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Amazon echo - this is the future

Started by biggytitbo, January 31, 2015, 03:53:11 PM

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biggytitbo

Completely agree with this guys assessment of this - http://www.computerworld.com/article/2844509/why-amazon-echo-is-the-future-of-every-home.html


I reckon within 5 years virtually every home will have one of these (or the equivalent thing from google, apple etc) and they'll just be an ordinary part of life, used to control the other devices in our house.

checkoutgirl

I was wondering when a big multinational company was going to invent a machine to spy on us make it easier to buy shite we don't need off the internet. Now Amazon can listen to everything we say. They must have got all my letters asking for this then.

syntaxerror

Its great until it doesn't work, then you can't boil the kettle or something stupid. I don't really like electric windows in cars for the same reason.

falafel

Also, why have microphones and whatnot in everything when you can just carry the microphone with you? Don't see why future devices would need to listen rather than just interface with your phone / watch / glasses or whatever via some kind of network. Any other approach seems a bit redundant.

falafel

Also. Perhaps (certainly) I am unusual but voice would not be my preferred way of getting things done anyway. Example: I ask my boyfriend to make me a coffee only because he does not have a 'make coffee' button. I have to ask because he has a consciousness and expects to be asked, politely at that.

I don't know, its hard to explain. I think we assume that talking is the ideal form of communication with a device because that's how we communicate with each other, but maybe we forget that speech is a product of evolution and simply the most convenient way of transmitting thoughts between sentient animals... Which is not the same use case as dimming the lights or ordering milk. Not explained perfectly because I'm jet lagged but hopefully makes a bit of sense.

I also think that most people who jump on this voice control shit are American and rightly or not that is one culture that places a high value on verbosity, so maybe there's some sort of causative correlation there...

syntaxerror

Something I don't really understand, but I do know (this is definitely right, I think) that speakers and microphones are basically literally the opposite of each other (plug a pair of headphones into your microphone hole on your computer and record yourself if you don't believe me), so surely everything has a microphone in it already? Is there going to be a point where we can reverse engineer everything to listen to use or does it not work like that?

lazarou

#6
Quote from: falafel on January 31, 2015, 06:00:44 PM
I don't know, its hard to explain. I think we assume that talking is the ideal form of communication with a device because that's how we communicate with each other, but maybe we forget that speech is a product of evolution and simply the most convenient way of transmitting thoughts between sentient animals...
I always get the feeling with this kind of thing that it gets pushed so hard because it feels like the kind of thing we should be doing in this Bold New Future rather than it being an especially practical or even all that useful tool to have.

The article mentions using it to shop, but imagine shopping through an audio interface. It would be gash incarnate. If there's some kind of associated screen to help with that, why wouldn't you just use your PC or even your phone? Even something as simple as adding some essentials to a shopping list, if you didn't know the exact brand, model or quantity of what you're looking for you'd be stuck unless you looked it up and entered it all in a favourites list via a PC or phone. Again, why not just use that? We're all essentially carrying PCs in our pockets with apps decent enough to make impulse shopping effortless and immediate. Having an audio interface between you and that is making more work for the customer, not less.

This stuff has one great practical use, and that's for calling people or doing similar fiddly stuff when you simply don't have a free hand, like when you're driving. Elsewhere it feels like an overly elaborate solution to a problem that didn't need solving.

biggytitbo

It'd be great for all manner of stuff. Settling arguments - Alexa, when did Terry Scott die, bitch over there doesn't believe me that it was 1993. Alexa, play The Frog Chorus by Paul McCartney. Alexa, translate 'Jizz all over my face' into Japanese.


It's basically the Star Trek computer and will only get better and more useful with time. If is isn't in every house in 5 years I'll eat my hat.

Consignia

An always on microphone connected to the internet in everyone's home? This can only be used for human good.

falafel

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 31, 2015, 06:57:19 PM
It'd be great for all manner of stuff. Settling arguments - Alexa, when did Terry Scott die, bitch over there doesn't believe me that it was 1993. Alexa, play The Frog Chorus by Paul McCartney. Alexa, translate 'Jizz all over my face' into Japanese.


