Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Home

home.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 468 posts

Re: Google Home

#151

Post by mbrock »

cheald wrote: post #19

When I was younger, I dreamed of something like this. Voice control for my home! A Star Trek computer that I can interact with conversationally! I just say what I want and it happens! Now, I just see an internet-connected microphone in a software black box which I can only interpret as a giant frickin' security liability. I want this, but unless it's open source top-to-bottom, I won't ever actually put one in my home…

The Free Software Foundation, in its texts, often uses the phrase "the free world" to mean the realm of computing without proprietary restrictions, surveillance, etc.

Approximately since Snowden, I've become more and more convinced about both the fragility and the value of this free world.

And today, I basically see the tech giants as colossal enemies.

Career-wise, henceforth I will avoid proprietary systems and dedicate myself to working on privacy-enabling free software, even if I make less money.

Many people in the free software movement have had more foresight and ethical intelligence than me, and I salute them! It's only recently that I'm able to start formulating my techno-political views in a coherent and strong way.

Now, looking at a device like this, I automatically compare it to something like a tractor or plow. It demands constant connectivity to Google HQ... it's full of secret code... it requires, for its basic paradigm, a private company's acquisition of staggering amounts of surveillance... and so on.

When I think about what to work on, a guiding question for me now is "What would Google not do?"

I look forward to contributing to the free world!

(Sorry for this quasi-manifestoish tone...)

Re: Google Home

#152

Post by palebluedot »

dragonwriter wrote: post #140
cheald wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. And I recognize the hypocrisy of that. I think the difference for me is that my phone isn't a permanent fixture in my house - it's not explicitly a surveillance device. Echo/Home are explicitly audio surveillance devices, though ostensibly benevolent in their design. I can stick my phone in a Faraday bag easily enough if I want to. I guess what it comes down to is that while I recognize that I sacrifice a measu…

> I think the difference for me is that my phone isn't a permanent fixture in my house - it's not explicitly a surveillance device. For most people, its a permanent fixture on their person: people these days leave their home more than they leave their phone. > Echo/Home are explicitly audio surveillance devices, though ostensibly benevolent in their design. Echo/Home are no more explicitly audio surveillance devices…

One key difference is power consumption, and to a lesser extent, data consumption. It is not practical for your mobile phone to continually spy on everything you say, due to battery issues; however, it can listen for a keyword to wake up to, and then do the more high-powered voice recognition. So the scope is limited, or you will just have a dead phone in your pocket (which, of course, will also not be listening to you).

With something like Echo / Home, the always-on power source makes it technologically feasible for it to always be listening to you as well, without needing to wake up to a keyword. Now, they may as a feature only start processing based on a keyword, but you don't have the "comfort" of knowing that it is technological limitation rather than a software decision that may or may not be in your control.

Re: Google Home

#154

Post by jimbobimbo »

politician wrote: post #102
Analemma_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire keynote just keeps highlighting that one sentence from the end of Maciej's wonderful http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm "Yesterday ... I realized how long it had been since I looked at a new technology with wonder, instead of an automatic feeling of dread." EDIT: Speaking of Maciej, if you're not already following him on Twitter, today is the day to do that. He's having a field day…

Link?

https://twitter.com/Pinboard

Re: Google Home

#155

Post by eridius »

jff wrote: post #21
cheald wrote: post #19

When I was younger, I dreamed of something like this. Voice control for my home! A Star Trek computer that I can interact with conversationally! I just say what I want and it happens! Now, I just see an internet-connected microphone in a software black box which I can only interpret as a giant frickin' security liability. I want this, but unless it's open source top-to-bottom, I won't ever actually put one in my home…

You probably have on in your pocket already, is the thing. (I agree though, I don't want this in my house, and I turned off the "Ok Google" functionality on my phone)

I don't know about Android (though I assume it works the same way), but iPhone's "Hey Siri" is done entirely on-device, so until you activate Siri, nothing you say is sent to a server.

Re: Google Home

#156

Post by mbrock »

scrollaway wrote: post #149
TeMPOraL wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only two wishes: > Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... That's one. The second one is, please make it self-hosted. No cloud bullshit. I know I'll probably never live to see the second one coming true.

How would you make it self-hosted without making it suck? High quality voice recognition in a small box doesn't seem to be a thing that's even remotely possible today, let alone the query processing and knowledge database that comes with it. You could build this on a pi with a mic, speakers, some foss stt and tts engines and some basic training data. But it'll suck.

