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Facebook Delays Home-Speaker Unveil Amid Data Crisis
- danso 9y agoI was going to say that I couldn't even imagine the selling point of this to the average consumer, but I'm not someone who uses my Echo for social uses (i.e. calling, or sending/receiving messages). For the FB/Instagram-addicted crowd, I guess I could see the appeal of being able to do voice-activated messaging, and to look at photo albums. And it's not something FB should want to give API access for to Alexa/Google/Siri. That said, I think as popular as Echo devices are, people already have a bit of paranoia about them, and that's before considering the controversy FB is now undergoing. Unless the hardware is best-in-class, hard to see how this will fare any better than Facebook's failed attempt at its own phone with HTC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First
- kitotik 9y agoI can’t imagine the selling point from a consumers point of view either. I can imagine extremely well the field day fb product managers must have had with the notion of a 24/7 real time data feed of people’s homes.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago> people already have a bit of paranoia about them I was given one as a gift, and found it useful enough after a few days that I was willing to trust that it wasn't recording unless it detected the activation word locally. And then I walked into the room while it was carrying on a conversation with my 2 year old, asking his name, etc. Unplugged it and plan to destroy it.
- carrja99 9y agoIt's all fun and games until some device is collecting personal information from your two year old!
- jessaustin 9y agoTwo-year-olds are good at lying so it's probably OK.
- dingo_bat 9y agoSounds like a paranoid overreaction, to be honest. I wonder if that's the reason you're downvoted.
- TallGuyShort 9y agoI couldn't care less about the downvotes - I'm wondering if it's ability to start a multi-question conversation with someone who can't pronounce "Alexa" properly is not worth being paranoid about, at what point would you become concerned?
- voltagex_ 9y agoIsn't hotword detection (especially locally) more about cadence / pitch / frequency rather than the word itself?
- TallGuyShort 9y agoNot remotely an expert on how those algorithms work - but that's kinda what I'm talking about. If I can be confident it won't activate until someone clearly says, "Alexa", then I'm not too worried because the older kids understand they're not supposed to mess with it in ways we haven't taught them. If my 2-year-old can activate it when he doesn't remotely say it properly, I'm worried about what he can accidentally do on it, what else activates it accidentally, etc.
- danso 9y agoI woke up at 2AM to my 3-year-old nephew asking for it to tell him bedtime stories. Though to be fair, I taught him how to invoke that skill from Alexa.
- CamperBob2 9y agoSomeone should remind Amazon and Facebook that 1984 wasn't meant to be a business plan, and neither is /r/nosleep.
- cpeterso 9y agoThat's an interesting use case! Where does Alexa gets its bedtime stories? Does it read from public domain storybooks or must you purchase them like audio books?
- danso 9y agoIt's an official-branded skill, "Amazon STorytime" that is a built-in for Alexa, e.g. you can invoke it by saying something informal, such as "Tell me a bedtime story" or "Tell me a story", rather than the way other skills are more narrowly namespaced. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073X5FYVF https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073X5FYVF It says the app "contains curated stories from the Amazon Rapids app library as well as a selection of Audible short stories". It's pretty good, as it features actors and sound effects. Can't say any of the stories were interesting to me (was hoping for Aesop Fables type stories, which is about all I remember growing up myself).
- mc32 9y agoI wonder if the disembodied voice projection via Non-Lethal Laser Induced Plasma Effects discussed the other day[1] could be used to trip Alexa and such into recording --but at that point, maybe just putting a surreptitious piggybacking bug into Alexa might be a better alternative. [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16668825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16668825
- zer00eyz 9y agoProbably smart -- cause Facebook listening to what goes on in your house is a sound idea. Then again why does any one trust the companies who provide this service at all?
- coherentpony 9y ago> why does any one trust the companies who provide this service at all? I don't think they do. I think either they provide a service that people want, or that they truly have no idea they're the product.