It's basically the Star Trek computer and will only get better and more useful with time. If is isn't in every house in 5 years I'll eat my hat.
We can already do that, more or less, it's just about improving the algorithms. I'm just questioning the logic of having lots of hardware all over your house replicating this functionality which would, let's face it, all be processed in the cloud anyway. Seems like a thought relic from the age of hi fi separates. The reality would likely be more pervasive and less visible than that, to my mind.

biggytitbo

Mmm surely the whole point of echo is it lives in the cloud though. It's basically Siri/Google now but always on. The real battle is who can get it to do the most stuff most accurately the quickest.

lazarou

Quote from: falafel on January 31, 2015, 08:46:12 PM
I'm just questioning the logic of having lots of hardware all over your house replicating this functionality which would, let's face it, all be processed in the cloud anyway. Seems like a thought relic from the age of hi fi separates.
People can barely be arsed getting Smart TVs. How are the Amazons of the world going to sell them on smart appliances that would interact with this kind of system when their usefulness would be limited at best and considerably more expensive with it. What exactly are the significant lifestyle improvements that would justify the investment?

QuoteIt's basically Siri/Google now but always on.
Siri and Google now are always on just as much as this is though. Say the word and they're there. And as they're in your pocket, they're there with you everywhere.

olliebean

Must be a sign of how stupid the human race is getting that Amazon can design a product that basically sits in your house and uploads everything you say within range of it to their servers, in the confident knowledge that plenty of people will be OK with that.

I daresay Amazon will be getting a call from the NSA soon enough, if they're not already thoroughly involved.

Replies From View

I just keep imagining this subtle event occurring as a man brings a lady home for the first time:


"Amazon Echo?"

*bleep*

"Set lighting to 'romantic' please."

*bleep*

*lights dim*


*lady scrunches her face up*

Pit-Pat

Quote from: Mike "Marbles" ElganCritics have pounced on Echo, saying that it's just a manipulative way for Amazon to make it easy for you to buy stuff. That criticism is as true as it is obvious, but it's also irrelevant. Both Amazon and consumers want buying stuff to be easier.

Yeah, it's just so fucking difficult to buy stuff at the moment. I wish I could live in a world where my every thought could be processed as a mouse-click.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a mind clicking a "Buy" button - forever.

phantom_power

Quote from: olliebean on January 31, 2015, 10:37:18 PM
Must be a sign of how stupid the human race is getting that Amazon can design a product that basically sits in your house and uploads everything you say within range of it to their servers, in the confident knowledge that plenty of people will be OK with that.

I daresay Amazon will be getting a call from the NSA soon enough, if they're not already thoroughly involved.

But surely most people's households wouldn't have anything said that anyone else would be interested in anyway, and those who do wouldn't buy one of these

lazarou

Quote from: olliebean on January 31, 2015, 10:37:18 PM
Must be a sign of how stupid the human race is getting that Amazon can design a product that basically sits in your house and uploads everything you say within range of it to their servers, in the confident knowledge that plenty of people will be OK with that.
Though they tend to stir up a lot of excitement from tech bloggers who really should know better, Amazon have had very little success in this kind of thing. They're struggling to sell their Fire phones and TV boxes, and I can tell you first-hand they are clueless about what they're doing with their wasteland of an app store. Turns out that while people might like to shop there, they're less interested in being locked into their ecosystem than they thought. I don't think they're in any danger of tempting the general public with such an invasive solution.

Alberon

The problem with the Fire phones is that they are compressed blocks of shite.

Voice control seems great, but as some previews of Windows 10 about Cortana have said recently, how much use is it actually?

Maybe the general public will want to do things that way. Apparently people mostly prefer video instructions rather than a PDF or web page, even though the latter is better most of the time.

Replies From View

Quote from: Alberon on February 01, 2015, 10:41:43 PM
The problem with the Fire phones is that they are compressed blocks of shite.

Compressed blocks of shite, you say?

Where do I sign?

stunted

Quote from: lazarou on January 31, 2015, 06:20:35 PM
I always get the feeling with this kind of thing that it gets pushed so hard because it feels like the kind of thing we should be doing in this Bold New Future rather than it being an especially practical or even all that useful tool to have.
I feel this way about touch screen laptops. A mouse is quicker, more efficient and far more precise than prodding things with your fingers ever will be. A mouse is a useful tool and operating systems are increasingly being designed not to take advantage of what it can do. 

BPFHAY

Quote from: lazarou on February 01, 2015, 10:31:28 PM
Though they tend to stir up a lot of excitement from tech bloggers who really should know better, Amazon have had very little success in this kind of thing. They're struggling to sell their Fire phones and TV boxes, and I can tell you first-hand they are clueless about what they're doing with their wasteland of an app store. Turns out that while people might like to shop there, they're less interested in being locked into their ecosystem than they thought. I don't think they're in any danger of tempting the general public with such an invasive solution.
Could somebody explain the Fire/Amazon app store to me? "Well, it's like Android but with far less choice and lots of limitations." - I get that they want to lock people into Amazon stuff, but how the fuck are they pitching this to consumers?