Hey, people with experience in speech recognition, please chime in!

Just the other day I was looking at CMU's Sphinx project for speech recognition. It seems quite capable, even of building something like this Google thing, but I haven't tried to actually use it.

Large-vocabulary recognition probably needs something better than a Raspberry Pi... so, just use a more powerful CPU.

Yes, Google has an incomprehensibly enormous database of proprietary knowledge and information. Good for them! If we want to build a home assistant that doesn't depend on Google, we'll have to make tradeoffs. That doesn't mean it has to suck.

Re: Google Home

#157

Post by __jal »

cheald wrote: post #19

When I was younger, I dreamed of something like this. Voice control for my home! A Star Trek computer that I can interact with conversationally! I just say what I want and it happens! Now, I just see an internet-connected microphone in a software black box which I can only interpret as a giant frickin' security liability. I want this, but unless it's open source top-to-bottom, I won't ever actually put one in my home…

Ditto.

Until I can set the endpoint this thing talks to[1], It ain't living on my LAN.[2]

[1] This, of course, implies an open source server I can host as well.

[2] Maybe it is just me, but I choose to leave my phone at home fairly often. It is a bit of a luxury for me, and I find I enjoy the feeling when I'm not contactable. Things like this are closer to furniture, and don't take an affirmative "opt-in" (like taking your phone with you) to be functional in their role. So when my brother's kids come over, I'm opting them in. When a visitor is wondering around half-awake looking for the coffee, I'm opting them in.

I realize some others seem to feel that this is identical to cell phone surveillance (but if so, and if you always have your phone, why bother with this?). I don't, and I'm not alone. The law recognizes major distinctions between 'home' and 'not-home'; I mention this only as a demonstration that the distinction is a clearly rooted one for a lot of people.

Re: Google Home

#158

Post by Roritharr »

I love how they put the LG MusicFlow Speaker on the Home presentation. I've been suffering that malpurchase for about a year now. I can rely on it not working 70% of the time, seemingly crashing, creating a mesh wifi although plugged into ethernet or attached to my home wi-fi...

If they can't get the third party vendors to get their Google Cast integration up to the reliability level of a Chromecast Audio, they should stop supporting this.

Re: Google Home

#159

Post by ilogik »

ryan_lane wrote: post #148
cheald wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. And I recognize the hypocrisy of that. I think the difference for me is that my phone isn't a permanent fixture in my house - it's not explicitly a surveillance device. Echo/Home are explicitly audio surveillance devices, though ostensibly benevolent in their design. I can stick my phone in a Faraday bag easily enough if I want to. I guess what it comes down to is that while I recognize that I sacrifice a measu…

Cell phones aren't allowed into classified environments in US government buildings because they can be remotely turned into listening devices without the owner's knowledge. There's been guidance on this for a long time. The cell phone in your pocket is definitely a surveillance device. Let's be real. You don't keep your phone in a Faraday bag and you probably never will.

Even if you do, it can still record audio, and transmit it when you take it out

Re: Google Home

#160

Post by TeMPOraL »

scrollaway wrote: post #149
TeMPOraL wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only two wishes: > Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... That's one. The second one is, please make it self-hosted. No cloud bullshit. I know I'll probably never live to see the second one coming true.

How would you make it self-hosted without making it suck? High quality voice recognition in a small box doesn't seem to be a thing that's even remotely possible today, let alone the query processing and knowledge database that comes with it. You could build this on a pi with a mic, speakers, some foss stt and tts engines and some basic training data. But it'll suck.

Ten years ago I played with Microsoft Speech API - which was completely off-line and trained off your voice. In restricted grammar mode, it worked flawlessly - I built a music control application on it, and utilized it like you would use Amazon Echo - I just said "computer, volume, three quarters" from any place in the room, and the loud music turned down a notch. Etc. That was ten years ago, with a crappy electret microphone I soldered to a cable myself and sticked to my wardrobe with a bit of insulating tape.

I'm not buying you couldn't make a decent, self-contained, off-line speech recognition system. Sure, it may not be as good as Echo or Google Now (though the latter does suck hardly at times, it's nowhere near reliable to use, and it doesn't understand shit over a quite good and expensive Bluetooth headset). But it would be hackable, customizable. You could make it do some actual work for you.

Oh, and it wouldn't lag so terribly as Google Now does. Realtime applications and data over mobile networks don't mix.

Post reply on HN