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The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

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Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#231

Post by criddell »

afpx wrote: post #157
JulianRaphael wrote: post #121

Very revealing discussion. Most of the participants just argue about Amazon vs. Google here, some fear surveillance, some consider the devices useless, a few want to understand if the HN crowd finds it useful. This is something I notice here on HN in product-related discussions more and more: people just say what THEY think about product X (typically a negative opinion or complaint), rather being creative, constructi…

None of my closest 100 friends and family bought either product, which is very strange given our technology backgrounds and the products’ apparent popularity. A good friend who works in IoT sort of considered it, but then ultimately became unmotivated because she doesn’t yet see the usefulness of consumer IoT. My guess is that most buyers are much younger than me. Perhaps they seek to be early adopters like I once di…

We bought our first Echo earlier this year and when we went through the configuration were very surprised to see how many of our friends and relatives popped up as contacts for the voice-call feature. None of these people are under 40.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#232

Post by sailfast »

dopamean wrote: post #208

Are there any assistants that aren't connected to the web? Or at least aren't by default. Here are some things I'd love to be able to do that don't need the web. Set a timer Set a reminder for something in X minutes Take a voice note Create lists (maybe could be pushed to phone via bluetooth) Maybe some home auto stuff I imagine most of this stuff could be shared to my phone via bluetooth if I needed it on the go (li…

I believe Julius and PocketSphinx do not require internet connections and may be able to perform some of this stuff if you were running your own server: http://jasperproject.github.io/documentation/configuration/#...

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#233

Post by bsenftner »

untog wrote: post #126
dilap wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having to say "OK, Google" instead of just "Google" (or "Alexa") is a deal-breaker. Google's products don't feel like they are designed by humans.

I feel the exact opposite. "Alexa" feels like a very clunky attempt to humanise something that isn't human.

My first reaction was "a Russian name?" That's curious...

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#234

Post by throwaway9980 »

toyg wrote: post #160
JulianRaphael wrote: post #121

Very revealing discussion. Most of the participants just argue about Amazon vs. Google here, some fear surveillance, some consider the devices useless, a few want to understand if the HN crowd finds it useful. This is something I notice here on HN in product-related discussions more and more: people just say what THEY think about product X (typically a negative opinion or complaint), rather being creative, constructi…

> Why do you think millions of people bought an Echo Dot or a Google Home? Duh, because this has been the holy grail of personal computers since forever: you ask and computers do, no questions asked, no training, nothing. It's having servants without the pesky societal thing. In any scifi story ever there is something like that. It's the first time it really feels like AI dreams are getting real. Interpreting speech…

Servants?

Alexa, wash the dishes! Alexa, change my kid’s diaper! Alexa, pickup my kid from school! Alexa, vacuum the living room! Alexa, take out the trash!

She can’t help me with any of that.

I guess everyday people need to have lower barriers to interacting with computers, but I’m good. I like to read HN the way I would have read the newspaper. I listen to some podcasts the way I would have listened to the radio. Beyond that I don’t have much non-professional use for computers.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#235

Post by francisofascii »

As a Star Trek fan, it is pretty cool. I would not have bought it if "Computer" was not a wake word option. I showed my young girls a few clips from TNG when Geordi is asking the computer to play music and dim the lights. The experience is pretty similar. Aside from that, playing music and podcasts is how we use it. It beats having to find the song you want on a phone.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#236

Post by illumin8 »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #186
JulianRaphael wrote: post #121

Very revealing discussion. Most of the participants just argue about Amazon vs. Google here, some fear surveillance, some consider the devices useless, a few want to understand if the HN crowd finds it useful. This is something I notice here on HN in product-related discussions more and more: people just say what THEY think about product X (typically a negative opinion or complaint), rather being creative, constructi…

> "Why do you think millions of people bought an Echo Dot or a Google Home? Not from YOUR perspective, but from the perspective of millions of people that seem to see value in this product?" I have no problem with the product category Echo Dot and Google Home sit in, and can see why they make interesting gifts, my only issue is with the surveillance aspects of these devices. Why do I think people bought them regardle…

Night and day difference. With Google glass, you're bringing a stealthy, concealed video camera into public spaces like restrooms, where the guy using the urinal next to you has no idea if you're recording him or not.

With smart home devices, you put a microphone on private property that you already own, and it needs to be connected to an AC outlet. It's not a public space.

Meanwhile, most seem to have no problem carrying smartphones on them 24/7, which have the same capability of recording microphone input, but in public spaces disconnected from an AC outlet.

The faux outrage at surveillance is fairly hypocritical, if you ask me.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#237

Post by ghaff »

dopamean wrote: post #208

Are there any assistants that aren't connected to the web? Or at least aren't by default. Here are some things I'd love to be able to do that don't need the web. Set a timer Set a reminder for something in X minutes Take a voice note Create lists (maybe could be pushed to phone via bluetooth) Maybe some home auto stuff I imagine most of this stuff could be shared to my phone via bluetooth if I needed it on the go (li…

The biggest challenge is the voice recognition. There are a variety of open source projects. The Mozilla one is likely the most promising option at the moment. Kaldi and Sphinx are a couple of others. It's probably fair to say that nothing in the space is a "product" at the moment and would likely require a full PC to run as well.

I played around a bit to see if I could put together a standalone timer but didn't get very far.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#238

Post by illumin8 »

amrrs wrote: post #202
ZenoArrow wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Why do you think millions of people bought an Echo Dot or a Google Home? Not from YOUR perspective, but from the perspective of millions of people that seem to see value in this product?" I have no problem with the product category Echo Dot and Google Home sit in, and can see why they make interesting gifts, my only issue is with the surveillance aspects of these devices. Why do I think people bought them regardle…

You absolutely nailed it. I think it has to do with human psychology. Anything similar to spectacle is easily connected to being watched (literally) while even the amount of (useful) data collected by an always on microphone could relativity high. Maybe for a privacy advocate, the only possible way to bring awareness as equivalent as is to make people understand and believe that it sits and is always listening during…

No, he didn't. How do you justify carrying a smartphone with an always listening microphone into shared public spaces (many listen for wake words now), but get hung up on having a microphone in your private residence?

Google has a horrific track record on privacy, but Amazon knows who their customers are, and would never do anything to violate their trust. With Amazon, you're the customer, with Google, you're the product.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#239

Post by sailfast »

melling wrote: post #224
raoulj wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, all the voice assistants rely on a backend to do the voice processing, at a minimum.

There are several freely available voice datasets. https://voice.mozilla.org/data If everyone who reads HN commits a little time to Mozilla Common Voice in 2018, we might have a non-cloud solution in 2019.

This is awesome. Thank you for pointing me in this direction. This kind of corpus is going to be extremely important to getting a more diverse array of voice applications out there in the open.
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