Dunno if I'm in the minority but I wouldn't use this. I like clicking on stuff. I've got my nippy little media PC plugged into the living room TV and it's the same every day when I get in: turn on, check software updates, kettle on, email, favourite sites, start daily torrents. Click-click-click-click-click.

I like telling the PC what to do with precision. Fuck having to start talking to it.

Obel

Quote from: Replies From View on February 01, 2015, 02:19:23 PM
I just keep imagining this subtle event occurring as a man brings a lady home for the first time:


"Amazon Echo?"

*bleep*

"Set lighting to 'romantic' please."

*bleep*

*lights dim*

*Merzbow plays*

*romance occurs*

QuoteYou already bring your smartphone into the bathroom
I have never knowingly taken a telephone into a bathroom.
QuoteYo, Cortana.
Oh dear.
QuoteWe need paper towels!
If I need paper towels I shall drive to Booker in Folkestone.
QuoteContact Mike and learn more about him at http://google.me/+MikeElgan.
No thank you.

olliebean


Quote from: BPFHAY on February 02, 2015, 03:07:45 PM
Could somebody explain the Fire/Amazon app store to me? "Well, it's like Android but with far less choice and lots of limitations." - I get that they want to lock people into Amazon stuff, but how the fuck are they pitching this to consumers?

Yeah, I sent my Fire back when I realised you can't install any Google apps on it, or use it with Chromecast.

Replies From View

Quote from: sick as a pike on February 03, 2015, 08:49:32 AM
I have never knowingly taken a telephone into a bathroom.

This is how they get you.

chand

Quote from: Too Many Cochranes on February 02, 2015, 11:59:20 PM
Dunno if I'm in the minority but I wouldn't use this. I like clicking on stuff. I've got my nippy little media PC plugged into the living room TV and it's the same every day when I get in: turn on, check software updates, kettle on, email, favourite sites, start daily torrents. Click-click-click-click-click.

I like telling the PC what to do with precision. Fuck having to start talking to it.

I don't really get it either. It's useful technology for people who have limited use of their hands/no hands, but as someone with the privilege of being able to touch things I'm not sure I really want this. I can barely be arsed to talk to my friends and family.

My phone can accept voice commands. I tried it once a few weeks ago after watching a shit advert where a guy asks his phone how far it is to Margate, so I asked my phone that and it registered it as "how far is it to Mars?", a question which it didn't properly answer anyway.

Buttress

Like something out of the Star Treks. Voice command stuff won't catch on until they can get literal people (ie. speaking beings) trapped inside our computers ala Black Mirror. Because the one thing worse than only having yourself to talk to is having all that nonsense sent to Amazon's cloud servers for all eternity.

Replies From View

There's no need for a central control system that will lead to everything stopping if it goes wrong.

Better would be sentient property that does as we ask without being hooked up to a centralised system, eg:  "light, turn on please" or "washing machine, spin that load out please", achieved through letting our property be enslaved creatures ala the Flintstones.

"Lamp, be less of a cunt and properly aim your light at the pages of this book as I read please."  I think it was Fred who said that once.

Blumf

Voice activation looks good on TV and in films, it gives the actor something clear to do instead of sitting at a keyboard ambiguously tapping away. Similarly those big holographic interfaces where the user waves their arms about.

Both methods are completely useless for the real world. They lack accuracy, strain parts of our body that aren't designed to work that way, and are security nightmares.

Now enter upper management, they're too old to understand this computer stuff, and even if they not, they don't use it properly for anything more complicated than browsing the golfing section on Amazon. They have no ideas about how to create a useful technology, but what they have done is seen lots of TV and films with pretty looking gadgets being used as described, so that's the plan now, make the magic boxes do that! Never mind that any voice activated system capable of reliably understanding you would pretty much have to have above human level of intelligence[nb]Bare in mind the amount of communication failures between humans, a reliably system would have to be able to model the person commanding it and predict their intentions. At that point, might as well just let it get on with things on it's own[/nb] thus making the human redundant. Never mind that holding your arms up in the air for hours on end would tire them quickly. Management went to the pictures this weekend, make the pretty thing happen, it looked cool.

Quote from: chand on February 03, 2015, 09:55:54 AM
My phone can accept voice commands. I tried it once a few weeks ago after watching a shit advert where a guy asks his phone how far it is to Margate, so I asked my phone that and it registered it as "how far is it to Mars?", a question which it didn't properly answer anyway.

"LOL I dunnow, like, more than 100 miles I guess"
"Further than you can walk, fatty!"
"Bruno Mars is currently on the east coast of the US. Would you like a list of nearby gun shops?"