- threeseed 9y agoI wouldn't be tarring all companies with the same brush. Apple for example takes privacy pretty seriously so I am more than happy to allow their products inside my house.
- phil248 9y agoI have one of these devices and, to answer your question, I don't trust the company that made it. I don't trust most companies, but that doesn't stop me from buying their goods or using their services.
- ProAm 9y agoNothing sounds more invasive than a Facebook created in-home, always-on device.
- degenerate 9y agoDon't forget they tried making a phone not-too-long ago, and it flopped for probably the same reason
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y agoI thought the Fire phone failed on its own merits.
- elefanten 9y agoFire phone = Amazon Facebook was called Home. And it had some nonsense gimmick with a Facebook-like Android skin for the OS. But, yes it failed on its own merits when the consumer market took one look and laughed it off. edit: I remembered wrong. Home was the name of their Android skin. HTC and Samsung launched a few phones running it by default, which all flopped.
- cryptoz 9y agoThat's exactly what the Facebook app is on a mobile phone, though. Has access to the microphone to listen whenever it wants (even if it doesn't do it, it has access). Is always on, not just in your home but everywhere you go. Knows who you talk to and where you are and how long you spend there and often what you're doing quite exactly to the details. There's not much difference between having the Facebook app installed on your phone and this device, in terms of creepiness and data collection capability. Probably their smartphone app creeps me out more, actually.
- kpwags 9y agoYeah, that's why I just use the mobile website. Does everything I want without giving it wide-ranging permissions to my phone and data
- tanilama 9y agoWell they better not, they have lost almost all consumer trust at this point. They need to rebuild that, maybe for years to come.
- downrightmike 9y agoYou were always the product, not the consumer.
- djangowithme 9y agoBuying a facebook speaker, or really any home-speaker for that matter seems like a really bad idea. You give it the ability to record everything in your home for a slight utility.
- the8472 9y agoAssuming you already haven't given them that kind of permission through some smartphone app anyway.
- slg 9y agoI see this argument all the time, but these things are less dangerous than smartphones. First off, they ride off your own network so it is easy to see when they are sending data back home unlike phones which can transfer data over harder to monitor 3rd party networks. They are cheaper and lower powered machines so they can't do a lot of processing on device and can't store a large amount of data for later transfer. They are stationary in your home and therefore likely spend a majority of the time listening to nothing unlike phones which might be at their owners side 24/7. They also only have one source of data which is audio as opposed to the other various sensors phones have like GPS. Finally, if you believe that these companies are shady enough that they are lying to their customers about what these smart speakers are doing, why do you think they aren't lying about what their mobile OSes or apps are doing? All that said, I believe Apple, Amazon, and Google all have worlds more trust in this area than Facebook.
- lev99 9y agoI would suspect that small cpu inside them is better at real time voice processing than you think.
- musage 9y ago> these things are less dangerous than smartphones They're also orthogonal to smartphones. > why do you think they aren't lying about what their mobile OSes or apps are doing? Why do you think everybody thinks that? And why frame it that way from the get go, to what the companies themselves are doing today, and/or to what the widgets do in isolation? It's another vector of attack for all sorts of actors, present and future, including the companies themselves. > All that said, I believe Apple, Amazon, and Google all have worlds more trust in this area than Facebook. They're not the baseline, the baseline is none of these devices. And for me, those all have worlds less trust than entities I trust, and the difference between them and Facebook is pretty much irrelevant in the big picture.
- hanklazard 9y agoDefinitely not something I’d consider. However, someone here on HN recently posted the open source voice assistant project mycroft: https://mycroft.ai/ https://mycroft.ai/ Fun to mess around with on Raspi and eventually I may link it up with Home Asssistant.
- acidburnNSA 9y agoOhh that's exciting. I was excited about Snips when it came out for similar reasons but was really annoyed when they advertised custom trigger words so hard and then withheld it in the premium version. On first glance, hmmm: why does this open source AI require that I create an account on their webpage before trying it out?
