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The $10 Echo

sammachin.com

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Re: The $10 Echo

#91

Post by bitJericho »

jrkelly wrote: post #19
dperfect wrote: post #18

One of the more impressive things about the Echo is its far-field mic. I've used a lot of different voice recognition technologies, but Echo blows everything else away in terms of being able to speak in a normal voice from the other side of the room and have it still understand you. The actual intelligence behind the service may be lacking (or at least behind some of the competition), but for a general-purpose home a…

This is what is going to make Echo the next big computing platform. The voice recognition just works. It's like being on the Enterprise.

That's how I felt when using Siri and Cortana the first time. "Wow! Voice recognition actually works now??"

Re: The $10 Echo

#92

Post by bsimpson »

dopeboy wrote: post #90
njharman wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not comfortable with the idea of everyone having far-field microphones in their homes. That's the problem with progress and technology. It will happen regardless of how comfortable you are with it. In fact, if it helps those with power to maintain or extend their power it will happen. If it tends to limit their power it will be squashed and marginalized.

False. Technology can proceed with privacy in mind. The Echo didn't have to push things to the cloud. It was, however, constructed to do so both for Amazon's benefit (data) and the consumer's benefit (ease of setup and use). The trend you cite will happen because of ignorance, not progress.

It adds convenience to most services to connect to the Internet, so most of the do by default. So long as the device is connected, state-sponsored actors will find ways to eavesdrop even if the device wasn't originally designed to send audio over the wire.

Citizenfour was eyeopening on this point.

Re: The $10 Echo

#93

Post by bgroins »

posharma wrote: post #79

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Jasper [1]. Its a cool little but very well organized project that I put together this Christmas. [1] http://jasperproject.github.io/

You're surprised nobody has mentioned a project you organized less than 10 days ago?

Re: The $10 Echo

#94

Post by soylentcola »

jim_h wrote: post #86
polymathist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Moto X and its successors have had this feature for a while. Your phone can be sitting on the other side of the room, completely off, and you can say a certain catch phrase to activate Google Now.

I can usually activate Google Now from a few feet away on my Moto X (2013) but it can't understand what I'm asking after that. I have to get much closer for it to work.

Makes sense I guess. The "listen for the trigger" bit is done locally on those Motos (I've got the 2014 variant) but really all it needs to do is keep an "ear" open for that one phrase so it's probably got a better margin, only helped by local processing. The bit of audio that comprises the query has to get compressed and interpreted on the server side (not to mention the fact that it consists of a much wider variety of possible content to be parsed) so that can't help. I guess a dedicated chip that's just constantly asking "did anyone say 'OK Google?" has an easier job than a remote process asking "wtf does that fuzzy bit of compressed audio mean?"

(obviously being silly and oversimplifying but same idea)

Re: The $10 Echo

#95

Post by soylentcola »

bpicolo wrote: post #62
scholia wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does Amazon make money from Alexa running on non-Amazon devices? (Not obvious to me, sorry.)

It's going to evolve into a massive app ecosystem, surely with paid apps

It looks like you can use it for non-commercial purposes but I imagine that they'd make money a few ways: indirectly through publicity and familiarity (the more people are used to having it, the more might use Amazon's commercial version or just Amazon stuff in general), directly (through licensing it for commercial use), and via improvements they make to their service as a result of people using the free version for non-commercial applications (better voice training and interpretation).

That's just a guess but it's similar to what Google does with AOSP and Google Android.

Re: The $10 Echo

#96

Post by Houshalter »

jimrandomh wrote: post #33

I'm not comfortable with the idea of everyone having far-field microphones in their homes. Cell phone spying is bad enough. If these become widespread, then ten years from now instead of a political debate about call metadata it'll be a debate about literally every word ever spoken .

I don't see how it's different than a smartphone. Everyone carries with them a little microphone and GPS now. Who cares about using voice recognition in the home?

And the real voice recognition should be turned off 99% of the time. It should just passively listen for a keyword before using any cloud service.

Re: The $10 Echo

#97

Post by soylentcola »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #74
crimsonalucard wrote: post #29

compared with ok google and siri, echo is not much better (if not worse) in terms of intelligence. What made echo was the physical form factor. Intelligence is hard to mimic, but physical form factor is not. All google or apple needs to do is come out with with a similar speaker/mic combo and it will totally blow echo out of the water.

I agree. I wish Google would build their own echo. The ability to do things like manage a calendar, text people, and all the other "Ok, Google" functions through an Echo-like device that also does what Amazon's Echo currently does would be fantastic. Alexa can't even tell me what is the stock price of Amazon and can't give me the current temperature without prattling off the entire weather update.

I guess they've just focused on getting the functionality available on devices you can already find (Android and iOS devices, TVs like the newer Sonys that run AndroidTV, etc). I see the appeal of a standalone device but I find that lots of times, the response may not translate well into audio-only so having a screen helps when you ask something and the best answer is a graph, text, or image.

Just a guess though. I'm surprised that wasn't included in that rather pricey wifi router they launched recently. It has a decent sized speaker in it but perhaps they decided not to enable it just yet. My guess is that they wanted to start selling the wifi routers but didn't think the voice stuff was up to snuff for a consumer application/selling point just yet.

Re: The $10 Echo

#98

Post by kuschku »

mintplant wrote: post #61
johnhattan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Echo is a good listener. In fact, when I ran the video on the OP's site and he said "Alexa, what time is it?" my Echo in the other room woke up and told me the time :)

That's actually one of my concerns about voice-driven interfaces, absent some sort of voice print authentication or tactile confirmation button. Imagine standing up in a crowded room and shouting "OK Google, delete everything!", or "OK Google, recite the first thouand digits of pi!"

This was a common way to troll Xbox players: If they used speakers, shout "Xbox Off" loud enough via the voice chat (in a multiplayer game) and their devices turned off.

Re: The $10 Echo

#99

Post by [deleted] »

sammachin wrote: post #42

Thanks for all the upvotes folks, I should clarify that there is a bit of artistic license on the title calling this a $10 Echo, there are 2 caveats; Its only about $10 the CHIP is a "$9 Computer" plus tax & shipping etc. and this hack then requires a speaker, microphone and a button, however you may well have these lying around of have another device like an old speakerphone or something that you could gut and put t…

[deleted]

Re: The $10 Echo

#100

Post by posharma »

bgroins wrote: post #93
posharma wrote: post #79

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Jasper [1]. Its a cool little but very well organized project that I put together this Christmas. [1] http://jasperproject.github.io/

You're surprised nobody has mentioned a project you organized less than 10 days ago?

No, I didn't organize it. The awesome people at Princeton did last year. Its really awesome. I just downloaded and made my own this Christmas.
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