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Alexa+

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Re: Alexa+

#271

Post by prawn »

kemitche wrote: post #194
65 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood how people find setting a timer on their phone so excruciatingly difficult that they need to buy a $100+ device they can speak to to do it for them. Or perhaps it's another case of shiny object syndrome.

Here's a few dozen use cases based on my own use of smart home devices: - Hands are full or dirty while cooking. Voice activation is more convenient. True for not just timers, but every other aspect - music playing, controlling home devices like lights, watching something on YouTube, etc. - The above also applies to any case where my hands can't readily access my phone, such as wanting to listen/change music when sho…

Alexa is also very convenient for kids queueing up music or asking quick animal/etc questions that I couldn't answer (what sound does x make, how many teeth does a y have, etc). In both cases, I'd prefer they do this briefly by voice rather than sit down with a phone or tablet and get distracted on screen by millions of songs or the rest of the internet.

But yes, even just setting timers while washing dishes or hands covered in flour is worth it. My retired parents have a kitchen timer stuck on the side of the fridge and still use Alexa for cooking timers. There is literally no interruption to your flow.

Re: Alexa+

#272

Post by stacktrust »

taeric wrote: post #175
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has already done this. Destroyed its existing assistant product -- removed key functionality, de-staffed the team, moved it all under Gemini. I'm in a few Polestar car user groups, and people are pissed that their Android based head units can no longer do basic integration via assistant stuff that the car was initially sold to them able to do. In some cases they are blaming Polestar, in some cases connecting t…

I'm a little biased, but I do think "voicexml" probably covered far more use cases than people are willing to admit. Some documents wouldn't have been pretty, I don't think, but would be far preferable to the inability to reason about how things actually work. And, indeed, the messier the document, the more obvious that you were making it too consuming.

Is there a modern equivalent?

Re: Alexa+

#273

Post by twitchard »

Crazy how many voice AI related updates there were this week. Grok voice mode, Alexa+, Hume OCTAVE, Elevenlabs Scribe SST... big day for Voice AI!

Re: Alexa+

#274

Post by taeric »

iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #239
taeric wrote: post #123

I find it interesting that the big companies are so sure that LLMs are somehow going to make a larger market for smart speakers than they currently have. To the contrary, I expect they are going to damage the market they have for people that just want easy kitchen timers and radio like functionality. This feels like the VR plays some of the big companies have made. I'm willing to bet that the market for people that w…

It is not completely unexpected. Within executive ranks there is an odd FOMO on 'new big thing'. That's partially why you saw attempts to sell more passing fads like crypto-everything, blockchain-everything, iot everything, subscription everything. It is easy to make fun (especially in retrospect), but being wrong means executive may make the mistake that Dwight made and declare internet a fad.

This makes some sense, but I generally you'd make sure the TAM of what you are building isn't smaller than one you would be cannibalizing.

Amusingly, this is exactly what Google did with Reader back in the day. They actually had Reader and Buzz integrated rather nicely, but lit it on fire in an effort to get circles going.

Re: Alexa+

#275

Post by mh- »

mvdtnz wrote: post #193
jazzyjackson wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found Perplexity.ai with Deepseek R1 to be very good at choosing a product or a hotel for me. I just punched in your query and it actually chose the air fryer that's already sitting in my kitchen ! "Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer" It's a good air fryer. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/air-fryers-without-bluetoot... Another example, after spending an hour on trip advisor going back and forth to maps to check for walkin…

I just tried this and it completely an utterly failed on the first prompt. Useless. > earbuds that have the wire in between so I can dangle them around my neck First result: Sony WI-1000XM2 Wireless. These are neither earbuds nor do they have a wire. Pointless garbage. It also doesn't let me copy and paste the result, for no reason. Bad software.

I just looked at a picture of those. I would describe them as earbuds with wires and a thing that lets you dangle them around your neck.

I guess I'm also bad software.

Re: Alexa+

#276

Post by taeric »

stacktrust wrote: post #272
taeric wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little biased, but I do think "voicexml" probably covered far more use cases than people are willing to admit. Some documents wouldn't have been pretty, I don't think, but would be far preferable to the inability to reason about how things actually work. And, indeed, the messier the document, the more obvious that you were making it too consuming.

Is there a modern equivalent?

Not that I know of? But, I have also not been watching that market for a long long time.

I am actually somewhat interested on building a small speaker thing that I can load a VXML document on and start adding use cases to it. Especially after considering how much I could save by dropping all of my current subscription stuff.

Re: Alexa+

#278

Post by SteveJS »

I really did like that kitchen timer. This seems like it would have been pretty good.

However. My wife is super pissed at Bezos. She unplugged all our echos. She has me researching to try decide between a Roku or Apple tv to replace the fire tv.

The amazon card went from 90% of our non-mortgage spending to 10% and dropping.

I honestly didn’t believe it would ever happen but I think we are probably going to drop Prime soon.

I’m still thankful for the Expanse, that show was great.

Re: Alexa+

#279

Post by tharkun__ »

plorg wrote: post #269
tharkun__ wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that weird of the police to ask tho? I would say it would be standard practice to go check all neighbors with sightline for any kind of recording. Local or cloud based. No assistance from anyone needed to go ask.

They were requesting it from Amazon, not from the neighbor. And it absolutely is wrong (weird is not a word I would use to describe police using their power unscrupulously) to take data that you know is irrelevant.

You did not specify any of this information in your comment. You just said that without Amazon's knowledge the police wouldn't have known that the cameras were there.

Well in fact yes they could have. By just asking the neighbors. And then summarily submitting a request to Amazon to get all relevant video all in one go.

We don't know all the details of the stories you refer to, so you have to provide all relevant information. For all we still know, you are just making assumptions.

Re: Alexa+

#280

Post by gunian »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #255
Marsymars wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SEO, except your goal is to be the contractor that Alexa picks for the subset of customers that meet whatever criteria you're targeting.

Basilisk-flattery embedded in your site.

the basilisk died in the chamber of secrets plus the reds won so not a good time to be a slytherin
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