5 ms·

summary: Bezos may or may not have established a requirement for the 1 second response time, Amazon did a bunch of testing to craft responses to common question

by jkraker 11y ago

summary: Bezos may or may not have established a requirement for the 1 second response time, Amazon did a bunch of testing to craft responses to common questions, Bezos wanted to make sure it wasn't seen as just another music device and it may eventually make Amazon $1 billion. I had hoped for a bit more detail.

deanCommie 11y ago
What were you hoping to get at this early time in the product's lifecycle? Most companies aren't Apple with their short-film-about-every-new-product approach with interviews and sexy renders.
- studentrob 11y ago
  A run down on the tech and some key employees credited with contributions would've made it more interesting for me. Something a little more than Bezos + 1 second. This article sounds a lot like the Jobs hating ones, just from a positive perspective. Anyway Bezos has obviously already done tons for Amazon. The article does nothing to boost Amazon's image and it's a weak attempt at boosting Jeff's.
  - codyb 11y ago
    Yea, I was hoping for the same. Specifically I came in curious as to how it knows to "start paying attention" at the prompt Alexa. I assume it must be integral to the local system although I was under the impression most of these artificial intelligence systems did a lot of their speech processing back home and not locally. Otherwise Amazon would A) be processing a lot of irrelevant conversation and B) be eavesdropping. So my guess was that the Alexa aspect must be local. Very neat, even with the kind of weak article I did put myself in the place of "Alexa, call me an Uber please, I'd like to go to the movies" which is pretty neat. Especially since you could work through, "what's playing nearby Alexa?" ..."okay, in 25 minutes call me an Uber for the Avengers Alexa" I assume you have to say Alexa everytime? But maybe once you're conversing it will keep talking with you? Can you say Alexa at the end? Does it keep track of the last five seconds or so of audial information at any given point for parsing questions? Lots of interesting challenges.
    - alok-g 11y ago
      Excerpts from Wikipedia [1]: "In the default mode the device continuously listens to all speech, monitoring for the wake word to be spoken." "... Echo only streams recordings from the user's home when the 'wake word' activates the device." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Echo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Echo
    - anonymouse12345 11y ago
      All wake word spotting (whether for "Alexa," "Amazon," or "Echo," takes place on the device in order specifically to not stream unintended audio to the cloud (for privacy and for separately beneficial reduction in cloud processing costs).
    - azinman2 11y ago
      It's the same as "ok Google" on certain phones... Local dsp chip that only needs to process the wake word.
- anonymouse12345 11y ago
  Also, not an article with a lot of on-the-record comment from Amazon (as is typical), so you're not going to see a lot of citable or confirmed detail.
anonymouse12345 11y ago
(1) Yes - after reviewing much internal and comparative data (2) Yes - lots and lots (3) Yes - he's not a huge music fan (4) Easy speculation, but probably yes given ASP and likely units sold source: physically present in many meetings in which first 3 were discussed, debated, and decided.
- rdl 11y ago
  Does he like audiobooks? Audible integration is one of my main loves about the Echo -- I own 3 of them now. There are some minor tweaks which the app could use ("end-of-chapter sleep" being the main one, and maybe a go-back-5m on top of go-back-30s, and an auditory representation/readout of how far into a chapter/book/etc. you are.)
- galistoca 11y ago
  I don't think him being a non-music fan has anything to do with him not wanting it to be seen as just another music device though. IF what you built enables things that weren't possible before, you probably don't want it to be associated with already existing products in a crowded market.

by jkraker 11y ago

deanCommie 11y ago

What were you hoping to get at this early time in the product's lifecycle? Most companies aren't Apple with their short-film-about-every-new-product approach with interviews and sexy renders.

studentrob 11y ago
A run down on the tech and some key employees credited with contributions would've made it more interesting for me. Something a little more than Bezos + 1 second. This article sounds a lot like the Jobs hating ones, just from a positive perspective. Anyway Bezos has obviously already done tons for Amazon. The article does nothing to boost Amazon's image and it's a weak attempt at boosting Jeff's.
- codyb 11y ago
  Yea, I was hoping for the same. Specifically I came in curious as to how it knows to "start paying attention" at the prompt Alexa. I assume it must be integral to the local system although I was under the impression most of these artificial intelligence systems did a lot of their speech processing back home and not locally. Otherwise Amazon would A) be processing a lot of irrelevant conversation and B) be eavesdropping. So my guess was that the Alexa aspect must be local. Very neat, even with the kind of weak article I did put myself in the place of "Alexa, call me an Uber please, I'd like to go to the movies" which is pretty neat. Especially since you could work through, "what's playing nearby Alexa?" ..."okay, in 25 minutes call me an Uber for the Avengers Alexa" I assume you have to say Alexa everytime? But maybe once you're conversing it will keep talking with you? Can you say Alexa at the end? Does it keep track of the last five seconds or so of audial information at any given point for parsing questions? Lots of interesting challenges.
  - alok-g 11y ago
    Excerpts from Wikipedia [1]: "In the default mode the device continuously listens to all speech, monitoring for the wake word to be spoken." "... Echo only streams recordings from the user's home when the 'wake word' activates the device." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Echo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Echo
  - anonymouse12345 11y ago
    All wake word spotting (whether for "Alexa," "Amazon," or "Echo," takes place on the device in order specifically to not stream unintended audio to the cloud (for privacy and for separately beneficial reduction in cloud processing costs).
  - azinman2 11y ago
    It's the same as "ok Google" on certain phones... Local dsp chip that only needs to process the wake word.
anonymouse12345 11y ago
Also, not an article with a lot of on-the-record comment from Amazon (as is typical), so you're not going to see a lot of citable or confirmed detail.

anonymouse12345 11y ago

(1) Yes - after reviewing much internal and comparative data (2) Yes - lots and lots (3) Yes - he's not a huge music fan (4) Easy speculation, but probably yes given ASP and likely units sold source: physically present in many meetings in which first 3 were discussed, debated, and decided.

rdl 11y ago
Does he like audiobooks? Audible integration is one of my main loves about the Echo -- I own 3 of them now. There are some minor tweaks which the app could use ("end-of-chapter sleep" being the main one, and maybe a go-back-5m on top of go-back-30s, and an auditory representation/readout of how far into a chapter/book/etc. you are.)
galistoca 11y ago
I don't think him being a non-music fan has anything to do with him not wanting it to be seen as just another music device though. IF what you built enables things that weren't possible before, you probably don't want it to be associated with already existing products in a crowded market.