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Amazon Echo Show

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Re: Amazon Echo Show

#251

Post by dkrich »

mikeash wrote: post #90
eclipxe wrote: post #21

People are missing this: "With the Alexa App, conversations and contacts go where you go. When you’re away from home, use the app to make a quick call or send a message to your family’s Echo. Alexa calling and messaging is free—to get started download the Alexa App." Alexa is now in the messaging and communication game. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-...

Are we ever going to see unity between these services, or are we doomed to have little walled-off fiefdoms forever? A phone number works anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, with anyone who has a phone. All e-mail providers work with each other. I don't care who you're with, and I wouldn't even have to know except it's usually part of the address. SMS works no matter which provider we both have. It feels…

Agreed, and that's why I think iMessage and (BBM when people were using Blackberry's) are the best version of this. Two people with Apple devices can seamlessly take advantage of the Apple ecosystem or switch to SMS when communicating with a person who doesn't have an Apple device.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#252

Post by Karunamon »

ihuman wrote: post #249
mikeash wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we ever going to see unity between these services, or are we doomed to have little walled-off fiefdoms forever? A phone number works anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, with anyone who has a phone. All e-mail providers work with each other. I don't care who you're with, and I wouldn't even have to know except it's usually part of the address. SMS works no matter which provider we both have. It feels…

This problem was solved with XMPP/Jabber. Facebook and Google used to use it for their chat clients. You used to be able to use Google Talk to talk with other servers, but after a while they removed that, and then killed Google Talk. Facebook messenger used to have an XMPP-compatible API, but could never talk to other servers. I don't know why more messaging services use XMPP to bootstrap their userbase. It would all…

No, no it bloody well wasn't. XMPP is a horrible protocol with any number of incompatibilities depending on which set of XEPs your particular implementation supports and which set your clients speak.

There's a reason it never took off, and it has nothing to do with corporate mendacity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2069810

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#253

Post by hrktb »

dkrich wrote: post #246
eclipxe wrote: post #21

People are missing this: "With the Alexa App, conversations and contacts go where you go. When you’re away from home, use the app to make a quick call or send a message to your family’s Echo. Alexa calling and messaging is free—to get started download the Alexa App." Alexa is now in the messaging and communication game. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-...

This feels forced and sort of flies in the face of how people have demonstrated that they prefer to communicate over the past 20 years or so. I already have a phone that I can pull out and send a text or make a call with to anybody, without regard to whether they have an Amazon device. My 79 year old mother, who is the last remaining person to not give into a smart phone, is most certainly never going to learn how to…

I think amazon is trying to extend markets, so what happened during the past 20 years can't be their guide.

Otherwise I'd see a use of this device for small kids (parents would protect them from generic chat apps, and they're not good at typing yet) and people who put their phone in random places in the house and only check when they actively want to do something on it.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#254

Post by takeda »

curun1r wrote: post #133
mikeash wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we ever going to see unity between these services, or are we doomed to have little walled-off fiefdoms forever? A phone number works anywhere in the world, to anywhere in the world, with anyone who has a phone. All e-mail providers work with each other. I don't care who you're with, and I wouldn't even have to know except it's usually part of the address. SMS works no matter which provider we both have. It feels…

FWIW, email only sorta interoperates...try running your own mail server and unless you get all the elements of server reputation exactly right, your email will probably not get delivered to people using the large email providers. Thanks to spammers, we've allowed our open, interoperable standard to be much more closed. And SMS is also frustratingly non-universal. After years of having cell service with one of the lar…

I have my own mail server and am running it from my home server for 15 years now, I did not notice having issues with delivery to large providers and I did not set up SPF, DKIM or whatever currently you supposed to use (I do have TLS enabled though).

I do have some mailing lists running from it, so it's possible it helped me that their users are making sure mails from it doesn't end up in junk folder.

Anyway, I would encourage anyone to run their own mail server, to prevent large provider doing what you're mentioning. Google already did this with XMPP. They made GTalk interconnected with rest of XMPP server, but as soon as they got a large base they disconnected from the rest and made their own proprietary network.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#255

Post by silvanojr »

sgift wrote: post #163
silvanojr wrote: post #134

I was battling back and forth FOR A MONTH with their skill certification approval team for a skill update that would allow customers to call people by name, where in the first version it was only by phone number. They would fail the certification because apparently people didn't know how to test, or used fake numbers to make phone calls and complained the call would not connect, or the certificate validation (that wa…

Kind of sad for you guys, but at the same time not so surprising - it is the fate of every useful platform add-on to be integrated into the platform over time. And calling people by name seems like a low-hanging fruit for Amazon.

Yes... also, when people started talking about an Echo device that could allow phone calls to happen I sent them an e-mail asking if we could have early access to develop our skill using the new device capabilities and asking if they had a beta program, their only response was: we don't comment on rumors.

Silly me.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#257

Post by gingerchris »

colemannugent wrote: post #19

I feel like this entire product could be a Chromecast-esque dongle that connects to a TV. Having a personal dashboard would actually be quite useful, but this seems like they want to sell appliances not experiences. Maybe they've gone with this form factor because of the 2x 2" speakers? But why would I want that when it could be plugged directly into my home audio setup? Or maybe it's so they can include a touchscree…

I know they've recently introduced Alexa to the Fire TV, which is a Chromecast-esque dongle that connects to a TV. So they kinda already have that. This seems more like a tablet with bigger speakers?

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#258

Post by deong »

colemannugent wrote: post #88
deong wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are certainly reasons to have your "hands-free conversational interaction" device also be able to show you things. It seems like the big pitch they're making right now is on communications, but there are loads of reasons why I can imagine it being useful. Most mornings, I ask Alexa about the weather. Usually, the voice response is all I need, but occasionally, there are storms in the forecast, and there…

I agree with you that an assistant with the ability to show you things is more useful, but if I wanted to see a radar image I would just pull out my phone and ask it in the first place. The selling point of this genre of devices seems to rest on the utility of voice control, but this products only innovation is a built in display.

Well, you could pull your phone out and use it to do literally any task that an Echo-like device could do. The entire selling point is the convenience of "talk to the air and things happen". I'm not sure why there should be some arbitrary line drawn where you only want to use voice for input when voice is sufficient for output.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#259

Post by TeMPOraL »

mikeash wrote: post #149
curun1r wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, email only sorta interoperates...try running your own mail server and unless you get all the elements of server reputation exactly right, your email will probably not get delivered to people using the large email providers. Thanks to spammers, we've allowed our open, interoperable standard to be much more closed. And SMS is also frustratingly non-universal. After years of having cell service with one of the lar…

Good points, both! I think it's telling that the e-mail one is a relatively recent development. Is that also the case for SMS? I'm not too familiar with the history of short codes, but I have the impression that they're newer too.

I didn't even know what shortcodes were until this moment. I think this detracts from the main point, though. Of course automated commercial services will have their idiosyncrasies, but if you want to communicate with people, phone calls and SMS seem to work reliably, worldwide, in a universal way.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#260

Post by smileysteve »

vineet wrote: post #65

The video calling capability seems especially neat - I wonder if they will interoperate with Facetime, Google Duo/Hangouts, and other video calling protocols. It will make our lives so much easier.

If anything, it's looking like Alexa might be the only one that will work across the 3.

You can install hangouts duo on IOS, but likely not on alexa. You can install Alexa on Android (not through google play). You can't install facetime on Alexa or Android.

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