11 ms·

Amazon's Alexa Moves in on Google's Android System

87 points by QUFB 10y ago

bookmarkacc 10y ago
Shouldnt the title replace Google with Huawei? Android is Google but the phone is not theirs. But misleading.
fharper1961 10y ago
Money quote at the end: "“A huge part of an assistant is search,” he said. “Google is a search company. Amazon is not.”
- jonemo 10y ago
  Amazon actually had a general purpose search engine once. That's what a9.com was. The company A9.com [1] is still around as an Amazon subsidiary [2], the search engine is not. [1] https://a9.com/ https://a9.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com
- freehunter 10y ago
  If Amazon isn't a search company, then Google isn't an OS company. Search is pretty integral to Amazon, search being the main way that anyone finds anything on their site. Sure, selling other company's products is what they're known for, but they do a lot more than that. And funny enough, a search engine is one of them. A9 (an Amazon company) develops custom search engines and search technologies. You can't pigeonhole conglomerates like that. Google is an email company, Amazon is a cloud hosting provider, Microsoft is a tablet PC maker, Samsung is a heavy equipment company. No wait, Google is a browser vendor, Amazon is a bookstore, Microsoft is the maker of an office suite, and Samsung makes hardware for the iPhone. Or maybe they're all tech companies and specialize in multiple aspects of that industry.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    I mostly use Google search to find things on Amazon.
  - AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
    Actually, it's pretty clear that Amazon is not a search company - nor is Google. Amazon's market is digital retail, while Google's is digital marketing. Amazon's tech is all an effort to extend their reach in their primary business: selling products (both physical and digital) to customers. Google's tech, on the other hand, is all in an effort to extend the reach of their ad and marketing services.
    - jarcoal 10y ago
      This is silly, Google is clearly a search company.
      - bitmapbrother 10y ago
        He's deriving what a company is based on their revenue streams. What he forgets is that without Google being as good as it is at search there wouldn't be that lucrative revenue.
        AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
        Search is no more than a powerful tool that Google leverages to better understand and target its users. It is a means to much more lucrative ends.
    - crucifiction 10y ago
      Amazon figured out a while ago its tech can extend their primary business and also be sold to other businesses on the side (AWS and 3p sellers/FBA). This is a broadening that google hasn't been successful at yet.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  I am not sure I would call that a money quote. It very well could have ended saying "Google isn't an e-commerce company." As far as I am concerned Amazon is a search company with two day shipping.
- losteric 10y ago
  The other part of assistance is integration with the physical realm. As a global store front and supply chain, Amazon has a serious advantage in that area... manufacturers are more inclined to cooperate and integrate with the Alexa ecosystem. Amazon's end-game is obviously "sell more stuff" - obvious benefits for the manufacturers. I can't see a clear vision behind Google's plan. However, so far every device is a walled garden, a locked-in ecosystem - bleh, huge turnoff. Is there prior work in developing an an open assistant/querying protocol for these kinds of devices? Some standard way for devices to get data after the device has handled wakewords and speech-to-text? It's a fascinating domain, but I don't have enough knowledge to bootstrap myself yet.
- vidarh 10y ago
  A grand total of 0 of the things I've tried to ask my Alexa has been search. If I want to search, I pick up any of half a dozen devices scattered around the room that has a screen, because I don't want to have to wait to have results read to me. What appealed to me about it was that the examples given were simple and practical.
- cerrelio 10y ago
  I would put forth that Google isn't a search company anymore. They spend more resources filtering out all the junk on the web. Search is a secondary function for them. The end-user doesn't see the filtering; publishers and merchants trying to jockey for position do.
mmanfrin 10y ago