- rpearl 9y agohttps://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core > Mycroft AI, Inc. maintains a device and account management system known as Mycroft Home. Developers may sign up at: https://home.mycroft.ai https://home.mycroft.ai By default, mycroft-core is configured to use Home. By saying "Hey Mycroft, pair my device" (or any other request verbal request) you will be informed that your device needs to be paired. Mycroft will speak a 6-digit code which you can entered into the pairing page within the Mycroft Home site. [...] > If you do not wish to use the Mycroft Home service, you may insert your own API keys into the configuration files listed below in configuration.
- acidburnNSA 9y ago> If you do not wish to use the Mycroft Home service, you may insert your own API keys into the configuration files listed below in configuration. Bingo I'm in! Thanks a lot. This looks awesome.
- oulipo 9y agoHi, I'm a co-founder of Snips.ai First, there is no premium version. The whole platform is free to use. Forever. And we are starting to open-source it. For the trigger words, I think there is a slight confusion about what the are. There are actually two kinds of trigger words: - ones which are universal, and are very hard to train (it takes a lot of data and use NN models). Those are paid because we need to get the data (this is the only reason) - ones which are much simpler and can be trained on your device. This will come in the next release of the platform! Stay tuned for the next release where the personal hotword is coming!
- feelin_googley 9y ago""Facebook has been playing fast and loose with their data ever since they started. ... It was only a matter of time before that data was misused, and I think that advertisers knew that," said Andy Amendola, senior director of connections strategy at agency The Community. "We know there was this line that verges on creepy because we know the consumers' data, but I think that's what makes the advertising work so well." For the most part, agencies are skeptical many people are going to leave Facebook - or at least enough to make a difference for advertisers. The public's attention span is fleeting, noted one executive, and even massive data breaches that affected Yahoo, which included 3 billion accounts, and Equifax - 147.9 million accounts - haven't turned people off those services. ... In addition, the public already held Facebook in low regard leading up to the scandal. According to app analytics firm Sensor Tower, sentiment about the company during the the two weeks leading up to the Cambridge Analytica stories was already 83 percent negative - and people were still on the platform." Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/facebook-cambridge-analytica-scandal-wont-deter-advertisers.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/facebook-cambridge-analytica... "3. The idea that users will abandon Facebook is unlikely. There's really no alternatives. An abandonment of Facebook and related apps would basically be an abandonment of social media altogether, which is an unrealistic expectation. ... 4. While Facebook currently produces the majority of its revenue from advertising, that's only the tip of the iceberg. Facebook can do many things to begin diversifying its revenue stream including entertainment or e-commerce. ... So far Wall Street's opinion on Facebook has not been altered by the data scandal. According to MarketWatch, 37 out 44 analysts rank the stock as a "buy". The average price target is $221.56, which represents 39% upside based on the current stock price of $159.09." Source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4158807-facebook-let-others-fears-opportunity https://seekingalpha.com/article/4158807-facebook-let-others...
- matte_black 9y agoIn other words, the fundamentals of the company are still strong. This is the exact kind of buying opportunity people talk about when buying on a dip. This isn’t a falling knife.
- tehlike 9y ago
- rococode 9y agoInternal: "Quick, dev team, make it a little harder to figure out that our speakers actually are recording 24/7!" Public: "Uh we're having some unexpected delays"
- gboudrias 9y agoI'm imagining a Stewart Lee "sell phones to cars" type skit: "Quick, sell data! Sell data to anyone! Get more data to sell! Hurry!" The values of Facebook, of which there are none.
- jessaustin 9y agoTomorrow: Uber will announce the delay of their new airline.
- dannyw 9y agoPlane-sharing service with student pilots.
- redial 9y agoDon't they already offer that in some markets? or at least helicopter rides?
- mc32 9y agoIIRC, aircraft piloted by students can only get "gas money" out of any passenger(s), so there is little money making potential.
- dannyw 9y agoIf Uber were to enter into this market, they'd probably also offer a 'refueling service' with 400% markup. Sure, every regulator would bark, but that's kind of exactly how Uber did it for ridesharing!
