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Amazon Echo

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Re: Amazon Echo

#621

Post by zan2434 »

The device is definitely not constantly listening and uploading to the cloud (or at least they certainly do not intend it to). This keyword recognition thing everyone is doing is to make interaction more intentional, reduce misrecognition, bandwidth consumption, and processing costs.

Keyword recognition is done locally on the device at minimal processing cost. Compared to actually recognizing your speech, it's trivial to determine whether or not something you said is a given keyword. It's rather like biometric confirmation vs. identification, where confirming whether a given fingerprint is that of a given individual can be done quickly and with a certain probability distribution but determining which of millions of fingerprints corresponds to the one provided is incredibly difficult/unreliable.

The more difficult task of recognizing what you say after the keyword is done in the cloud, but only once you've said the keyword. It would incur considerable cost for you and them to constantly record and upload all audio, especially with their parametric microphone array for sound localization/isolation.

The real concern should be the device's own security, because hacking the device and enabling constant recording would be very harmful.

Re: Amazon Echo

#622

Post by jfoster »

Someone1234 wrote: post #59
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #4

> With enhanced noise cancellation, Echo can hear you ask a question even while it's playing music. I read: "Our cloud servers can hear you, no matter what." It's a killer idea. It's too bad privacy concerns might lead it to an early grave.

I grow tired of this pathetic baseless fear mongering every single time anything is posted with voice control. You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case, as the website makes clear, you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening. If you had been paying attention to the mobile scene even a little bit you'd know that this is on-chip lis…

I agree with you about the NSA-related claims dominating the discussion too much, but your tone isn't nice. May I suggest that a better way of mitigating the dominance of the NSA-related discussion would be by making some top-level posts about other interesting aspects of the product?

Re: Amazon Echo

#623

Post by WesleyJohnson »

lectrick wrote: post #559

Every single example used in their advertising, verbatim, works on Siri (and presumably google phones) which is already in my pocket.

Verbatim? I just tried two off the top of my head. "Hey Siri, how do you spell cantaloupe?" and "Hey Siri, how tall is mount everest?" The replies were "The answer is cantaloupe" with an on-screen definition and "I've found an article on Wikipedia about that. Shall I read it?" In neither case were the answers succinct and on point as in the Echo ad.

Of course, that assume it will actually work as advertise. Also, unless I'm mistaken, "Hey Siri" requires your phone be plugged in. My phone is never plugged in unless I'm turning in for the night. I realize Echo has to be plugged in as well, but that is it's natural state, having my iPhone plugged in is not.

Re: Amazon Echo

#624

Post by delecti »

mamikonyana wrote: post #519
flanbiscuit wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - it can answer questions at the dinner table... that would be my biggest use for it, well that and as a speaker I guess. I really hope that I can swap out "Alexa" for the word "Computer" so I could feel like I'm one step closer to Star Trek

from the video: "..it only hears you when you use the wake word we chose..", so you can definitely chose "Computer" as your wake word

That doesn't necessarily mean that any word is an option, just that your set of options is larger than 1.

Re: Amazon Echo

#625

Post by mrinterweb »

jwallaceparker wrote: post #343

Watch the promo video again and pretend it's the first few minutes of a horror movie. A package arrives on the front porch. The family brings it in and opens it. It's Alexa. It's "for everyone," says Father. The next few days are blissful. Alexa integrates herself into the family. She is indispensable. How did they ever get by without her? Father rushes in from the backyard, "Alexa, how tall is Mt. Everest?" Alexa an…

I think you just wrote an episode of Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories.

Re: Amazon Echo

#626

Post by foxylad »

meepmorp wrote: post #367
stronglikedan wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we're being positive, I absolutely do not think Amazon would be stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot sending all recorded data up to the cloud. I'm certain that within a few hours of release, someone will have a network monitor hooked up. Their findings will be widely known almost immediately, and this thing would be dead in the water if they were sending everything up. They know this already.

There's no way this thing has the power to do adequate voice recognition on device for arbitray speakers and queries, even given a limited domain. It's sending everything to Amazon for processing. The only thing it probably recognizes by itself is "Alexa."

I'm guessing it's Android under the covers, and I believe that Google voice recognition is now processed on the device - so it might well be powerful enough to do the voice recognition without the cloud.

Re: Amazon Echo

#627

Post by jberryman »

tagawa wrote: post #610
jberryman wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enjoy: http://youtubedoubler.com/dOPY

Brilliant! Thank you. Off topic: And good to know about that site. I've always wanted to be able to match the space shuttle backflip with this music: http://youtubedoubler.com/dOSz

Beautiful

Re: Amazon Echo

#628

Post by gexla »

jwallaceparker wrote: post #343

Watch the promo video again and pretend it's the first few minutes of a horror movie. A package arrives on the front porch. The family brings it in and opens it. It's Alexa. It's "for everyone," says Father. The next few days are blissful. Alexa integrates herself into the family. She is indispensable. How did they ever get by without her? Father rushes in from the backyard, "Alexa, how tall is Mt. Everest?" Alexa an…

I'm going to get one, mod it into a Good Guy doll and change the "wake up" name to Chucky.

Re: Amazon Echo

#629

Post by unclebucknasty »

superuser2 wrote: post #537
hackuser wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people don't care because they're not culpable enough to feel paranoid. Maybe you didn't mean it literally but it's a popular expression in this context. I don't think a desire for privacy is paranoid; it is normal, healthy behavior. But to address the gist of what you say, I think you assume an understanding of data security that is far beyond most end users. How many even know what "metadata" means, or how '…

>I don't think a desire for privacy is paranoid; it is normal, healthy behavior. We on Hacker News spend our free time criticizing anyone we perceive as complicit in surveillance, bemoaning centralization, and championing Bitcoin and Uber for disrupting authority. To HN, a desire for privacy is literally normal: it is a social norm of this community. That doesn't mean that people outside this community do (or should)…

>That doesn't mean that people outside this community do (or should) care nearly as much as we do.

Part of the reason we care more is because we understand more.

But, in general, I think there is not nearly enough emphasis put on what's right vs. what people care about. That is, the former doesn't dictate the latter.

Re: Amazon Echo

#630

Post by treeform »

alphadevx wrote: post #44
treeform wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to read that line several times to make sure I was not missing some thing.

Sorry, I should have made my sentence clearer: as in you have a wife/daughter/friend/girlfriend in the room who happens to be called Alexa, along with this new Amazon device. Hilarity ensues ;-)

I mean their sentence on Echo's page. I totally got what you where saying.
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