11–20 of 46 posts
I choose Amazon for this because they are dedicated to it, it's a contributor to thei e-commerce business, and there is plenty of reason to believe they will still work a few years from now. I have no such belief with Google in this case, it's one hobby among many disconnected from their main business. It is search but not web search. I'm also building a snips.co device and am very interested in offline speach recogn…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the idea but I call foul at generalizing this result. > Google's artificial intelligence technology has a considerably higher I.Q. than Apple's Siri virtual assistant, This is device specific, and was done with phones, not home assistants. The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. This is also highly dependent on the quality of the microphone. Finally, I suspect both comp…
> The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. Other than some minor sound processing, does any of the assistant behavior on either Google Home or phones actually happen locally?
I choose Amazon for this because they are dedicated to it, it's a contributor to thei e-commerce business, and there is plenty of reason to believe they will still work a few years from now. I have no such belief with Google in this case, it's one hobby among many disconnected from their main business. It is search but not web search. I'm also building a snips.co device and am very interested in offline speach recogn…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like the idea but I call foul at generalizing this result. > Google's artificial intelligence technology has a considerably higher I.Q. than Apple's Siri virtual assistant, This is device specific, and was done with phones, not home assistants. The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. This is also highly dependent on the quality of the microphone. Finally, I suspect both comp…
> The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. Other than some minor sound processing, does any of the assistant behavior on either Google Home or phones actually happen locally?
This lets them use a model trained on their systems, but improve it with real usage on the device without needing to send the data back to google.
Essentially it's a private version of machine learning that doesn't need to send anything back to the server to still get most of the benefits.
I know Google is using it for their "smart replies" and I think in their keyboard app already on phones, so there is a chance they could be applying it more widely to some responses locally on the Home devices.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. Other than some minor sound processing, does any of the assistant behavior on either Google Home or phones actually happen locally?
I have no idea about the home, but Google has been "pioneering" (I don't actually know if they are a first here) "federated machine learning". This lets them use a model trained on their systems, but improve it with real usage on the device without needing to send the data back to google. Essentially it's a private version of machine learning that doesn't need to send anything back to the server to still get most of…
I choose Amazon for this because they are dedicated to it, it's a contributor to thei e-commerce business, and there is plenty of reason to believe they will still work a few years from now. I have no such belief with Google in this case, it's one hobby among many disconnected from their main business. It is search but not web search. I'm also building a snips.co device and am very interested in offline speach recogn…
Google has voice-based functionality pretty deeply embedded into Android - I really don't think it's going anywhere. By contrast, I chose a Google Home over an Alexa because I think Google is better at AI - I am consistently surprised by how many random questions the Home can answer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no idea about the home, but Google has been "pioneering" (I don't actually know if they are a first here) "federated machine learning". This lets them use a model trained on their systems, but improve it with real usage on the device without needing to send the data back to google. Essentially it's a private version of machine learning that doesn't need to send anything back to the server to still get most of…
I'm curious when this starts to matter. I would guess most normal, non tech, people just don't ask much of these voice devices now. Mostly asking them for countdown timers, weather, playing a song, and maybe a few other things. Not because the devices can't do more, but because the customer isn't expecting them to.
And some kind of "smart" parsing of voice is still required. I don't like having to say things a specific way to get the machine to understand them, and as the "smart" stuff gets smarter, it gets easier to use even for simple tasks.
Before I could ask "whats the weather" and get a generic answer, now I can ask "what's the weather tonight", "what time will it rain", "will it be really cold tomorrow morning", or even "what temperature is it in here" (asking specifically what temperature my indoor temperature is).
There is a TON of work that goes into getting all of that to work, but it's not really a "feature" you can point to easily, even though it makes the product significantly better than alternatives. And being able to do all of that without needing the extra latency of a round trip to a google server would be an improvement.
I choose Amazon for this because they are dedicated to it, it's a contributor to thei e-commerce business, and there is plenty of reason to believe they will still work a few years from now. I have no such belief with Google in this case, it's one hobby among many disconnected from their main business. It is search but not web search. I'm also building a snips.co device and am very interested in offline speach recogn…
I tried multiple times playing Alexa, it doesn't come close to Google Home's voice recognition capabilities.
Edit. Nope. However the latest software lets you change default audio device for media playback to a chromecast audio. That's halfway there - what I'd like is to redirect the entire audio stream (so spoken answers too!)
Alternatively, can we get a software update to add EQ on the google home? At moderate volumes my neighbours can hear the bass through the walls for a home :(
Is Google twice as smart as Siri? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/google-ai-has-almost-twice-t... I’m considering adding one of these to my family of iOS devices. Siri is cool when it works, but I’d like something a little better. That, and I won’t have to watch my watch, phone, and tablet competing to answer my questions. Finally, and most importantly, according to the article, Google appears to be improving the fas…
I love and use our 2 google homes on a daily basis, but they get significantly more useful if you are in google's ecosystem and have home automation. For me, i'd give a super rough guess at my usage like this: * 60% home automation (turning on and off lights when hands are full, ensuring doors are locked and garage door is closed, running "shortcuts" like "i'm leaving" which will lock up and arm the alarm in 5 minute…
I have no desire to automate my house (I can see why others do). I don't have a home alarm. I have one TV in the house for several kids.
The day planner/shopping list is good, but I pull out my phone instead and speak to it (when I press home button).
Finally, is everyone really comfortable having always-on listening in their home? The convenience/creepy ratio just doesn't seem prudent for me. It's amusing to see how privacy oriented HN is yet these devices are so popular here - they're an unaudited vector into your most private moments.