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Amazon Echo Show

amazon.com

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Re: Amazon Echo Show

#271

Post by bhauer »

takeda wrote: post #254
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…

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…

Same experience here. No special setup, no SPF or DKIM, and yet no particular challenge in sending e-mail. I feel the challenges of operating a mail server are often exaggerated. But then, I don't tend to send spam.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#272

Post by criddell »

tetrep wrote: post #27

I don't see the value in this over a tablet with a stand. The tablet is portable, can do more things, and already exists in many people's homes.

That it can do more things is a negative for me.

An always on dedicated device that lives in one location with excellent array mics is going to be more useful to me than a tablet that I have to locate and turn on before I can use it.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#273

Post by dkrich »

hrktb wrote: post #253
dkrich wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

This could pretty much describe the iPad as well. To me, Amazon is betting way too heavily on voice as the optimal way to interact with hardware. I know that it's cool because it hasn't ever been done well before, but in practice the utility just isn't there for the vast majority of use cases. When you think of all the different visual ways that a tablet enables a person to interact with the machine, and then compare that to an entirely voice-operated machine, it feels like taking a step backwards.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#274

Post by tomc1985 »

tsunamifury wrote: post #262
guelo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When IP video calling started being worked on in the 90s it was via an open standards process, specifically h.323. Back then the web was driven more by engineers, before money men truly tookover. It is a miracle that the web itself has survived as one of the few open interoperable protocols. Though I think this golden period will soon end, strangled by the death of net neutrality on one side and proprietary walled ga…

Its easy to blame money (boogey) men when you don't understand the finite problems that have held back this space.

They are also very easy to blame when you do. Productization is ruining tech.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#275

Post by lotsofpulp »

tsunamifury wrote: post #208
mikeash wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video calling and instant messaging have both been around for ages at this point, and remain stubbornly walled off. Both should qualify as "basics" by now. Sure, you can still SMS worldwide, as long as they have a cell phone. But non-phone devices are becoming very common. What if you want to send or receive messages on your tablet or computer. (This works OK in the Apple world, but only because they hack it by routi…

Video Calling is a HARD problem that still has not been solved even remotely to the broader markets satisfaction. Everything from latency/compression techniques to hardware is in flux. It is a long ways away from a standard that can be easily and widely adopted and work in all scenarios.

Facetime works very well, my family uses it from 4 different continents around the world, from cities to villages, varying from toddlers to nonagenarians who didn't even go to school or know English. I don't know why something cross platform can't work as well as Facetime does.

I had hope for Hangouts, but Google dropped the ball big time in terms of user complexity and quality of product as they are wont to do.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#276

Post by ziikutv »

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…

This is my biggest beef, thanks for pointing it out. All of this is great, but it adds to separation of market. In an idea l world, all of the 'big players' would sit together, and come up with a way to unify their services.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#277

Post by priitmaxx »

bhauer wrote: post #271
takeda wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Same experience here. No special setup, no SPF or DKIM, and yet no particular challenge in sending e-mail. I feel the challenges of operating a mail server are often exaggerated. But then, I don't tend to send spam.

Wow, I am surprised. I recently had to migrate my mailserver from my datacenter to the cloud. I lost the original IP address as a result. The new IP address got flagged immediately on gmail and everywhere else. I setup SPF and DKIM, that seems to fix the issues with the big guys. However on comcast and others I still got throttled for quite a bit. i had to request csi.cloudmark.com to unblock the ip..

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#278

Post by sib »

mholmes680 wrote: post #180

Its interesting to see how fast Amazon can come to market with these new hardware pieces. I guess the fallout of the Amazon Phone at least had some lessons learned in hardware suppliers, etc... I realize they're throwing hardware out there prior to seeing what the software can do with it, but I think its necessary to get people locked in. I like their approach from the business perspective. Give the people a voice co…

While the time between the launch of the Echo Look and the Echo Show was only a couple of weeks, it's not the case that it only took two weeks to spin up the Echo Show. These teams work in parallel for long periods of time; years in most cases.

Re: Amazon Echo Show

#280

Post by problems »

smacktoward wrote: post #113
problems wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDMI-CEC allows similar on most modern TVs. As for not being tied to where you have a TV, for $200 you can buy a 40"+ 1080p TV, for $100 you can have a really nice IPS 22" 1080p monitor. Probably better than this tiny thing.

The moment you tell people "for this to work you have to go buy something else separately," you lose a huge chunk of potential sales. People don't want to do the work of figuring out what specific model of something else they need, where they have to go to get it, etc. Even if you put the something else on the shelf right next to your thing, the added cognitive load will turn lots of people off. Build the other thing…

Yeah, I have no problem with that in theory, just don't make a crappy overpriced version of the other thing...
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