I think this exposes a bit of a flaw in Google's rollout of their 'Assistant'; they only released it to Pixel devices early on which has alienated Nexus owners (or at the very least this Nexus owner). I have both a Google Home and an Amazon Echo; the Echo shows some real strengths from its early lead -- a lot more connected and a lot of baked in bespoke interactions. The Home has Google's existing work on knowledge graphs built in and is surprisingly good at knowledge based queries (today I asked both 'what is a normal heart rate'; Google answered with some 'According to Mayo Clinic...' answer and the Echo said 'I dont know how to respond'). The thing CES this past week showed me is that the battle lines are being drawn. Amazon has a lot more partnerships rolling out; the only one I saw for Google was with the Shield, which is mainly because it's running Android TV. I don't know which will win out. If I had my druthers, both would be available on 3rd party hardware -- I want to know that they are listening when I explicitly want them to listen, and I don't trust their own proprietary hardware to do so.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  I noticed that lots of companies are building Alexa in... but besides cars, the use cases haven't been particularly compelling yet, and would probably work just as well as a Skill or IFTTT channel. And while Alexa has a lead in terms of Skills, the integration is so shallow that there is no lock in and I expect most vendor-backed skills to come to GH when the platform is opened up. The fact that 5m people already have an Echo sure is something, but plenty more people have Cortana through Windows 10.
  - mikeryan 10y ago
    Google Home is Opened up via API.ai (now owned by Google) I think that acquisition caught up google quite a bit on the SDK side.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
eva1984 10y ago
What does move in here mean? An App? This is editorialized non-story.
tmuir 10y ago
Is anyone else concerned that tools like Alexa are making the whole automated home thing too easy? I see it as creating a bunch of automation "experts" out of people who don't truly understand the whole feature surface/attack surface coupling. There are multiple tutorials on Amazon's website to learn how to implement the whole path, end to end. There are "smart" outlets that are actually pretty dumb, at least when it comes to knowing whats plugged into it. Whats to prevent someone from connecting this to their smart door locks? Then if that person has a big party, and someone with bad intentions shows up, they can simply say "Alexa, at 3:30am tomorrow, turn off the alarm system, and unlock the doors". Or "Alexa, turn off the dialysis machine". Sure Amazon might make it more secure in the future, but probably only after enough of these unintended consequences stack up. I also understand that the average HN reader is probably not rushing out to introduce a single point of failure into their home security system. My point is that Alexa is essentially saying "don't worry about how it happens, just dream big about what awesome stuff might happen".
- WalterSear 10y ago
  > What's to prevent someone from connecting this to their smart door locks? August (the premiere door lock people) are very careful who they partner with, and wouldn't partner with anyone making an integration like this (they won't partner with my current employer for this very security reason). 2nd & 3rd tier vendors might not be so choosy.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Grandparent brings to mind "HEY SIRI, UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR." https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/532gmg/my_neighbor_just_let_himself_into_my_locked_house/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/532gmg/my_neigh... I've attached my comment to yours because the story mentions the lock was made by August.
    - supergeek133 10y ago
      I would argue that's a result of the way Homekit and Siri interact, and not the fault of the August Lock. August put the Homekit chip in the device. Apple should really require a code along with the unlock command. It's also why Amazon asked some skill makers to remove unlock functionality recently.
dkarapetyan 10y ago
How is IBM not winning this game? Watson is an impressive piece of technology.
- supergeek133 10y ago
  IBM isn't a consumer brand.
- whenwillitstop 10y ago
  Watson is all about marketing, it's not that impressive. The stories you see about it are placed.
- bitmapbrother 10y ago
