to ask my brother about whatever the next time I see him", sort of a social-fencing rather than a geo-fencing.
No privacy issues involved for anyone using iOS "find my friends" or equivalent.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#47Use voice URLs.
A reverse specificity URL, the opposite of what we use for standard REST URL: action-object-domain. Then let apps register for actions and subsections rather than requiring platform-specific APIs.
I think I'll have this implemented by 2017Q1.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#48I would like to be able to tell any digital assistant enabled device in my home to "play latest episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency on the living room TV" and have it work. I feel like that's a very simple, minimal viable product, sort of request. Siri responds with "Hmm, I'm not finding anything for that." I'd also like to be able to ask "How many steps have I taken today?" Siri responds with "I can't…
I think the health one is just Apple being conservative when it comes to health data. I'm sure it's on purpose that they don't let the Health app talk to Siri directly. However, it would be nice if you could tell Siri to play an episode of a show on a specific TV, but I think they would want you to have an Apple TV for every TV in your home, not just one to control all of the TVs.
"Siri, close [app name]"
"Siri, open Google Maps and show a route to [location]"
"Hey Siri" on the Mac would be good. So would more interaction between devices - so I could set up an alarm on one particular device from any other device.
Cloud things are still clumsy from that POV. A lot more could be integrated.
My biggest (minor) annoyance is not being able to toggle switches.
I can say "Alexa, lights on" and "Alexa, lights off".
But I can't just say "Alexa, lights" and have the app read the current state and flip it - which is annoying because it would be efficient and useful, but also because it's so close, and yet so far, from living in a Star Trek TNG episode.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#49Use iCloud "Find my iPhone" to make my phone make a noise.
Re: Ask HN: What do you wish digital assistants (Siri, Alexa, etc.) could do?
#50In the next 5-20 years, I think "programming and IOT without screens" will allow pretty much anyone to do a lot of useful stuff on the computer without actually being present at one, or knowing the exact technical syntax for how to do it. "Please analyze the traffic from Y and let me know if there's any anomalous traffic regarding ISIS" --anyone "Please start a server on local port 8080 from my computer and serve all…
What is your reason to be scared?