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Amazon Echo Show

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Re: Amazon Echo Show

#131

Post by [deleted] »

obstinate wrote: post #125
uptown wrote: post #93

“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugge…

Kneejerk Orwell quote referencing minor advance to existing technology: check.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#132

Post by sgift »

uptown wrote: post #93

“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugge…

The joke's on us. Not even Orwell thought people would be willing to pay for that kind of technology. He thought government would have to force people to get it into their homes.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#133

Post by curun1r »

mikeash wrote: post #90
eclipxe wrote: post #21

People are missing this: "With the Alexa App, conversations and contacts go where you go. When you’re away from home, use the app to make a quick call or send a message to your family’s Echo. Alexa calling and messaging is free—to get started download the Alexa App." Alexa is now in the messaging and communication game. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-...

Are we ever going to see unity between these services, or are we doomed to have little walled-off fiefdoms forever? A phone number works anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, with anyone who has a phone. All e-mail providers work with each other. I don't care who you're with, and I wouldn't even have to know except it's usually part of the address. SMS works no matter which provider we both have. It feels…

FWIW, email only sorta interoperates...try running your own mail server and unless you get all the elements of server reputation exactly right, your email will probably not get delivered to people using the large email providers. Thanks to spammers, we've allowed our open, interoperable standard to be much more closed.

And SMS is also frustratingly non-universal. After years of having cell service with one of the large providers, I switched to Fi last year since I was going to be out of the country a lot. The biggest annoyance has been most short code SMS not working. Each SMS shortcode is only supported on a provider-by-provider basis.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just pointing out that even your examples of open, interoperable protocols are instances where we've traded some of that open interoperability for convenience.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#134

Post by silvanojr »

I was battling back and forth FOR A MONTH with their skill certification approval team for a skill update that would allow customers to call people by name, where in the first version it was only by phone number.

They would fail the certification because apparently people didn't know how to test, or used fake numbers to make phone calls and complained the call would not connect, or the certificate validation (that was working before) would fail, etc. All sorts of things. VERY frustrating process. I wouldn't make any change, submit the skill again for certification and get different results.

Now they announce their own calling feature, a week after finally approving our update.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#135

Post by NegativeLatency »

smacktoward wrote: post #113
problems wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDMI-CEC allows similar on most modern TVs. As for not being tied to where you have a TV, for $200 you can buy a 40"+ 1080p TV, for $100 you can have a really nice IPS 22" 1080p monitor. Probably better than this tiny thing.

The moment you tell people "for this to work you have to go buy something else separately," you lose a huge chunk of potential sales. People don't want to do the work of figuring out what specific model of something else they need, where they have to go to get it, etc. Even if you put the something else on the shelf right next to your thing, the added cognitive load will turn lots of people off. Build the other thing…

Did you click through and see the offers to bundle security cameras and other IOT products?

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#136

Post by untog »

lsaferite wrote: post #81
Nullabillity wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... why? Presumably everyone who would even consider buying this already has a computer at home, which does that better anyway.

There is a large space between sitting at my computer and talking to my wife in the grocery store vs. sitting on the couch and talking to my wife in the grocery store.

Is it not a space filled by your cellphone?

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#137

Post by jerf »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #127
noonespecial wrote: post #75

Why does it have to be a tiny self contained screen? Until I can say "Alexa, on the main view screen" (right after "Alexa, Earl Grey, hot" of course), we've got progress to make. Which reminds me, I've got a Keurig to hack...

Ok Google, show me Futurama from Netflix on living room. Ok Google, fast forward 27 seconds. As soon as they get the ability to play specific episodes (it knows what you're asking, it just can't do it yet) and hook it up to the knowledge graph? Ok Google, show me the Futurama episode where Hermes loses his job on living room.

The Friends episode naming scheme is going to look extra prescient in the future, since they all (with rare exception(s)) are called "The One With [2-6 word summary of the episode's A plot]": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Friends_episodes

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#138

Post by criley2 »

obstinate wrote: post #125
uptown wrote: post #93

“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugge…

Kneejerk Orwell quote referencing minor advance to existing technology: check.

Yeah Orwell was all about heavy handed government oppression, not willing consumer behavior. This is more Huxley (check another box, the Huxley vs Orwell comparison).

At any rate, the quote would be better served when discussing Snowden style revelations, because we know for a fact that people in the US security apparatus could (and did) abuse their ability to spy on the internet behavior of everyday American citizens without due process.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#139

Post by lowtolerance »

tetrep wrote: post #27

I don't see the value in this over a tablet with a stand. The tablet is portable, can do more things, and already exists in many people's homes.

A tablet can do a lot of things that this can't, but your tablet's microphone can't reliably recognize speech at normal volume from a few feet away, let alone from across the room.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#140

Post by [deleted] »

eclipxe wrote: post #21

People are missing this: "With the Alexa App, conversations and contacts go where you go. When you’re away from home, use the app to make a quick call or send a message to your family’s Echo. Alexa calling and messaging is free—to get started download the Alexa App." Alexa is now in the messaging and communication game. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-...

[deleted]
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