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Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

theguardian.com

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Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#41

Post by breakfastduck »

ulfw wrote: post #9
Semaphor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the QOL from one is insane for me. While I’m cooking, I can set timers and look up conversions (one big country that produces a lot of internet content, including recipes, uses the most insane units). Everything else is a nice bonus, but those parts are major. That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.

The fact you call this mini feature of setting a timer (which is equally available on your phone via voice) "QOL" is fascinating to me

It's very very useful when you're cooking, they explained that pretty clearly imo.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#42

Post by kube-system »

actionablefiber wrote: post #28
RileyJames wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation.“ The elderly woman stated she didn’t own a computer, or know how to use one. Yes, it’s an edge case.

It's a pretty big edge case. In my family we also got an Alexa for my aging grandmother who was already shaky on computer literacy and developed serious motor/vision problems preventing her from using a computer. She learned just enough about Siri and Alexa to make phone calls, play music, and change the channel. There are definitely more old/disabled people out there for whom voice-activated assistants are not just…

It’s disgusting that these types of devices have potentially an obvious use as a accessibility device, and yet, that’s completely being ignored in lieu of mass-market sales gimmicks.

We need an ADA that has teeth in the digital age. This is like a brick and mortar store building a ramp into their store for the convenience of people who can walk, and making it an inch too narrow for a wheelchair.

Real corporate social responsibility would be to tackle some of this low hanging fruit in their own area of expertise. But instead, everyone just promises to buy some carbon credits by 2030.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#43

Post by pessimizer »

retrac wrote: post #36
haunter wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's incredibly useful for people with disabilities

I can see that. But I hope it never becomes standard. I find them aggravating because of my disability. An acquaintance has made every light in their home integrated into Google's services. I have a mild speech impediment and Google seems incapable of recognising my speech as speech. "Hey Google. HEY GOOGLE. Hey Gooooogle! Turn off the lights." I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. "Hey Goooooooogle! Turn. Off. The. Lights…

You're an edge case, like the old, the young, the computer-illiterate, the very computer-literate, people who speak English but deal with a lot of things that aren't in English, and so on...

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#44

Post by breakfastduck »

jsjohnst wrote: post #40
Semaphor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often have multiple timers, that gets crowded fast. And even manual timers require me to touch them, while the whole point is that I can set a timer while my hands are full of raw sausage mix or whatever. And my Alexa has no display, so it’s just "Alexa, timer [Name] status" Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in chan…

> Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in changes how much X of that unit means. If it’s so hard for you, then buy measuring cups in US sizes or stop using US recipes. These are trivially solved problems in a low tech way. You’re like an addict trying desperately to defend why they need a fix. Yeesh!

And you're desperately coming up with nonsensical solutions that aren't as practical in any meaningful way.

You honestly think having measuring devices for two entirely different systems or not using US based recipes is trivial compared to asking for the conversion out loud and getting it immediately? Yeesh!

EDIT: even going back to your timer comment (to which you completely ignored the response), your 'trivial' solutions effectively boil down to 'get more kitchen space'. Totally trivial.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#46

Post by vidarh »

feintruled wrote: post #6

I don't think this particular incident is any kind of big deal, though it's funny. It was only a £1.99 a month and there was a 7-day free trial anyway. Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation. I think the issue it shows is how you can't trust voice control for anything important. It's just a bad interface for buying stuff particularly. If I am buying some dog food, I search dog food, glance over the options,…

If you have FireTV, then I'd be happy to use voice to do searches to show on it (the same way you can tell Alex to "show me comedy movies" or "search for X on Youtube" and have it show up on a FireTV device), but yeah, I can't imagine I'll ever use it to order something. Reordering something I've ordered before maybe, as long as I can be sure it will actually re-order the exact same thing.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#47

Post by supermatt »

piva00 wrote: post #34
ghaff wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voice control is mostly pretty disappointing. Setting an alarm, playing an album, getting a quick weather forecast? OK. But something more complicated where you really would like good voice control--like when driving--not so much. For example, with podcasts, I find I really need to pre-populate a playlist and by and large I find trying to totally control my phone by voice is very hit and miss. Voice assistants have g…

> playing an album Only if the album you want is titled in English (or some recognised language and with actual words). I listen to a lot of music that have unpronounceable song and album titles. Hell, even artists, how could I ever tell a voice assistant to play "STRGTHS by SHXCXCHCXSH"? An extreme example but not too far from some of the top 10 recently played stuff on my Spotify: "sch.mefd 2" by Autechre, "JNSN CO…

In many cases it doesn’t matter even if the word is in English. When choosing an audiobook, I’ve had to make some leaps in phonetics to get Alexa to understand certain words in the title.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#48

Post by [deleted] »

Semaphor wrote: post #33
jsjohnst wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the QOL from one is insane for me. You have an “insane” QOL then if having a manual kitchen timer or a simple conversion chart on the wall would be a major difference. At least with the manual kitchen timer, you can always know how much time is left just by looking. Set a ten minute timer on an Alexa, you have to threaten it with violence to keep the timer visible for more than 30 seconds of it, and that do…

I often have multiple timers, that gets crowded fast. And even manual timers require me to touch them, while the whole point is that I can set a timer while my hands are full of raw sausage mix or whatever. And my Alexa has no display, so it’s just "Alexa, timer [Name] status" Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in chan…

[deleted]

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#49

Post by jsjohnst »

breakfastduck wrote: post #44
jsjohnst wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in changes how much X of that unit means. If it’s so hard for you, then buy measuring cups in US sizes or stop using US recipes. These are trivially solved problems in a low tech way. You’re like an addict trying desperately to defend why they need a fix. Yeesh!

And you're desperately coming up with nonsensical solutions that aren't as practical in any meaningful way. You honestly think having measuring devices for two entirely different systems or not using US based recipes is trivial compared to asking for the conversion out loud and getting it immediately? Yeesh! EDIT: even going back to your timer comment (to which you completely ignored the response), your 'trivial' sol…

> You honestly think having measuring devices for two entirely different systems

If you want to make recipes based on imperial measurements, YES, and I’d also say the vast majority of people here would agree with me.

Having a full set of imperial kitchen measuring cups costs less than any meal you are bothering to prepare and takes up less kitchen space than a single salad bowl.

For your follow up edit:

> to which you completely ignored the response

I’m under no obligation to rebut every thing someone says, whether I find it correct or not. I said why I hate using Alexa for timers, I didn’t feel the need to go any further there.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#50

Post by ghaff »

jsjohnst wrote: post #49
breakfastduck wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're desperately coming up with nonsensical solutions that aren't as practical in any meaningful way. You honestly think having measuring devices for two entirely different systems or not using US based recipes is trivial compared to asking for the conversion out loud and getting it immediately? Yeesh! EDIT: even going back to your timer comment (to which you completely ignored the response), your 'trivial' sol…

> You honestly think having measuring devices for two entirely different systems If you want to make recipes based on imperial measurements, YES, and I’d also say the vast majority of people here would agree with me. Having a full set of imperial kitchen measuring cups costs less than any meal you are bothering to prepare and takes up less kitchen space than a single salad bowl. For your follow up edit: > to which yo…

For that matter, my measuring cups have both imperial and metric units and my digital scale handles both as well. Seems far more foolproof than doing a lot of unit conversions.
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