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Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

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Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#371

Post by seandougall »

outside1234 wrote: post #315
oppositelock wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

you can turn it on remotely, like when you are on the way home from work, and have a warm house when you get there. to me, that is the killer reason to have it online.

If you have a predictable schedule, there are plenty of offline thermostats that let you set target temperatures for different times of day. If you don't, I can see how being able to control it remotely would be nice. (But an embedded microphone is still creepy and unnecessary.)

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#373

Post by heavyset_go »

shadowgovt wrote: post #349
heavyset_go wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Violate the user's privacy in order to build a product" is lazy engineering. There are plenty of avenues to collect the data needed at that scale, it's just that none of them are as cheap as simply spying on users.

Lazy engineering gets to market first, and if most users don't find it harmful, the company wins?

Yes, spying on users is a cheap way to get results.

The fact that incentives exist to violate user privacy is not an excuse to violate user privacy.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#374

Post by TeMPOraL »

mojuba wrote: post #271
glitcher wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame Star Trek. Simply speaking out loud to ask the computer anytime something was needed, it seemed like magical tech. We just didn't anticipate the companies and extra consequences that would come along with it. I would love to see a parody of Star Trek where all the tech is run by an advertising company exploiting all the crew members individually by capturing all their private data around the clock.

I think it looks comfortable in the Star Trek universe because it is implied that voice activated stuff is controlled by a super-AI. That is, the AI won't give humans access to the audio. Which in turn means we are going to have a super-AI that can restrict our rights and itself have access to vast amounts of information about us. I.e. Star Trek is a society essentially controlled by the AI, as it will be above us.

It isn't. In fact, people there are uncomfortable about computers giving them orders (TNG S03E06). It works because in Star Trek, the society works. For instance, a ship's captain could easily access plenty of surveillance records about their whereabouts and activities, but as a matter of course, they don't. Cases where someone abuses technology for ulterior reasons are presented as negative, and protagonists do their best to thwart such misuse.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#375

Post by hnaccount141 »

davinic wrote: post #278
joeblau wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is. When you're setting up your phone, you have to go through the "hey Siri" training to enable it.

This is not true. It has been on by default since iOS 9.

I've got a phone here on iOS 12 that started from a a clean wipe this morning. The initial setup asks you if you'd like to enable siri (and certainly pushes you in that direction), but if you don't accept, neither hey siri nor holding down the power button will activate it.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#377

Post by errantspark »

marcosdumay wrote: post #359
oppositelock wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

Why does a thermostat integrate with cameras and microphones anyway? Do they have any internal one? Anyway, I do really want a smart home lock. Just changing the shape of the keys so that they would stop puncturing my pockets when I walk would be enough of a gain. I also want a programmable bedroom light that can slowly dim on at morning. I don't have those because the costs are much higher than the benefits. I'm sur…

> also want a programmable bedroom light that can slowly dim on at morning

Oh you absolutely do, this has been by far the best (arguably only) benefit I've seen from home automation. Sunrise is now whenever is convenient. The lights slowly come on over 30 minutes and it feels like I'll wake up at some convenient time for my body during that period, rather than having my sleep interrupted by an infuriating alarm.

> A smart light will also fail at the worst possible way, and I don't want to deal with it.

I haven't had any problems with mine (v1 hues), they default to working like normal bulbs so the worst case scenario is you toggle the switch off and on and you get an illuminated lightbulb every time. Also (true of any LED light) they will continue to work even after you've shattered the glass by accident.

> changing the shape of the keys so that they would stop puncturing my pockets when I walk

Have you considered alternate solutions such as less-tight pants? ;P

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#378

Post by notatoad »

criley2 wrote: post #88
eloisant wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be wrong but I don't think Android phone are always listening by default.

All smartphones, Apple and Android, use dedicated audio processors which are always listening for the command word by saving recent audio to a buffer and analyzing it before discarding it. There has never been any evidence that I've ever seen that these audio processors save and transmit their work pre-activation, only post-activation of the service. Although I do remember in the 2014-2016 time frame when the CIA hac…

>All smartphones, Apple and Android, use dedicated audio processors which are always listening for the command word

This is blatantly false. Many high-end android phones and all recent iPhones do this. A large number of phones do not.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#379

Post by barneygale »

exclusiv wrote: post #344
oppositelock wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

A programmable keypad is nice. I have a Z-wave one which can notify my Smarthings hub which notifies me when it's locked or unlocked. The Nest thermostat allows me to control the heat remotely. These two things are great for rental properties. Guests often forget to lock the door, I have records of when guests or maintenance people are coming or going, I can adjust the heat to 55 when nobody is there which saves a lo…

> The Nest thermostat allows me to control the heat remotely.

On a flat you're renting out? That's insanely unethical.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#380

Post by balabaster »

oppositelock wrote: post #304
saluki wrote: post #115

I was a huge Google Fan but this is becoming lunacy. I understood trading some data and privacy for great search results, maps and free quality email. But people willingly bringing always on listening devices in to their homes (beyond what smartphones are already capable of) I just can't comprehend it. Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and…

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

I have an Ecobee rather than a Nest, but I had the Nest before I moved and the one thing I note is that it having access to temperatures and weather outside the house means it can choose just to run fans to circulate the air from outside to regulate the temperature inside instead of running the heating or AC. If it knows the outside temperature is the temperature you want inside, it can just shut everything off. A dumb thermostat only knows what the inside temperature is... or more specifically, when the little coil bends to connect the electrodes, it trips the heating on until the coil bends the other way and disconnects them. If the external temperature was sufficient, your thermostat could've chosen to circulate external air into the house instead of running the heating.

Also, it knows when you're not home, so it can then just shut down everything until temperatures would cause other problems such as frozen pipes.

Additionally, you just dial it to where you're comfortable and if you get too hot or cold, adjust it again. It learns what temperature you like it at at certain times of day, it takes a week or two to really get to know you, but once it does, it just keeps the temperature comfortable and you rarely have to touch it or even look at it after that without you needing to go through a complex programming process like you do with most other thermostats.

That's pretty much what a smart thermostat gets you.

Whether or not you consider that useful or a good use case for your needs is really down to your own evaluation.

I like that my thermostat is smart enough to be able to regulate the temperature in my house without needing to kick on the AC or heating, which reduces my power consumption somewhat and is somewhat better for the environment, but is also better for my wallet.

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