451–460 of 467 posts
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Mobile operators can scan your SMS messages just as Google can scan Gmail (etc.)...
That is true but quite beside the point. If that was my only worry I'd have much less friction to install random spyw-ehm messaging apps. (I believe that operators generally have much tighter regulations and laws governing what they could actually do with that, but regardless - besides the point)
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That is true but quite beside the point. If that was my only worry I'd have much less friction to install random spyw-ehm messaging apps. (I believe that operators generally have much tighter regulations and laws governing what they could actually do with that, but regardless - besides the point)
how is it besides the point? It feels like your whole point...
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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.
It is conspicuously absent on any other platform; even Android tablets can't use Duo, let alone a Linux, Windows, or macOS machine. So it's a hell of a walled garden.
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There are still a few sane people left that won't deliberately plant a surveillance device in their homes.
I get the sentiment, but I'm asking why. There's clearly some utility to the device, right? It has some value to some people. What negative outcomes would you expect will happen due to them having that device in their homes? What percentage of Echo owners do you think will end up with regrets about installing the device?
The cost here is whatever you can imagine happening if every utterance and the implied judgement of your character escaped into the wild should a keen hacker, nefarious internal actor, or simply a product manager raised by wolves goes ahead "liberates" your data feed. Amazon want to compensate us with, what? ... looks like voice commands and a marginal reduction in search effort, particularly when searching for things they want you to buy from them.
Careful now.
Any echo owners feel like they would get additional value out of this? 90% of my interaction with my standard echo has been "what's the weather". Even when I want visual controls for music, I'd rather pull out my phone than walk over to a screen.
"Alexa turn on/off the lights" "Alexa turn my home temperature to 20 degrees" "Alexa play Sublime FM Radio" "Alexa turn on work mode" -> scene activates for working "Alexa turn on sleep mode" -> scene activates for going to bed "Alexa turn off my tv"
Its mainly OpenHab on a raspberry pi that enables all this. However some things (like my thermostat) are directly connected to the Echo.
Also things like the Chromecast dont work well with the Echo. So i'm lost there.
Otherwise its great.
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how is it besides the point? It feels like your whole point...
There are other privacy concerns with messaging apps: e.g. harvesting of contacts, access to media and photos and camera on your device etc. Perhaps he/she means those.
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Awesome. Now, one more thing: Echo Car. I dunno why, i just want Alexa in my car. She's already in 4 rooms in my house (no wait, 5 including Fire Stick? 7 including the Kindles?), and in my pocket.
A bit off-topic, but: is Amazon the only company with substantial machine learning talent that doesn't seem to be working on a self-driving car? Are the people who would be doing that busy developing Amazon's drones?
Maybe they're just better at keeping it a secret (given the parent comment by the throwaway id). If Amazon can figure out a way to get self-driving car aligned with a) Alexa, b) logistics, c) prime membership, and/or d) driving shopping to their marketplace - then they are obviously working on it.
Or maybe, typical Amazon, they're already working on Amazon Engine, in parallel with Amazon Wheels, in parallel with Amazon Windshield, and Amazon Steering Wheel, and we'll have something that can be used as a car in a few years.
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"And SMS is also frustratingly non-universal. After years of having cell service with one of the large providers" .. "Each SMS shortcode is only supported on a provider-by-provider basis." Yes, each provider does support their own short codes, but this is not a great example of SMS being "non-universal" A short code is just "dialling sugar" for {country_code} + {network_code} + {short_code}. Think about it this way:…
This isn't really correct. Short codes are hardcoded routing rules specific to each operator, not just syntactic sugar. They don't map to regular phone numbers (MSISDN) and are generally not available from other networks or overseas, unless the service provider (not the operator) makes an effort to replicate the code across operators and provide it internationally. Some countries have regulatory coordination to preve…
What country are you in?
The way I have seen them configured is they work from off-net if you prefix with correct codes.
Remember the foreign switch,smsc or ussd gateway is going to route the message if it has the correct prefix. The Routing (b number analysis) is looking up a prefix, to send it off.
It is up to your home operator to correctly handle this.
Source: 10+ years working with mobile operators