  Watson is a marketing gimmick.
- solipsism 10y ago
  Nice try, Watson
crucifiction 10y ago
I think, as proven by Glass, that the public seems to view Google as nice but creepy. Whereas Amazon is usually tops in customer brand/satisfaction type of scores. My guess is that this is why even though Google definitely has a technologically superior product (better understanding, better inference, etc) they seem to be losing the "hearts and minds" of consumers to Amazon's more bare MVP technology.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Both companies have significant image problems. Google are socially tone-deaf and creepy. Amazon are Borging retail, and have a major problem with Bezos being widely viewed as an asshole, with strong justification. Mind: much the rest of the tech world does little better. Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Facebook, IBM, and more. I'm inclined to think that its the sector itself which selects for this, though in the selection process, the personnel (and especially management) are very mich part of the problem.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- johnsmith21006 10y ago
  Android is used by over 2 billion people on this planet and Alexa by a tiny number in comparison. Amazon tried to do a phone and failed miserably. Today more voice data will be sent to Google than probably all the Echo voice data since launch. They are not close in market share.
MrQuincle 10y ago
Required: voice identification. Or facial recognition if that's too hard for now.
ajmurmann 10y ago
That Google is losing out to Amazon on this is to me largely attributable to Google always struggling with marketing. I constantly hear about Alexa. I didn't even know till now that Google has a new personal assistant your thing that's not Google Now. If I as someone who works as a programmer and reads HN every day don't know, how many regular consumers do? It seems to me that Google mainly is able to get attention for their outlandish projects like car and Glass that go nowhere. That's probably because those products get tons of PR for free.
- adventured 10y ago
  The flaw in Google's situation has always been its lack of a meaningful connection to consumers. It's why Google Shopping could never make a significant dent. That it's an intangible search & ad company, that essentially no consumers buy anything from (in the Amazon sense), will persistently haunt them as the Internet of things / AI / robotics / autonomous whatever continues to rapidly move forward in the consumer space. Maybe they'll start to change that with Pixel. Meanwhile, Amazon is increasingly touching consumers at every possible turn, including soon to be probably hundreds of physical stores of various types. It's like trying to compete with Tesla in autonomous, doing everything just in the lab, without having any physical driving data. If you think of Google's top services that touch consumers: search, gmail, maps, play store, youtube - it's all a million miles away from the tangibility that Amazon has in physically touching consumers on a frequent basis. Google is completely out of its element when it comes to doing the kind of consumer work that Amazon does, including when it comes to customer support. Today Amazon can physically get into your home in several ways, Google will probably always struggle with that (a fundamental difference in how the two companies are oriented and wired).
- tossaway1 10y ago
  > I didn't even know till now that Google has a new personal assistant your thing that's not Google Now. I'm guessing you're an iPhone user and therefore don't have much interest in Android...? There were a lot of positive reviews for the Pixel, both on HN and elsewhere, and most of them seemed to cite the new assistant as the main differentiator between the Pixel and other phones. You're probably right that Google doesn't do well with marketing in general but it's hard to believe that someone who follows tech news wasn't aware of their assistant before now.
skc 10y ago
Wow, we've come a long way from the outrage over the Kinect supposedly "quietly listening all the time" to these products now being the next great thing. What happened?
- leblancfg 10y ago
  Good point. Is anyone aware of a FOSS implementation of "personal audio assistants"? Because the Orwellian creepy factor is way up there.
  - colinramsay 10y ago
    https://jasperproject.github.io/ https://jasperproject.github.io/ However the strength of something like Amazon's devices is the ecosystem and the microphones that they ship with, which are expensive to buy separately.