- tyingq 9y agoLol at the idea of using minimally qualified pilots to fly people around at wages that barely incent them to continue. It might even happen. People flying around with probably alcoholic tendencies, overly adventurous ideas, spraying toxic insectesides, or otherwise borderline pilots because "gig economy". You're probably right.
- galdosdi 9y agoIt would never happen because FAA. Taxis on the other hand are regulated on a state by state and even town by town basis. Anyway, not much blood to squeeze out of that stone. A 747 fits about 400 passengers and only needs 2 pilots. Doubling or halving the pilot salary will not make a noticable difference in ticket prices. I'm not sure what the main costs of air travel are, but unlike taxis, it ain't the drivers. I would guess fuel?
- axiom92 9y agoThese discussions always remind me of https://xkcd.com/1269/ https://xkcd.com/1269/
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ravenstine 9y agoIf developing for it is anything like developing for other Facebook platforms, I want nothing to do with it.
- zzmp 9y agoThey call all of their sources "the people". It's not coming out yet, "the people said". Kinda strange...
- vanilla_nut 9y agoI think that's actually part of a general journalism style guide. It definitely sounds strange, but so does the constant third person passive voice you tend to see in journal articles.
- sAbakumoff 9y agoYep, like it's not enough that Facebook already knows a ton of information about your online life, these greedy monsters want to inject a spying device into your offline life. I am not an expert, but I guess that this Facebook product has pretty slim chances to be a hit.
- doe88 9y agoAttracted by the smell of fresh new data, all the usual suspects are present on this field. More and more smart home speakers/assistants really just look like to me the new 2018 widespread trojan horse way for collecting large amount of new data on users. Pass.
- collyw 9y agoShould really be called the Facebook microphone.
- Finnucane 9y agoI'd say no, but I have no desire for a home assistant. Aside from the security concerns, the thought of talking to my devices just makes me reflexively gag. I mean, the main thing I like about them is that _I don't have to talk to them_.
- canadianwriter 9y agoI've got some Google Home Minis and I didn't realize how much I use them until I decided to make note of it: I use it to control my TV every night (Play bob's burgers, next episode, pause) and in the morning I ask for the weather and while drinking we ask it random questions we happen to be discussing. At night I say "bedtime" and it turns off the TV and lights and my dog knows that means it's time to go to bed and gets up as well. All stuff we used to do on our phones but now ask verbally - I guess I'm saying I find it more convenient now than bringing out my phone and having to type stuff. It becomes way less weird after like a week.
- Finnucane 9y agoI don't find turning off the tv to be particularly challenging; it's one button on the remote. Maybe this works for you, and fine if it does. I don't really care if it's 'convenient'. I don't want to do it.
- hso9791 9y agoThe article quotes "people familiar with the matter". For all we know, this could be a controlled leak, and the "people familiar with the matter" could be CXOs and Facebook's core management team. :) Funny to see the alleged data abuse giant unravelling with all the hustle and bustle of upper management panic.
- hso9791 9y agoSorry to answer to my own post. I joined Facebook last week. After eleven years of refusing to play Facebook's game. Here's the information I gathered from 20 minutes on Facebook - a powerful platform indeed. The author (Sarah Frier) seems to be on good terms with the CXOs of Facebook: CPO Chris Cox https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-reactions-chris-cox/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-reactions-c... COO Sheryl Sandberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-27/how-sheryl-sandberg-s-sharing-manifesto-drives-facebook https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-27/how-shery... CEO Mark Zuckerberg https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-virtual-reality/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-virtual-rea... To drive it all home: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/how-fake-news-blew-up-into-a-political-crisis-for-facebook https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/how-fake-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/mark-zuckerberg-s-political-awakening https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/mark-zuck... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-11/facebook-s-zuckerberg-says-fake-news-and-echo-chambers-didn-t-drive-election http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-11/facebook-s...