Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#201

Post by fallous » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:39 PM UTC

casper345 wrote: post #190

When I turn down the Alexa because of music but then I ask Alexa what is the weather, it is the same volume as down and I cant hear it. Then I have to say increase volume and then ask Alexa again. This is small but I think defines the missing design principle of Alexa. Yes I want the music to be low when Im doing active 1, but the introduction of new action of knowing the weather I need to hear it. These are the litt…

How is the device or software supposed to deduce your wants without your expressing them? How does it know what you can and cannot hear, and that you chose to turn down the music (rather than explicitly turn it off) because it was distracting to some other activity rather than because that was the optimal setting for hearing the music while not waking a sleeping baby in your arms? And when it decides to shout the weather rather than voice it at the same level of the music which results in waking the baby, how "smart" is that?

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#202

Post by dfinninger » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

enobrev wrote: post #198

analogmemory wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the kitchen part. Once I moved my google home (mini) into the kitchen it got more useful. * Setting multiple alarms (why can't apple do this??) * Conversions * Food questions I think it would be rad if I could feed it a recipe and then have it read me the ingredients and instructions for each step. Maybe that exists?

It can definitely read recipes, although I've only ever had it read me recipes I've found by voice. I don't know how to explicitly tell it the recipe I want. It's still kind of cool as it goes step by step, although that can be a bit buggy, especially if you're also listening to music, but i still use it from time to time

If I google "burger recipe" on my phone (Pixel), I get some cards of recipes for burgers. Each of the cards has a "send to google home" button.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#203

Post by noir_lord » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 9:25 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #189

mikepurvis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attempt to obscure the fact that it's actually super-targeted can also backfire too, though. It wouldn't take too many of them for a savvy user to be like... now wait a minute. Thinking back to this classic where Target figures out the trick to not creeping out someone they suspect may be pregnant is to shuffle the maternity coupons in with a bunch of other random stuff: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/…

Relevant quotes: What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance. “If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” [snip] So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons. The company can create personalized booklets; [sn…

> As long as we don't spoil her it works.

Sounds much closer to hunting, literally targeted marketing.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#204

Post by analogmemory » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

lancesells wrote: post #197

analogmemory wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the kitchen part. Once I moved my google home (mini) into the kitchen it got more useful. * Setting multiple alarms (why can't apple do this??) * Conversions * Food questions I think it would be rad if I could feed it a recipe and then have it read me the ingredients and instructions for each step. Maybe that exists?

> * Setting multiple alarms (why can't apple do this??) It launched without that ability but an update sometime last year lets you set multiple alarms.

Sorry that should have been timers. If I tell Siri to set a timer (while a timer is running) it still asks if I want to change the timer or leave it alone.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#205

Post by enobrev » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

dfinninger wrote: post #202

enobrev wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can definitely read recipes, although I've only ever had it read me recipes I've found by voice. I don't know how to explicitly tell it the recipe I want. It's still kind of cool as it goes step by step, although that can be a bit buggy, especially if you're also listening to music, but i still use it from time to time

If I google "burger recipe" on my phone (Pixel), I get some cards of recipes for burgers. Each of the cards has a "send to google home" button.

Works on my galaxy s8 as well, in Chrome at least. Great tip, thanks!

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#206

Post by zwkrt » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 11:05 PM UTC

taco_emoji wrote: post #146

zwkrt wrote: post #136

I was taking with a friend who said ,"people use Alexa like a toaster, we haven't found what this interface will be really good at" But what if it /is/ just a toaster? Tech people tend to have high hopes for technology but technology must serve a purpose and it will go the way of the dodo if the purpose of not strong or clear. For me, having a voice interface for music and calls is enough justification for such a dev…

I don't think it's enough justification--you can get a "dumb" bluetooth- or wifi-enabled speaker to hook up with the voice-enabled smartphone you already have in your pocket. The value proposition for an Alexa or Google Home has to be over and above that functionality.

I agree that the current solution is unfortunate, but most customers are seemingly blind to that or more generally demand seems inelastic to that aspect so I didn't address it.

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#207

Post by grkvlt » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 11:18 PM UTC

The problem seems to be there is no barrier to entry. Say what you like about Apple's app store, at least they have standards that are enforced, and to a certain extent Google as well. Windows, and the Microsoft app store, on the other hand, suffers the same problem of quality control and lack of curation as Alexa skills. There are some gems, and Amazon have put effort into making Alexa and the Echo devices useful out of the box with their default skills/commands. I've also never had issues with the smart home skills for various devices I have around the house. However, it's a telling statistic that there are over 50 'fart' skills, [0] half of which are rated at three stars or above.

And of course, although stricter curation and quality control would fix this, it would cut the number of skills down hugely, maybe even to 1% of the current size, so the app store looks tiny and people don't bother with the platform. See also Metcalfe's law [1] and network effects...

0. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=alexa+skill+fart&crid=2KFJ9DO3N51...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#208

Post by grkvlt » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

taco_emoji wrote: post #141

portmanteaufu wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. In a way, I think it's even worse than that. I've used Alexa since the Echo was a relatively new product. Back then, I experimented with new phrases and commands often, but was frequently greeted with wrong answers or "Sorry, I don't know how t…

These devices have a huge marketing problem. Like the Alexa commercial that shows somebody pausing a Prime TV show to order something from the Amazon store. Cool, I guess--except I can already order stuff while watching TV by using my smartphone, so the value proposition is completely absent.

And also, annoying for Echo device users, since the use of the word 'Alexa' will trigger the device, and thus mute/drop the volume so that you can't hear what is said next... I guess it could be worse, since the volume reduction means the device doesn't hear the command and try to execute it as well!

TBH, I don't understand why they couldn't add a circuit that checks if the microphone is being activated by the device's own speaker, and ignore it. Some sort of simple phase inverting circuit from the speaker that gets summed with the microphone input ought to do it. It's not exactly rocket science and they're doing complex phased-array/beam-forming stuff with the microphones already, so it's not like the engineers are idiots?

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#209

Post by grkvlt » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 11:55 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #131

sandworm101 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Hey, we know you tried to ask your Echo to report its volume level before and it didn't work This makes me shudder. Such a functionality would mean that they stored your failed request in some sort of database, a database that they later used to send you a personalized marketing email. A machine cataloging our voice for later inspection is a very dark future. Alexa should delete and scrub any iota of voice that i…

They are 100% storing everything and so is google. You can actually go to google and replay all the recordings they have saved of you.

Some of the recordings are unintentionally hilarious though, it turns out. When I looked at the history page, there were a bunch of times when Google seemed to think I was saying "b b b b b b b b b" repeatedly? Anyway, when I played the audio back, it seems my alarm clock's beeping had triggered the Google Assistant, which then obviously failed to understand the beeps!

Re: Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

#210

Post by xauronx » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 12:25 AM UTC

agrippanux wrote: post #137

I've written 15-20 Alexa apps, some public, most for running parts of my life / house. A big part of the problem for a long time with developing Alexa skills is that if you needed to know where the user was, having them enable location permissions was insane. It required the user to have the Alexa app installed (which almost no one does), then navigate 3-4 fairly technical looking screens and finally flip a switch. I…

The thing I’m missing is location within the house. If I’m in the bedroom I should be able to tell my bedroom Alexa “turn on the lights”, and the same for the kitchen Alexa. Having to repeat the same incantation over and over is frustrating.