  - _-david-_ 10y ago
    I haven't tried it but there's this: https://github.com/MycroftAI https://github.com/MycroftAI
- api 10y ago
  Unfortunately the maxim continues to prove true: "nobody cares about privacy or security." I've come to the conclusion that technical loss of privacy is inevitable because customers don't care, and that when the you know what does eventually hit the fan the problem will have to be solved with regulation. There will be HIPAA/PCI type laws around home audio, location data, etc., and a renegotiation of wiretap and search and seizure laws. There may also be some legal limits on private data collection and retention. Of course malicious hackers and secret parts of governments won't obey these laws. We are in some uncharted waters.
- my123 10y ago
  Microsoft pioneered it a bit too early... No(t enough) people care about privacy.
perchdavid 10y ago
HOW I BECAME RICH IN 3DAYS WITH A BLANK ATM CARD…It all depends on how fast you can be to get the new PROGRAMMED blank ATM card that is capable of hacking into any ATM machine,anywhere in the world.Am Perch David i live in Detroit us. I got to know about this BLANK ATM CARD when I was searching for job online about a month ago..It has really changed my life for good and now I can say I’m rich and I can never be poor again. The least money I get in a day with it is about $50,000.(fifty thousand USD) and i only spent $200 to get the card.Only serious individuals should contact him because he is very straight forward if you dont have the money dont even bother to contact him and his series is 100% trusted i am a living testimony. Every now and then I keep pumping money into my account. Though is illegal,there is no risk of being caught ,because it has been programmed in such a way that it is not traceable,it also has a technique that makes it impossible for the CCTVs not to detect you..For more information on how to get yours today, email the hackers on : (worldhackers360@gmail.com) tell your loved once too, let's all start live large. Its a very simple process.
perchdavid 10y ago
HOW I BECAME RICH IN 3DAYS WITH A BLANK ATM CARD…It all depends on how fast you can be to get the new PROGRAMMED blank ATM card that is capable of hacking into any ATM machine,anywhere in the world.Am Perch David i live in Detroit us. I got to know about this BLANK ATM CARD when I was searching for job online about a month ago..It has really changed my life for good and now I can say I’m rich and I can never be poor again. The least money I get in a day with it is about $50,000.(fifty thousand USD) and i only spent $200 to get the card.Only serious individuals should contact him because he is very straight forward if you dont have the money dont even bother to contact him and his series is 100% trusted i am a living testimony. Every now and then I keep pumping money into my account. Though is illegal,there is no risk of being caught ,because it has been programmed in such a way that it is not traceable,it also has a technique that makes it impossible for the CCTVs not to detect you..For more information on how to get yours today, email the hackers on : (worldhackers360@gmail.com) tell your loved once too, let's all start live large. Its a very simple process.
perchdavid 10y ago
HOW I BECAME RICH IN 3DAYS WITH A BLANK ATM CARD…It all depends on how fast you can be to get the new PROGRAMMED blank ATM card that is capable of hacking into any ATM machine,anywhere in the world.Am Perch David i live in Detroit us. I got to know about this BLANK ATM CARD when I was searching for job online about a month ago..It has really changed my life for good and now I can say I’m rich and I can never be poor again. The least money I get in a day with it is about $50,000.(fifty thousand USD) and i only spent $200 to get the card.Only serious individuals should contact him because he is very straight forward if you dont have the money dont even bother to contact him and his series is 100% trusted i am a living testimony. Every now and then I keep pumping money into my account. Though is illegal,there is no risk of being caught ,because it has been programmed in such a way that it is not traceable,it also has a technique that makes it impossible for the CCTVs not to detect you..For more information on how to get yours today, email the hackers on : (worldhackers360@gmail.com) tell your loved once too, let's all start live large. Its a very simple process.

