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Google Home

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Re: Google Home

#461

Post by dandelion_lover »

scalio wrote: post #371
amelius wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do you think that free software can keep up against these giants? In the near future, it will all be about having large amounts of data, and processing power; it will be less and less about the actual algorithms. I'm afraid the only way out will be to rethink the economy.

I think a neat solution is home-serving. A little box with big storage which acts as a hub for your family's digital life. It relays all your devices, gathers all info they're spitting out, and works on it. Results are fed back to the UIs. When you're out and about, your devices tunnel home automatically, knowing the endpoint is trustworthy (which is more than can be said about traditional VPNs). All your photos, twe…

>Decentralised search is hard, but I'm fairly optimistic once a basis is laid out, someone smart takes on the challenge (and is able to solve it, too!).

Check out http://yacy.net, you may be surprised!

Re: Google Home

#462

Post by dguaraglia »

na85 wrote: post #453
dguaraglia wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you parsed it correctly. My surprise is more about people watching a keynote fully knowing that most of the stuff announced will be ran by Google, and still being outraged about "the privacy implications." I'm not sure what they expected. A fully open source implementation with pre packaged Docker images so you can deploy your own cluster and petabytes of training data? The truth about a lot of these services…

> most of the stuff announced will be ran by Google, and still being outraged about "the privacy implications." I'm not sure what they expected. In other words: "It's Google, why are they outraged that we're encroaching further on their privacy? What did they expect?" At least you guys are honest about being evil, now.

No, you are buying a product whose description is literally "you ask it something, and our cloud service (which costs tons of money and was built over almost two decades) will give you the answer." How do you expect to do that without a roundtrip of a certain amount of information to Google's servers?

How is that "being evil"? Isn't that the product's whole raison d'être? Everything else ("it's going to be recording everything you say and reporting it to the NSA!") is just tinfoil-hat-level speculation and not based on any factual information. If I started saying "In-n-Out could change their burger recipe to include cyanide at any minute and kill all their customers" would you accuse In-n-Out of plotting to kill everyone?

For the record, this is my very own (pretty frustrated) point of view, and obviously doesn't represent Alphabet's view in any capacity.

Re: Google Home

#463

Post by dguaraglia »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #392
dguaraglia wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed that people still feel this level of paranoia about stuff, when they have a clear option: do not use the product. Concerned about the privacy implication of Google Home? Don't get one. Don't like the fact that Apple Watch reads biometric data? Get a Casio watch. Don't like the fact that Facebook knows who your friends are? Go out more. The very fact that someone is watching the keynote and going "oh my Gaw…

You are indeed missing something important. We can choose not to use a particular product. But we cannot choose not to use all the products everyone else is using, because that would make us lonely, antisocial hermits without the slightest chance of ever finding work, friends or lovers. So even if Googlers may find it "amazing" that privacy advocates don't just shut up and go live behind a rock, that's what you're go…

Not "googlers", this particular "googler" (me.) Google is a huge company, and I imagine a lot of people actually hold views closer to yours.

I'm just an old codger that can't understand why people have expectations of A, B and C, when they are buying a product that says it does A, promises to do B as well as possible and tells you that it definitely can't do C because it's technically impossible. Like, back in my day people read EULAs and stuff :)

Re: Google Home

#464

Post by extropic-engine »

na85 wrote: post #452
scalio wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a neat solution is home-serving. A little box with big storage which acts as a hub for your family's digital life. It relays all your devices, gathers all info they're spitting out, and works on it. Results are fed back to the UIs. When you're out and about, your devices tunnel home automatically, knowing the endpoint is trustworthy (which is more than can be said about traditional VPNs). All your photos, twe…

>Tor could finally work as intended, with millions of boxes in the network, all handling each other's traffic. Ultimately you'll never escape the fundamental flaw of Tor, which is that I, as a moderate bandwidth user, don't want to subsidize some leech's desire to download weird fetish porn in 4K with my connection. I live in Canada where the scumbag broadband companies all collude to keep prices exorbitantly high, a…

That doesn't sound like a fundamental flaw of Tor. That sounds like a fundamental flaw of broadband companies in Canada.

Re: Google Home

#465

Post by r00fus »

aninhumer wrote: post #372
r00fus wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I dont. And I agree with @cheald. It's a big shift to have a "press to query" as opposed to a vague keyword-based "always available". I know some technophiles coworkers who have an Echo, and I couldn't for the life of me trust Amazon, Google (or even Apple) with potentially the always-on stream of audio from my house.

I really wish these various voice offerings would offer push-to-talk as an option. It would solve a whole bunch of problems: It would activate reliably when you want and almost never accidentally, you don't need to use awkward code phrases, and it can trigger results as soon as you release the button instead of having to wait for silence. It would also allow for better privacy by making a phone in which the microphon…

I think that's what some folks hope the Apple Watch and/or Android Wear can do - be conduits (like ST:TNG Communicators) to cloud supercomputers.

Re: Google Home

#466

Post by fuck_google »

Sometimes I think Google executives didn't get the point of Orwell's book 1984, but thought they could definitely do better than Big Brother. Like it's evil not to do it, if you have the means.

Re: Google Home

#467

Post by tremon »

ryandrake wrote: post #432
tremon wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are just not that much things to automate at home - laundry: separate my dirty laundry, load and run the washing machine when a laundry bucket is full enough, dry it and fold it - same with dishes: load the dishwasher, run the correct program, put the dishes back in the cupboard - vacuuming, dusting, cleaning windows, etc. - fetch and OCR my (paper) mail, sort by bills/appointments/ads, automatically schedule a…

Your first three are already solved. If you want to convert money into "those things happening" hire a maid. The forth one is solved by hiring a personal assistant.

hire a maid

Fuck you. I did not get into technology just so we can replace one type of menial labour with the exact same thing, just a different human. How does your proposed solution scale to include the maid's household?

Re: Google Home

#468

Post by prawn »

jeeva wrote: post #460
prawn wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got an Echo and the shopping list feature is great, even given I'm outside the US and can't use the ordering functionality. It's very easy (don't have to get phone out or find paper) to say "Alexa, add Cornflakes to my shopping list" and then when I'm at the shop, have a live list to check off. The timer function is simple but effective as well. "Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes" when cooking pasta. I get…

Out of curiosity, as I've not seen it - how does Alexa / Amazon present the list, when you have made it? Is there an app of some kind, or webpage?

Yes, there is an Alexa app that presents the shopping and todo lists. Both with checkboxes. It also shows you a history of things you've said to it, how they were interpreted, and you can give it feedback. In addition, you use the app to set any audio accounts (Spotify, etc) that you want it to use when playing music.
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