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

Amazon Echo Look

amazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 328 posts

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#181

Post by cthalupa »

toddmorey wrote: post #35

The HN reaction to this device is what I expected: we're somewhere between suspicious and terrified. I'll be really fascinated to know how the wider market reacts. I was one of those who believed consumers would look at the always-on living room microphone with suspicion. But I think the lesson was pretty clear that people will trade privacy for convenience. (Likely an overabundance of trust or a lack of understandin…

> I was one of those who believed consumers would look at the always-on living room microphone with suspicion. But I think the lesson was pretty clear that people will trade privacy for convenience.

I don't think it's a matter of trading privacy for convenience, as long as you believe Amazon when they say they're not sending anything when you're not using the wake word.

All evidence points towards this being the case, both my own anecdotal evidence, and the investigations people have done.

Can it be exploited? I don't know. I'm not going to speculate.

I don't see any additional trade off vs. having my cell phone on me at basically all times.

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#182

Post by cyphunk »

Will add this video to the list of videos with overly "positive" music that grossly underestimate peoples suspicion. Others on that list: google glasses release advert, apple developers wwdc 2014 intro video

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#183

Post by mring33621 »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #61
xd1936 wrote: post #3

They've created a home internet-enabled camera, and decided to market it as... an AI fashion critic?

I'm just curious how the fashion advice works. Is there an active human component? Or is it purely ML based. I'll be quite impressed if ML can give meaningful feedback for the subtleties of what is considered flattering.

I would love if it were the aggregated opinions of randoms from Mechanical Turk.

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#184

Post by intoverflow2 »

Saw Benedict Evans comments on this:

>"Sensors plus machine learning replace keyboard/mouse/touch screen. Camera/microphone as control surfaces."

Feel consistently SV/VC types are overhyping and misrepresenting what is actually going on with products like this. The "Machine Learning" element of this is basically just speech detection (as is the case with almost all these assistant products) used as the equivalent of a wireless button or switch press.

Even in the video we still see users having to swipe away at screens to do anything beyond the button press. Feel SV/VC types are constantly misrepresenting these button presses as the coming of Iron Mans Jarvis when the reality is they're elaborate light clappers

I do think this is an interesting product but to hail it as machine learning replacing UI is disingenuous

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#185

Post by api »

toddmorey wrote: post #35

The HN reaction to this device is what I expected: we're somewhere between suspicious and terrified. I'll be really fascinated to know how the wider market reacts. I was one of those who believed consumers would look at the always-on living room microphone with suspicion. But I think the lesson was pretty clear that people will trade privacy for convenience. (Likely an overabundance of trust or a lack of understandin…

I'd put it more simply:

"Users don't care about privacy or security."

I put it in quotes because it's become a kind of catch phrase, and in practice I have found this to be largely correct. We've tried very hard to make our product secure, but users almost never ask about that. We have never been asked about the quality of our crypto by a regular user, and only once by an enterprise user. Users care about UX and cost, in roughly that order, and little else. This is even true of most enterprise users.

This is why security sucks. This is why everything spies on you. It's not a priority for anyone because it doesn't affect user buying behavior. The tiny minority who do care are not only too small to matter but also tend to be the kinds of "hackers" who like to DIY (and pirate) rather than buy things... making them doubly economically insignificant.

In the end the privacy issues around things like this will have to be fixed with legislation. We will need to effectively extend HIPAA regulations to cover all kinds of other personal data: passively recorded audio and video, location tracking data, anything more than the most superficial user logging, etc. Vendors will face a fine of $$$ per incident if this information is leaked, and sale and use of information will be strictly regulated.

As far as government surveillance goes: that horse left the barn over a decade ago, and that also can only be fixed in the legislature. The legislature must regulate intelligence agencies and police. If they don't, no amount of techno-fixing will limit the power of these agencies. They have larger budgets than you.

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#186

Post by ghobs91 »

I'm willing to bet this is their first step towards eventually being able to show you how outfits will look on you without needing to try them on. Thus eliminating one of the last remaining reasons people buy clothes at brick and mortar stores.

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#188

Post by drusepth »

goshx wrote: post #31
ganley wrote: post #25

I've looked at this pretty hard and concluded that, inexplicably, it is not an April Fools joke.

I had the same thought when they announced those push buttons for products. Unfortunately, the truth is that pretty soon you will be able to send nudes just using your voice.

Having the button to refresh my cat food/litter every month was absolutely awesome. I already bought the same kind every month on Amazon (they didn't have a subscription offer) so it was always awkward to remember to get back to a computer later to get on Amazon to buy more cat food when I noticed I was low -- being able to push a button to order more right then is surprisingly convenient.

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#189

Post by cthalupa »

non_sequitur wrote: post #162
Ajedi32 wrote: post #131

Okay, so even privacy concerns aside and assuming this works as well as they say, is there anyone who would actually find this sort of thing useful? I mean, I'm normally pretty open-minded about products like this, but I'm having trouble seeing the target market here. Are there really a significant number of people out there who want to be able to browse their wardrobe on their phones and get a computer to help them…

I don't think engineers are the target market for this product. There's a reason the models in the ad are all women.

Women can't be engineers? Male engineers can't be concerned about looks?

Re: Amazon Echo Look

#190

Post by untog »

Johnny555 wrote: post #126
i_cant_speel wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not usually recording you while you are changing.

How do you know? Amazon says their camera only records you when you ask it to, if you don't trust them, then how do you trust that your cellphone or laptop isn't recording you illicitly?

It's not even an issue of trusting Amazon. Or, just trusting their motives. You also have to trust their security on an ongoing basis, as your device could theoretically be compromised at any time.
Post reply on HN