87 points by QUFB 10y ago

bookmarkacc 10y ago

Shouldnt the title replace Google with Huawei? Android is Google but the phone is not theirs. But misleading.

fharper1961 10y ago

Money quote at the end: "“A huge part of an assistant is search,” he said. “Google is a search company. Amazon is not.”

jonemo 10y ago
Amazon actually had a general purpose search engine once. That's what a9.com was. The company A9.com [1] is still around as an Amazon subsidiary [2], the search engine is not. [1] https://a9.com/ https://a9.com/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A9.com
freehunter 10y ago
If Amazon isn't a search company, then Google isn't an OS company. Search is pretty integral to Amazon, search being the main way that anyone finds anything on their site. Sure, selling other company's products is what they're known for, but they do a lot more than that. And funny enough, a search engine is one of them. A9 (an Amazon company) develops custom search engines and search technologies. You can't pigeonhole conglomerates like that. Google is an email company, Amazon is a cloud hosting provider, Microsoft is a tablet PC maker, Samsung is a heavy equipment company. No wait, Google is a browser vendor, Amazon is a bookstore, Microsoft is the maker of an office suite, and Samsung makes hardware for the iPhone. Or maybe they're all tech companies and specialize in multiple aspects of that industry.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I mostly use Google search to find things on Amazon.
- AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
  Actually, it's pretty clear that Amazon is not a search company - nor is Google. Amazon's market is digital retail, while Google's is digital marketing. Amazon's tech is all an effort to extend their reach in their primary business: selling products (both physical and digital) to customers. Google's tech, on the other hand, is all in an effort to extend the reach of their ad and marketing services.
  - jarcoal 10y ago
    This is silly, Google is clearly a search company.
    - bitmapbrother 10y ago
      He's deriving what a company is based on their revenue streams. What he forgets is that without Google being as good as it is at search there wouldn't be that lucrative revenue.
      - AndrewUnmuted 10y ago
        Search is no more than a powerful tool that Google leverages to better understand and target its users. It is a means to much more lucrative ends.
  - crucifiction 10y ago
    Amazon figured out a while ago its tech can extend their primary business and also be sold to other businesses on the side (AWS and 3p sellers/FBA). This is a broadening that google hasn't been successful at yet.
bogomipz 10y ago
I am not sure I would call that a money quote. It very well could have ended saying "Google isn't an e-commerce company." As far as I am concerned Amazon is a search company with two day shipping.
losteric 10y ago
The other part of assistance is integration with the physical realm. As a global store front and supply chain, Amazon has a serious advantage in that area... manufacturers are more inclined to cooperate and integrate with the Alexa ecosystem. Amazon's end-game is obviously "sell more stuff" - obvious benefits for the manufacturers. I can't see a clear vision behind Google's plan. However, so far every device is a walled garden, a locked-in ecosystem - bleh, huge turnoff. Is there prior work in developing an an open assistant/querying protocol for these kinds of devices? Some standard way for devices to get data after the device has handled wakewords and speech-to-text? It's a fascinating domain, but I don't have enough knowledge to bootstrap myself yet.
vidarh 10y ago
A grand total of 0 of the things I've tried to ask my Alexa has been search. If I want to search, I pick up any of half a dozen devices scattered around the room that has a screen, because I don't want to have to wait to have results read to me. What appealed to me about it was that the examples given were simple and practical.
cerrelio 10y ago
I would put forth that Google isn't a search company anymore. They spend more resources filtering out all the junk on the web. Search is a secondary function for them. The end-user doesn't see the filtering; publishers and merchants trying to jockey for position do.

mmanfrin 10y ago

I think this exposes a bit of a flaw in Google's rollout of their 'Assistant'; they only released it to Pixel devices early on which has alienated Nexus owners (or at the very least this Nexus owner). I have both a Google Home and an Amazon Echo; the Echo shows some real strengths from its early lead -- a lot more connected and a lot of baked in bespoke interactions. The Home has Google's existing work on knowledge graphs built in and is surprisingly good at knowledge based queries (today I asked both 'what is a normal heart rate'; Google answered with some 'According to Mayo Clinic...' answer and the Echo said 'I dont know how to respond'). The thing CES this past week showed me is that the battle lines are being drawn. Amazon has a lot more partnerships rolling out; the only one I saw for Google was with the Shield, which is mainly because it's running Android TV. I don't know which will win out. If I had my druthers, both would be available on 3rd party hardware -- I want to know that they are listening when I explicitly want them to listen, and I don't trust their own proprietary hardware to do so.

