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We will be retiring Alexa.com

support.alexa.com

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Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#241

Post by skinkestek »

Nextgrid wrote: post #238
skinkestek wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now: next to none. Before: anything. Everybody did it if they had the slightest reason if my observations were correct. Just like I remember Norwegians taking a sauna (those who had) with friends or family or showering before swimming or after exercise at school, nobody thought about the fact that they were naked between peers it seemed. Today every kid complains about showering at school and everyone are very secret…

Yes that was my point. When it was publicly accessible for everyone there wasn't a problem, but now that the information has to be explicitly requested (and the subject is alerted and provided the requestor's details) I was curious as to whether there were still any socially-acceptable reasons to request that info.

The only I can think of is journalism and similar.

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#242

Post by Maakuth »

nafey wrote: post #216
skinkestek wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an ex boss who at some time told me he used to look up names of ex employees to verify that none of them earned more after they left that company He paid decently, true, but givrn the way things developed (he had a couple of seriously toxic senior engineers) I'm happy to say that I went to 20-40% (depending on how you look at bonuses, in Norway that is a lot anyway) higher salary in my next job and have kept g…

Used to be? Is it no longer public?

In Finland the system is similar, but recently changed in a somewhat entertaining way. The tax office used to publish a summary list of highest earning individuals for media's benefit. Then some politicians got involved and demanded that you should be able to deny being on that list. So now they compile a list of people who have denied the tax office from listing them.

Turns out there's no legal grounds for keeping the other list secret, so the media gets a copy of that list through some sort of transparency request. They then ask the tax office for the income information for each of these people. So now the yearly "jealousy lists" are published with all the names just as before, but some names have an asterisk next to them, pinpointing that these people didn't want to be on the list.

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#243

Post by wegwij23oi23 »

Alexa is the worst tool ever and I'm glad it is closed now. According to their "ranking", my website is hundreds of times smaller than it is, just because my visitors don't install their cr a ppy browser plugin. Even random numbers will provide much better ranking than this garbage.

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#244

Post by newsbinator »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #183
newsbinator wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My “Hey Siri” triggers on the first attempt 25% of the time (neutral North American accent). I wonder if it’s a slow wake-from-sleep issue or something.

It works pretty much 100% here and I have a Dutch accent with Irish influences :) What kind of hardware do you use? Homepod or phone?

Old (supported) iPhone

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#245

Post by wannadingo »

Nextgrid wrote: post #233
Langdal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still public, but now it is behind a login, and people can see who has looked at their tax info.

Out of interest, what would be a socially acceptable reason to lookup someone's info?

To enable ones own salary negotiations as a rational economic actor (TM)?

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#246

Post by efreak »

afavour wrote: post #42
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also been a popular name for decades, http://www.ourbabynamer.com/Alexa-name-popularity.html . IMO, picking one of the most common US names for a voice assistant and then skipping the wake up phrase is dumb.

Yeah I have a friend called Alexa and it absolutely infuriates her. Can't say I blame her.

My Google home accepts being called a variety of things that aren't Google, possibly in order to accept different accents or slurring, possibly just because it's not very strict with exact sounds being used. I imagine this is actually a good thing if you're half asleep talking into the pillow, have an uncommon accent, etc.

- googoo - googah - guhguh - gulgul - doodle - doodoo - booboo - booble - ok gool (but not hey gool)

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#247

Post by efreak »

vidarh wrote: post #141
Retric wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just a question of being a friend or family members name name. It’s also easy for a YouTube video etc to accidentally include say “Alexia turn off the lights” as part of seemingly innocent dialog that nobody building it thinks is going to cause a problem.

It's been literally years since someone saying Alexa on a TV show or elsewhere have triggered my devices. Occasionally I've seen them switch to "listen", but they've gotten good at not reacting. I'm assuming part of it is that it's gotten very good at recognising who is speaking. E.g. my son and I tested the limits of it a while back by changing voices (it still correctly identified my son when he tried to change his…

I'm pretty sure this is exactly how Google does it (only matching voices on the keyword); my Google home will ignore anyone else saying "ok Google", however if someone's yelling at me from another room or talking on the phone in the hallway, it's impossible to get anything useful out of it; it'll activate on the keyword and start processing whatever the first sounds it hears (dinner's ready, ok, ok, ok; I'm leaving now; you've got a phone call; etc). Before I have a chance to tell it to pause my music so I can hear the person yelling, it responds to them, not me. Before I can ask for the weather, it responds to someone walking by on the phone that happens to say something just outside my door at just the wrong time (this happens often when you live with people working from home)

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#249

Post by 0x7E3 »

thatwasunusual wrote: post #220
nafey wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to be? Is it no longer public?

It's semi-public. Previously, up until 2010-ish?, newspapers etc. could ask for the public tax records from the government and make them searchable. Now that's not possible, but they are free to list the 10-50-100 richest people in each municipality, the sports people earning the most, the business mean with the highest wealth or lowest tax etc. Everyone can still look up individuals, though, but they have to log in…

Looking up random strangers seems like a fun hobby. "Who is this person, and why is she looking me up? Is it someone I worked with? Someone I should remember? Am I such a terrible friend that I forgot about her completely?"

Re: We will be retiring Alexa.com

#250

Post by kingcharles »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #177
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world suddenly makes sense doesn’t it?

No a world where TikTok is the #1 website makes no sense at all. Though I suppose it's the sewer of the internet so it has to be everywhere.

I would probably have made the same off-the-cuff comment before I signed up.

You can make the same comment about YouTube or Twitter, but it all depends on what content you ingest. TikTok's algorithm actually serves me incredible content that is both educational and entertaining and I thoroughly enjoy using the app.

(And I don't consider myself some sort of floozy - I've been using the Net since before the first commercial web sites appeared)

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