651–660 of 746 posts
This "internet-of-things" trend coincides unfortunately with the "dragnet surveillance" trend. With every new product launch from a "cloud company," I increasingly feel as if I'm reading the tombstone of modern society. The selling point behind these devices is convenience, but at the cost of security. I don't think I need to explain to HN why an always-on, internet connected voice recording device is something to ke…
"Alexa, how do you make a bomb?"
Suddenly needing to know the height of Everest while crossing the room? Yeah, that happens so much.
No, it's just that they don't have the slightest idea how to make it be useful because it only works on pattern questions like "What is the height of X ?" or "Put Y on the grocery list".
I am sure the list of allowed phrase templates is pretty limited. That's what disappoints me about Alexa, Siri, Google voice and other assistants.
Still waiting for HAL-9000 with its amazing conversation skills.
This "internet-of-things" trend coincides unfortunately with the "dragnet surveillance" trend. With every new product launch from a "cloud company," I increasingly feel as if I'm reading the tombstone of modern society. The selling point behind these devices is convenience, but at the cost of security. I don't think I need to explain to HN why an always-on, internet connected voice recording device is something to ke…
You just described many peoples computers
Watch the promo video again and pretend it's the first few minutes of a horror movie. A package arrives on the front porch. The family brings it in and opens it. It's Alexa. It's "for everyone," says Father. The next few days are blissful. Alexa integrates herself into the family. She is indispensable. How did they ever get by without her? Father rushes in from the backyard, "Alexa, how tall is Mt. Everest?" Alexa an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are there open-source voice recognition projects in the works that could replace the likes of Google Now and the others? If not, there should be.
This is what I started thinking about as I was reading the paranoid HN comments. I believe there's open source voice recognition but the challenging part is taking commands and making them actionable.
What's new?
> Unrecognized command
When I say "What's new" read the "In the news..." section of Wikipedia's main page.
> Acknowledged.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but how is this that much worse than all the other devices you use? Because the other devices I have have useful purposes besides listening to my speech for sales and advertising purposes. The Echo exists solely for that. It's all it does.
But does that matter? Just because your laptop can also play games/movies/etc. doesn't prevent the NSA or whoever else from tapping into the mic or camera.
Watch the promo video again and pretend it's the first few minutes of a horror movie. A package arrives on the front porch. The family brings it in and opens it. It's Alexa. It's "for everyone," says Father. The next few days are blissful. Alexa integrates herself into the family. She is indispensable. How did they ever get by without her? Father rushes in from the backyard, "Alexa, how tall is Mt. Everest?" Alexa an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no way this thing has the power to do adequate voice recognition on device for arbitray speakers and queries, even given a limited domain. It's sending everything to Amazon for processing. The only thing it probably recognizes by itself is "Alexa."
I'm guessing it's Android under the covers, and I believe that Google voice recognition is now processed on the device - so it might well be powerful enough to do the voice recognition without the cloud.
Watch the promo video again and pretend it's the first few minutes of a horror movie. A package arrives on the front porch. The family brings it in and opens it. It's Alexa. It's "for everyone," says Father. The next few days are blissful. Alexa integrates herself into the family. She is indispensable. How did they ever get by without her? Father rushes in from the backyard, "Alexa, how tall is Mt. Everest?" Alexa an…
