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Amazon Says: "We're going to blur the backgrounds so your outfits pop" Amazon Does: "We're going to identify everything in our field of view, and filter this into the profile we've built about your possessions and interests to enhance our recommendations engine.
I'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…
I'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…
There's a lot of negativity here. And maybe all of you are right. But it would be interesting to think of the most positive , imaginary scenario: 1. Amazon builds the service such that brands loose their power. All the negative psych/social phenomena of brand culture are gone, and with it, btw , all the ads. 2. High security + physical on and off switch make for an improved privacy situation , especially if you consi…
Amazon Says: "We're going to blur the backgrounds so your outfits pop" Amazon Does: "We're going to identify everything in our field of view, and filter this into the profile we've built about your possessions and interests to enhance our recommendations engine.
Why is it not a good thing?
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…
Amazon says that my echo isn't recording me, and I just have to trust it. People have confirmed this to be true. Google says that my phone isn't recording me, and I just have to trust it. People have confirmed this to be true. I don't see a difference.
An Echo is an opaque, indivisible blob.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even trying to see this from an outsider perspective it seems like a stupid product. As someone else pointed out, they've replaced looking in the dang mirror with a multi-step process involving a few hundred dollars of tech at least. They made sure to throw in "cloud" and "machine learning", but the average consumer doesn't care about that.
Amazon has had great success with some of their stupid products in recent years. Maybe for you and I We just want to throw on some clothes and get out the door, but for some getting dressed is a ritual. They don't want less steps, they want more. I've had GFs who'll spend hours trying on different outfits. And the next logical step would be a virtual dressing room, that uses an augmented reality overlay of the sort w…
Hey, that was my old startup idea!
Also, I kind of wonder why this still isn't a thing; the technology for doing that cheaply has been around for at least 7 years[0], and just being able to quickly view many different outfits on yourself would be useful enough that even I (a totally fashion-oblivious guy) would consider using it.
Still, in a perfect world, such a thing would be implemented entirely locally (again, the tech required for doing that is old), with only clothes database being downloaded. This is exactly how this won't be implemented - it will instead send data to cloud for various anti-consumer, business-friendly reasons.
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