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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

#391

Post by dilap »

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.

we give names to all sorts of creatures that aren't human -- ships, pets, gods, &c. there's a large part of our brain that is basically hard-coded to interact with things assuming they are people-ish, with names and autonomous behaviors.

alexa and google home are still super-primitive, but as they get more sophisticated, thinking of them as people will seem like the most natural thing in the world.

(i do get where you're coming from, but i think it's a perspective that only makes sense for (1) the very technical and (2) is not long for this world.)

(it's sort of analogous to how originally in internet search engines, you had to put in very precise search terms, and unsophisticated people would just put in some sort of sloppy natural language query. but as the search engines got smarter, the precise stuff got ignored and sloppy was the way to go.)

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

#392

Post by kenjackson »

jimmaswell wrote: post #360
kenjackson wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason people bought smartphones that literally did nothing their laptop couldn't do. Ease of use. I can turn on my entertainment system or turn off my lights with my phone, but its a lot easier to just say it, versus getting my phone out of my pocket, turning it on, finding the app, launching the app, going to the screen to turn on the thingie, and then pressing the right button.

If this is such a selling point then why is there no widespread adoption of this level of voice control on smart phones? It's certainly technically doable.

If cell phones could do this w/o me having to get it out of my pocket/purse, then I think it would catch on. Also, Siri at least, seems to have very little extensibility (or at least no one is using it).

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

#393

Post by figgis »

echosmith wrote: post #384
figgis wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's on Amazon. Chromecast is open and free to use. On top of which Amazon has shutdown any homegrown solutions sooo. https://developers.google.com/cast/ Amazon is the one banning it.

Amazon doesn't want to support being a cast source because it's products are not allowed to be cast targets.

Which Amazon brought upon themselves by doing the exact same thing years (read: YEARS) before any retaliation by Google.

Amazon is the one stopping casting from their devices. Not Google. Google Cast is free to setup for. https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/design_checklist/

Nothing needs to be sold through Google Cast, no royalties, etc. All Amazon has to do is SUPPORT it. Or atleast allow homegrown solutions to thrive.

I agree this is a stupid 'feud' that only hurts consumers and I have my likes and dislikes for both companies but if you cannot see the difference here then I'm not sure how to help.

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

#394

Post by figgis »

echosmith wrote: post #383
figgis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I resent the fact that Amazon has done everything in their power as a company to make it so I cannot stream amazon prime to my chromecast. That alone has tarnished my opinion of the company.

What do you think about Google not allowing iOS or Firefox to become cast sources, or FireTV to act as a cast target? Does that piss you off, or are your feelings of outrage only limited to our own personal convenience?

  What do you think about Google not allowing iOS or Firefox to become cast sources, or FireTV to act as a cast target
FireTV is not an open platform anyone can design for and use. It's closed and your app needs to be submitted through their dev shop.[0]

I just opened firefox up and had no issue casting from it. According to the below support thread[1] you may need to enable a flag in the about:config page. Although I didn't need too.

  Does that piss you off, or are your feelings of outrage only limited to our own personal convenience?
Nope. Amazon can and has support Cast in the past. They are the ones doing their best to block it, not Google. FireTV is not a free and open platform, Cast is. Great comment though..

[0] - https://developer.amazon.com/docs/fire-tv/faq-general.html

[1] - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1171141

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

#395

Post by figgis »

darklajid wrote: post #94
figgis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I resent the fact that Amazon has done everything in their power as a company to make it so I cannot stream amazon prime to my chromecast. That alone has tarnished my opinion of the company.

I hate that Google has done nothing to enable me to stream things to my Chromecast. Unless I use Chrome. Which I don't. Or Android. Which is annoying if I look at something on my laptop.

Just providing some helpful homebrew solutions.

Personally Recommended (due to no having zero issues using):

    https://github.com/muammar/mkchromecast
Others that i've used successfully with varying results (usually problems relate to finding the chromecast):

    https://github.com/xat/castnow
    https://github.com/Pat-Carter/stream2chromecast

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

#396

Post by [deleted] »

coding123 wrote: post #280
Sephr wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm responding to "devices will be much [better] at figuring out when we're addressing them than the primitive idea of a wake-word". That kind of on-device context detection may not be feasible with the currently-shipping hardware.

I'm sure they could do that detection without local updates in the future (disable the output if it detect a wrong context).

[deleted]

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

#397

Post by baby »

ekianjo wrote: post #230
baby wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait, VR is freaking awesome, please don't put it in the same box.

> VR is freaking awesome For what uses? I've been trying VR on multiple occasions, I still don't see much use for it. Even most VR games suck completely.

I've played hours and hours of VR and never got bored o_O I felt like there was a never ending flux of game. What games have you tried?

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

#398

Post by mulletbum »

KallDrexx wrote: post #333
mulletbum wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got new tires, but didn't buy a car, so they are worthless. That is basically what you are saying here. We both agree, it will tell you the weather, your commute, and play some music. Those are the things you grew tired of, but many people have their entire homes wired to these devices (me included). I don't use them daily, I use them hourly at home. It runs my sprinklers, lawn mowers, vacuums, lights, alarms, time…

Half of the things you listed you are spending WAY too much effort with voice control than non. Sprinklers - What on earth are you voice controlling for? Just get a box on a set schedule a couple days a week, set and forget. I haven't had to think about my sprinklers for months, what advantage would I get by manually controlling them with voice or non? My water bill is so low right now that even just telling it not t…

Because you don't understand, know how, or can figure out how to use an Alexa style device to its full potential, it must make it worthless? I have the same thoughts for a motorcycle, where I live, that is a death machine with little benefit. Yet, I understand why some people like to drive them, why they drive them, and why I shouldn't (because I would not become proficient with one). Here you have all the same symptoms.

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

#399

Post by ijidak »

xyzzyz wrote: post #132
ijidak wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I've wondered. Why not let us designate our own??? Or provide a number of choices. It seems only natural that one day users will be able to name their assistant. We'll look back at fixed naming and wonder who ever thought that made sense. If I want my assistant to be named Jarvis, it puzzles me why I can't do that. It would also simplify the case where multiple devices are in the room (e.g. not having to…

Personalization would require training the network to recognize your hot word, which needs to work in all sound environments, and detect hot word spoken by different people. That network also needs to be optimized to be small enough to be run constantly by a low-powered CPU in standby mode. I am not saying that it is not doable, it's just there are real engineering tradeoffs present here.

Aha. Interesting. That makes sense. Well, that's good to know. At least it means it's coming.

If it's primarily a technical challenge that raises the chances of this eventually becoming reality.

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

#400

Post by ijidak »

ehsankia wrote: post #346
xyzzyz wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personalization would require training the network to recognize your hot word, which needs to work in all sound environments, and detect hot word spoken by different people. That network also needs to be optimized to be small enough to be run constantly by a low-powered CPU in standby mode. I am not saying that it is not doable, it's just there are real engineering tradeoffs present here.

Yep, most people don't realize that: 1. Hotword detection runs on a minimal low powered local subsystem 2. The two provided hotwords run networks that have been trained on millions of samples in thousands of different environments. That thing is very heavily optimized. Alexa and Bixbi get far more false positives and false negatives.

Never thought about that, but makes perfect sense. Thanks for the explanation!!
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