Eridrus 10y ago
I noticed that lots of companies are building Alexa in... but besides cars, the use cases haven't been particularly compelling yet, and would probably work just as well as a Skill or IFTTT channel. And while Alexa has a lead in terms of Skills, the integration is so shallow that there is no lock in and I expect most vendor-backed skills to come to GH when the platform is opened up. The fact that 5m people already have an Echo sure is something, but plenty more people have Cortana through Windows 10.
- mikeryan 10y ago
  Google Home is Opened up via API.ai (now owned by Google) I think that acquisition caught up google quite a bit on the SDK side.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago

eva1984 10y ago

What does move in here mean? An App? This is editorialized non-story.

tmuir 10y ago

Is anyone else concerned that tools like Alexa are making the whole automated home thing too easy? I see it as creating a bunch of automation "experts" out of people who don't truly understand the whole feature surface/attack surface coupling. There are multiple tutorials on Amazon's website to learn how to implement the whole path, end to end. There are "smart" outlets that are actually pretty dumb, at least when it comes to knowing whats plugged into it. Whats to prevent someone from connecting this to their smart door locks? Then if that person has a big party, and someone with bad intentions shows up, they can simply say "Alexa, at 3:30am tomorrow, turn off the alarm system, and unlock the doors". Or "Alexa, turn off the dialysis machine". Sure Amazon might make it more secure in the future, but probably only after enough of these unintended consequences stack up. I also understand that the average HN reader is probably not rushing out to introduce a single point of failure into their home security system. My point is that Alexa is essentially saying "don't worry about how it happens, just dream big about what awesome stuff might happen".

WalterSear 10y ago
> What's to prevent someone from connecting this to their smart door locks? August (the premiere door lock people) are very careful who they partner with, and wouldn't partner with anyone making an integration like this (they won't partner with my current employer for this very security reason). 2nd & 3rd tier vendors might not be so choosy.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Grandparent brings to mind "HEY SIRI, UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR." https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/532gmg/my_neighbor_just_let_himself_into_my_locked_house/ https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/532gmg/my_neigh... I've attached my comment to yours because the story mentions the lock was made by August.
  - supergeek133 10y ago
    I would argue that's a result of the way Homekit and Siri interact, and not the fault of the August Lock. August put the Homekit chip in the device. Apple should really require a code along with the unlock command. It's also why Amazon asked some skill makers to remove unlock functionality recently.

dkarapetyan 10y ago

How is IBM not winning this game? Watson is an impressive piece of technology.

supergeek133 10y ago
IBM isn't a consumer brand.
whenwillitstop 10y ago
Watson is all about marketing, it's not that impressive. The stories you see about it are placed.
bitmapbrother 10y ago
Watson is a marketing gimmick.
solipsism 10y ago
Nice try, Watson

crucifiction 10y ago

I think, as proven by Glass, that the public seems to view Google as nice but creepy. Whereas Amazon is usually tops in customer brand/satisfaction type of scores. My guess is that this is why even though Google definitely has a technologically superior product (better understanding, better inference, etc) they seem to be losing the "hearts and minds" of consumers to Amazon's more bare MVP technology.

dredmorbius 10y ago
Both companies have significant image problems. Google are socially tone-deaf and creepy. Amazon are Borging retail, and have a major problem with Bezos being widely viewed as an asshole, with strong justification. Mind: much the rest of the tech world does little better. Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Facebook, IBM, and more. I'm inclined to think that its the sector itself which selects for this, though in the selection process, the personnel (and especially management) are very mich part of the problem.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
johnsmith21006 10y ago
Android is used by over 2 billion people on this planet and Alexa by a tiny number in comparison. Amazon tried to do a phone and failed miserably. Today more voice data will be sent to Google than probably all the Echo voice data since launch. They are not close in market share.

