121–130 of 378 posts
I also created a free skill for kids to hear the daily school lunch menu. Such a morning time saver! https://github.com/jeffsheets/alexa-papio-lunch-menu
But yeah it’s still mostly a hardware solution looking for a problem
Without genuine understanding voice is just a terrible method for control. I don't know what the options are or what exactly I'm supposed to say. Alexa is overly verbose too. The control feels very clumsy, though it's sometimes good enough. I am imagining GPT-4 on the other end with a suite of controls. If Alexa could understand what I'm talking about and all of the options available to it I think it would be a much…
Siri has always tried to be more conversational (though not by too much). But that’s also probably one of the reasons it hasn’t been as expandable.
Much easier to add skills (in Amazon parlance) when the command can be “tell Foo to bar the baz” instead of trying to intuit which app you want to use based on heuristics or something.
I won’t buy a taking wire tap again until they unlock profanity mode. I seriously want it to say “The next fucking movie time is 10 o’ god damn clock. You want the tickets or not bitch?” That would entertain me so damn much. Instead I get this sterile interaction that is ok-not-great and I can’t get the device to drop even one eff bomb. Lame.
I got Siri to say naughty things by careful instructive naming of my lamps and groups of lights.
After timers, the #1 use of Alexa in my house: 'make a fart noise'. We've tried to use Alexa for some games, like Jeopardy or Whose Line Is It Anyway, but it always is an incredibly buggy experience. Even just simple multiple choice games should work perfectly, and yet, a lot of the time even basic answers don't register, and the games themselves crash. I've always wondered - stupid mobile games are dominating video…
1. Set timer
2. Convert weird US fantasy units to sane ones
3. Play music
4. Control lights
5. Weather
6. No, I don’t fucking care about the notification of some shipment I already got on my phone and my mail.
Alexa devices are cheap. Seriously cheap. That is the main reason I have not replaced them with Rhasspy [0] yet.
so it's not just the metaverse that is bleeding money
I always viewed Alexa as Amazon's way of enabling future re-investment of profits. The second you show w-street profit, they want it to only ever grow with future dividends. Amazon's entire model is growth over all else. I've wondered if Alphabet's X/Waymo division operates in a similar manner. Giving future Alphabet a way to cut costs when it's growth stalls.
With Apple how long can the worlds biggest (or close, don’t know ATM) company keep growing?
So they’re doing user-hostile stuff like more ads and unnecessary subscriptions.
How many nice SaaS things had a perfect product bad had to pivot to enterprise just to find growth, ruining it in the process?
After timers, the #1 use of Alexa in my house: 'make a fart noise'. We've tried to use Alexa for some games, like Jeopardy or Whose Line Is It Anyway, but it always is an incredibly buggy experience. Even just simple multiple choice games should work perfectly, and yet, a lot of the time even basic answers don't register, and the games themselves crash. I've always wondered - stupid mobile games are dominating video…
Not surprised by this in the least.
But I am surprised it’s losing it this fast.
What problems should a sophisticated home assistant solve? It should curate and offer SOLICITED services; find me washer dryer, fridge, plumber, landscaper, house/pet sitter, house cleaner, mechanic... It should present these to me visually to choose from. It should remember and be ready to automate any subsequent request for the same service. This could be done via integrating with reputable third-party providers like Angie's list, thumbtack, google flights, aggregators... Alternatively, Amazon should build reputable service provider network itself. People need goods and services. Provide a path to solicit, opt-in to targeted curated offerings/ads. As important, provide the ability to opt-out when no longer necessary. Unsolicited ads are often inaccurate, invasive and damaging noise. Earned reputation and trust is gold.