HardOCP News
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It's like Siri for your house.
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It's like Siri for your house.
Alexa was just what that guy chose to name his echo.
You could call it Bob or Hey Joe.
No matter what, its just stupid.
Jesus don't use your brain for anything, you can just buy a plastic box.
Oh shit....sorry, it is called Alexa......dumb name.....
Joe would have been better.
no one will call it anything other than jarvis
Alexa make sexy time voice moans, I'm trying to rub one out.
no one will call it anything other than jarvis
Paul Bettany's voice would make it sell.
For anything other than Amazon's own content, it appear to simply act as a Bluetooth-based amplifier for your other devices.Would it even be able to play music in say, FLAC form from a Samba4 share on my local network...or is it all about proprietary access to certain apps?
If you have a way to send your personal collection to a Bluetooth transmitter, I suspect you could make it work.Echo provides hands-free voice control for Amazon Music, Prime Music, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn. Plus, Echo is Bluetooth-enabled so you can stream other popular music services like Spotify, iTunes, and Pandora from your phone or tablet.
Advil has the right of it. Even as a Prime member (and thus, being able to pick it up for only $100), I see a number of reasons why I will be unlikely to do so.
The fact that its "brains" are basically proprietary and off site, is a major privacy issue. I'm sure there's a "generous" privacy policy that basically says "everything you say to, around etc... the device gets sent to Amazon Web Services and we can do whatever we like with this data". If you wouldn't let an Amazon rep sit in your home and take notes on everything you said, in return for them answering a question for you now and then, this device is little different.
Technically, I'm none too impressed with the onboard functionality. How much is proprietary? For instance, is it basically tied to Amazon's app store and/or the iOS/Android app? It said "desktop web browsers", yet doesnt' specify if it has a bog standard web interface (and if it does, is it secure) for configuring certain things? Would it even be able to play music in say, FLAC form from a Samba4 share on my local network...or is it all about proprietary access to certain apps? If it manages my calendars, where are they stored? Which formats can it interact with, and how so? Does it connect everything to the Amazon cloud? There are no data connections physically - everything is wireless required. It seems so far everything runs in a proprietary manner and is tailor made for those who are fully integrated into the Amazon ecosystem.. but I'm willing to admit the technical details aren't well..detailed enough for full analysis.
Don't get me wrong, I like these sort of "assistant" kits and home automation etc...but I'll be damned if I'm going to put it in the hands of any third party, much less one that gobbles up any info that it is fed. I'm thankful there are some AI projects out there that are still FOSS. Its a pity one of these companies can't license and package their AI/search/assistant tech in a privacy and FOSS integration friendly way; I'd be willing to pay for that, even, if I could basically confine that technology to being resident in a local way and with an ironclad privacy policy so that anything that was exposed through the use of it would not be saved/cataloged/mined etc.
We're quickly ceding control of our lives to "smart/internet of things" devices that provide minor convenience at the cost of major privacy issues.
Bingo.
Seemed interesting, and I was tempted since I can get it for $100. Then I remembered that I don't use the stuff built into my phone, why in the world would I use this thing with amazon listening to an open mic in my home all day long? This is a privacy issue the same way that kinect is a privacy issue on the xbone. If this were being handled entirely device-side, and I could be certain somehow that it wasn't phoning home then I might consider something like this. But having this thing actively listening without any control over the information being sent back to amazon? No thanks.