MrQuincle 10y ago

Required: voice identification. Or facial recognition if that's too hard for now.

ajmurmann 10y ago

That Google is losing out to Amazon on this is to me largely attributable to Google always struggling with marketing. I constantly hear about Alexa. I didn't even know till now that Google has a new personal assistant your thing that's not Google Now. If I as someone who works as a programmer and reads HN every day don't know, how many regular consumers do? It seems to me that Google mainly is able to get attention for their outlandish projects like car and Glass that go nowhere. That's probably because those products get tons of PR for free.

adventured 10y ago
The flaw in Google's situation has always been its lack of a meaningful connection to consumers. It's why Google Shopping could never make a significant dent. That it's an intangible search & ad company, that essentially no consumers buy anything from (in the Amazon sense), will persistently haunt them as the Internet of things / AI / robotics / autonomous whatever continues to rapidly move forward in the consumer space. Maybe they'll start to change that with Pixel. Meanwhile, Amazon is increasingly touching consumers at every possible turn, including soon to be probably hundreds of physical stores of various types. It's like trying to compete with Tesla in autonomous, doing everything just in the lab, without having any physical driving data. If you think of Google's top services that touch consumers: search, gmail, maps, play store, youtube - it's all a million miles away from the tangibility that Amazon has in physically touching consumers on a frequent basis. Google is completely out of its element when it comes to doing the kind of consumer work that Amazon does, including when it comes to customer support. Today Amazon can physically get into your home in several ways, Google will probably always struggle with that (a fundamental difference in how the two companies are oriented and wired).
tossaway1 10y ago
> I didn't even know till now that Google has a new personal assistant your thing that's not Google Now. I'm guessing you're an iPhone user and therefore don't have much interest in Android...? There were a lot of positive reviews for the Pixel, both on HN and elsewhere, and most of them seemed to cite the new assistant as the main differentiator between the Pixel and other phones. You're probably right that Google doesn't do well with marketing in general but it's hard to believe that someone who follows tech news wasn't aware of their assistant before now.

skc 10y ago

Wow, we've come a long way from the outrage over the Kinect supposedly "quietly listening all the time" to these products now being the next great thing. What happened?

leblancfg 10y ago
Good point. Is anyone aware of a FOSS implementation of "personal audio assistants"? Because the Orwellian creepy factor is way up there.
- colinramsay 10y ago
  https://jasperproject.github.io/ https://jasperproject.github.io/ However the strength of something like Amazon's devices is the ecosystem and the microphones that they ship with, which are expensive to buy separately.
- _-david-_ 10y ago
  I haven't tried it but there's this: https://github.com/MycroftAI https://github.com/MycroftAI
api 10y ago
Unfortunately the maxim continues to prove true: "nobody cares about privacy or security." I've come to the conclusion that technical loss of privacy is inevitable because customers don't care, and that when the you know what does eventually hit the fan the problem will have to be solved with regulation. There will be HIPAA/PCI type laws around home audio, location data, etc., and a renegotiation of wiretap and search and seizure laws. There may also be some legal limits on private data collection and retention. Of course malicious hackers and secret parts of governments won't obey these laws. We are in some uncharted waters.
my123 10y ago
Microsoft pioneered it a bit too early... No(t enough) people care about privacy.

perchdavid 10y ago

HOW I BECAME RICH IN 3DAYS WITH A BLANK ATM CARD…It all depends on how fast you can be to get the new PROGRAMMED blank ATM card that is capable of hacking into any ATM machine,anywhere in the world.Am Perch David i live in Detroit us. I got to know about this BLANK ATM CARD when I was searching for job online about a month ago..It has really changed my life for good and now I can say I’m rich and I can never be poor again. The least money I get in a day with it is about $50,000.(fifty thousand USD) and i only spent $200 to get the card.Only serious individuals should contact him because he is very straight forward if you dont have the money dont even bother to contact him and his series is 100% trusted i am a living testimony. Every now and then I keep pumping money into my account. Though is illegal,there is no risk of being caught ,because it has been programmed in such a way that it is not traceable,it also has a technique that makes it impossible for the CCTVs not to detect you..For more information on how to get yours today, email the hackers on : (worldhackers360@gmail.com) tell your loved once too, let's all start live large. Its a very simple process.

perchdavid 10y ago