Amazon has in-house fashion lines. Think of the data! Clothing brands would kill for this sort of insight into what people are actually wearing.
Except not really, you can just look in the street or on the subway to see what people are wearing
Amazon Echo Look
211–220 of 328 posts
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#212Okay, 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.
There's just one man in the ad: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/d...
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#213The 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…
"(Likely an overabundance of trust or a lack of understanding of all the real implications and potential for exploit.)" I think that's a lot of it. People aren't trading privacy for convenience... people are taking convenience. It makes a lot more sense when you think of it that way. You can do an experiment yourself to show this; take 5 non-techie/non-HN people and explain to them exactly what this thing does and ho…
Totally off topic: Yeah so, about that 90% number... You you really think that is the best they can do?
I mean, 90% is pretty good for, like, dog food ads and car commercials, but with lives, a 90% true-positive rate is just garbage. Like, with all that terrific amount of data, are they still just doing T-tests, ANOVA, MW-U-tests? Like, what is their p-value, still 0.05? I know this is super stats-wonky for this thread, but I mean, come on, they have to have some super secret stats and mathy stuff that they are doing, right? Like, formulas and theories that are just really good. It's been, like, 15 years they have had this scale of data, and it's only growing, right? If so, nothing at all has been sent out to the academic community, which, for math theorems, is kinda hard to believe. I now signal-to-noise is super important for NatSec, but it's also super important for DrugDev.
But yeah, a camera that is meant to watch me dress and then order shit for me, that is a super no-no. It, like, actually gives me goosebumps.
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is everyone saying this is for insecure people? I'm also not the target audience for this, but I don't think people who are concerned about the way they look are inherently insecure.
Yeah, that's probably true. My bad. I am not insecure (I think !?!?) but it would be nifty to have Alexa tell me that "harshaw, those jeans you are wearing have a giant stain and you should get a clean pair out of the drawer".
I already have some built in sensors that let me know if there are stains on my pants.
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally I don't have anything pointing at me while I change, regardless of who's watching it. My phone at rest is either looking at the inside of my pocket or the ceiling/floor.
Then I'd bet you're not in the target market for a camera that can record you when you're trying on new outfits. But if you were, I'd be willing to bet that you have a laptop in your bedroom or phone-cradle that can hold your phone in a position to record you so you can instagram today's outfit to your friends.
Even if you're "in the market" for this (and not everyone filmed will necessarily be a buyer - e.g. spouses, kids, etc), it's still riskier to have a camera always pointed at you when changing clothes than one you usually have to purposefully point at you.
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#216I've looked at this pretty hard and concluded that, inexplicably, it is not an April Fools joke.
What's wild to me is that last year, it was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4l6TwhVAHo
Wow I did not come across this joke last year and now it has been implemented (partly) by their competitors. What a time to be alive.
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
"(Likely an overabundance of trust or a lack of understanding of all the real implications and potential for exploit.)" I think that's a lot of it. People aren't trading privacy for convenience... people are taking convenience. It makes a lot more sense when you think of it that way. You can do an experiment yourself to show this; take 5 non-techie/non-HN people and explain to them exactly what this thing does and ho…
Totally off topic: Yeah so, about that 90% number... You you really think that is the best they can do? I mean, 90% is pretty good for, like, dog food ads and car commercials, but with lives, a 90% true-positive rate is just garbage. Like, with all that terrific amount of data, are they still just doing T-tests, ANOVA, MW-U-tests? Like, what is their p-value, still 0.05? I know this is super stats-wonky for this thre…
"Totally off topic: Yeah so, about that 90% number... You you really think that is the best they can do?"
For the political parties specifically, yes, by the standard they care about. Remember how we're always talking about how the centrists generally end up with the deciding vote, and how the polls are oscillating around by ~10% in the several weeks leading up to the Presidential election? Those people themselves don't really know who they're voting for or whether they support the "correct" person, for any given definition of support, so it's a bit much to expect anyone else to accurately guess.
In the event of a true police state which gives you the choice of vigorous fealty or the Gulag I would expect they can go much higher and that the initial competent execution would be almost inescapable. (Over time it would decay due to various forces, but I can't put a very solid time frame on it... between 10 to 50 years to develop very serious holes in it, probably, but even 10 years is an awful long time.)
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#218A great many thinkpieces will be written about this, but let me beat someone to the punch: Foucault's Panopticism is the obvious tie-in. Usually when we talk about the Panopticon in the modern era, we're talking about mass surveillance or the performative act of social media. When we act in a certain (digital) way, posting this link, for example, we signal our values to the community. "You shall be known by your work…
Careful, you sound pretty individualist with all this "anti-groupthink" talk. You might lose your SV credibility.
SV?
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#219I'm not normally one to be creeped out by these kind of things. But this is a device that's designed to take photos and videos of you while you get dressed, and will be both connected to the internet and constantly communicating those images over the network. This feels like a device literature professors would use to teach dystopian fiction writing. edit: case in point - matthewmcg's comment https://news.ycombinator…
Just the first camera shot in that ad was already creepy as fuck.
Re: Amazon Echo Look
#220I'm glad to see Amazon trying things that are so obviously going to crash and burn. It's impressive that they're willing to take this level of risk.