I really just want to be able to activate my devices' voice control by saying "Computer". Siri/Alexa/Google just don't have the same Star Trek ring to them ;)
Alexa's activation words: Alexa, Amazon, Echo, Computer. The last was added a couple months ago, I think.
And all of these are poor choices. My partner's name is Alex, I use Amazon and Computer all the time in daily conversations around the house, the only one that is semi-rare is Echo. Ideally it should let you choose any word.
Now imagine if they'd just put a tiny bit of soft white noise-ish ambience on low volume, and they might have had have a real, persistent hit on their hands. (I have started using an air purifier next to the bed to mask noise in the house and it really helps my sleep).
> soft white noise-ish ambience Pink noise, if anyone's looking. White noise sounds very sharp to me, and I get annoyed by it in few seconds. Pink noise, on the other hand, sounds a bit like sea waves on a beach to me, and I can listen to it indefinitely. A lifesaver at work, when I really need to concentrate.
Ah, yes, thanks for the correction. :) It does make a world of difference to me too.
Nobody is talking about conscious computers here. The issue is recorded conversions from your home being made available to the government: https://www.inc.com/joseph-steinberg/amazon-alexa-recordings...
This does not particularly concern me, as Alexa only transmits when you trigger it and stops transmitting soon afterward. If that's too much for you, I'm not going to try to change your preferences. All I'm saying is, I'm OK with a device that is constantly listening for a trigger, and I'm OK with a device transmitting messages at my request, but that doesn't mean I'm OK with advertisers attempting to exploit the dev…
> Alexa only transmits when you trigger it
You really only have Amazon's word that the only data transmitted is for that particular command. Unless you tap the transmission, you only have Amazon's word that it only transmits when triggered.
I guess this ruins my get-rich-quick scheme: 1. Publish an album with 1000 short, quiet tracks and a very unique name to all of the online streaming services 2. Buy ads on late-night television with a very clear voice that says "OK Google, play album . Alexa, play album . Hey Siri, play album ." 3. Rack up the fraction-of-a-penny residuals as my songs play to people who've fallen asleep with the television on!
I wonder if it's possible to trigger one of these smart speakers from its own output. If so, the last track on your album could be the command to "play album ".
They probably do echo cancellation, so it would be hard but maybe not impossible.
I guess this ruins my get-rich-quick scheme: 1. Publish an album with 1000 short, quiet tracks and a very unique name to all of the online streaming services 2. Buy ads on late-night television with a very clear voice that says "OK Google, play album . Alexa, play album . Hey Siri, play album ." 3. Rack up the fraction-of-a-penny residuals as my songs play to people who've fallen asleep with the television on!
A (very awesome) band called Vulfpeck actually ran an experiment where they released an album called "Sleepify" that contained then 30 second silent tracks and asked all of their supporters to stream the album on repeat nightly. Their idea was to do this long enough to be able to fund a free tour. If I remember correctly, they ended up netting like $35,000 or something from this before Spotify removed the album.
They could just make a regular album or something cheap (call it "ambient") and just play it with the volume to 0.
Your tolerance for douchebaggery is much higher than mine if you think this is cool even the first "attempt".
I don't think it's a smart move by BK, but it's pretty cool from a marketing hack perspective.
It's not even original - people have been doing this independently since the services came out, and I'm pretty sure there were some adverts accidentally-not-accidentally tripping the behavior just a couple of months ago.
It was bone-headed. The best they could hope for was to vaguely amuse someone the first time the ad came up. But what about the second , third, or tenth time?
Isn't this technically an unauthorized use of my device?
I don't necessarily agree with this argument but... it seems that by intentionally purchasing and installing in your home a device explicitly designed to respond upon hearing the phrase "OK, Google, ..." one could argue that you have authorized it to do exactly that. Perhaps you didn't intend or expect it to be co-opted by a Burger King commercial, but "unauthorized use" (in the legal sense) might be a bit of a stret…
I don't have data on this, but my hunch is that most buyers of a Google Home device weren't driven to the purchase by a deep-rooted desire to speak the words "OK Google" to a device - they probably wanted a device that they can give voice commands to fulfill their tasks. That the command mechanism includes the phrase "OK Google" and incidentally takes commands from everyone are implementation details but probably not the intention of the customer. As such, I thing this does qualify as unauthorized.
Alexa's activation words: Alexa, Amazon, Echo, Computer. The last was added a couple months ago, I think.
And all of these are poor choices. My partner's name is Alex, I use Amazon and Computer all the time in daily conversations around the house, the only one that is semi-rare is Echo. Ideally it should let you choose any word.
Ideally, sure. That's far from the only thing that's non-ideal about an Amazon Echo, though. The person I was responding to was interested in using "computer" as their activation word.
When someone shows me their new Alexa or Google Home, I ask it to add ingredients to make thermite in to its shopping cart. Then I ask it to look up flights to Syria.
I like the cut of your giblets. Sadly, most HNers have a large, dull, splintery stick up their ass.
FYI a Burger King marketing exec modified the entry on Wikipedia to be more "Ad-like", initially using the name, "Burger King Corporation" before that was banned for having a promotional name. Then the ad guy came back using his online screenname, and re-added the promotional introduction before it was reverted several times (along with an author from The Verge editing it, probably the edit that changed the wording t…
Burger King needs to look at Wendy's to see how to win at marketing: http://fortune.com/2017/04/11/wendys-chicken-nuggets-teen-tw... http://www.boredpanda.com/funny-wendy-jokes/ (Although in reality I expect if another company tried to pull this off, it'd backfire horribly.)