8 ms·

People are volunteerelly paying for their houses to be tapped for the convenience of being able to shout: play me some song. I’m so out of touch with this worl

People are volunteerelly paying for their houses to be tapped for the convenience of being able to shout: play me some song. I’m so out of touch with this world it’s scary.

williamscales 8y ago
Nevermind that we are already in a world where you can play any song you like from the wireless computer you carry in your pocket. That's not convenient enough. /s
- mikeash 8y ago
  That pocket computer also has all the same potential threats to privacy. Somehow nobody cares about them, though.
  - mieseratte 8y ago
    > That pocket computer also has all the same potential threats to privacy. Somehow nobody cares about them, though. This is just whataboutism. We can complain about Amazon in a thread about Amazon without having to tackle a whole different issue.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      It’s not “whataboutism” to point out that (almost all of) the people who can’t conprehend why anyone would ever have one of these devices have, in fact, already had one for years.
      - mieseratte 8y ago
        There's a big difference between a device that occasionally listens and can easily be powered off or muffled and a device that is actively listening at all times and can easily "accidentally" capture your conversations.
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    That pocket computer can be programed to listen, or not. The whole point of these cylinders is to be listening at all times.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      Lots of phones can be set to listen all the time, and you have no way of knowing if it’s been programmed to listen even if you turn that off.
      - tambourine_man 8y ago
        Lots of phone can be set to not listen all the time. iPhone for instance. Yes, it’s ultimately trust in the device maker, the compiler, the chip manufacturer, etc, and those can and have been verified to some extent. But that’s not the point. A phone can listen or not, where you have no doubt with the cylinder. It’s its raison d'etre.
        mikeash 8y ago
        OK, but you used the word “tapped.” A smart speaker isn’t supposed to be tapping you any more than a phone is. In both cases, they have to be doing something more than they’re supposed to.
        tambourine_man 8y ago
        I disagree. To be listening at all times is the very definition of a tap, don’t you think? And people know this. It’s not like they are being misled. It’s a conscious exchange of privacy for convinence. It’s just that, in my mind, you are getting very little for what you’re giving.
        mikeash 8y ago
        In my mind, you’re giving almost nothing if you already have a cell phone. I made a different choice, but I totally understand why someone would choose not to have a phone or smart speaker due to privacy concerns. What I don’t get is someone who has a phone but sees smart speakers as crazy.
  - kec 8y ago
    Aside from cell tower location tracking, you’d know because it would absolutely tank the battery life of your pocket computer.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      I doubt it. Recording audio is pretty cheap. Lots of smartphones can now do continuous “wake word” listening just like smart speakers while on battery power.
      - kec 8y ago
        "Pretty cheap" is still likely an order of magnitude or more than actual standby, and using a small ring buffer to identify a pre-established wake word is similarly going to be cheap compared to actually streaming audio to disk. If you actually care, this would be pretty trivial to verify using an oscilloscope to observe the energy draw from the battery while different things are said around your device.
        mikeash 8y ago
        I’ve verified it accidentally by using an intelligent alarm with my phone unplugged. The battery drain for eight hours (which includes analysis that would be unnecessary for just recording) was a few percent.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  What do I need a car for? I've already got a horse.
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    Is that really a fair comparison?
virmundi 8y ago
I like the idea, but wonder if the same features are possible on a stand alone tool. For example, the device does the NLP there on the premise. It exposes a plugin API for apps. The app gets the text translation by registering a callback URI. Then it can do want ever it wants with that. Expose a streaming receiver api for music. Essential get rid of the middle man service. Is this possible of a Pi?
- tzahola 8y ago
  Yes. https://snips.ai https://snips.ai
- solipsism 8y ago
  Of course it's possible. Then all that's left to figure out is... 1. Make it work really well across a vast array of voices, accents, and background noise. 2. Make is easy to add new features to, in order to keep up with the competition. 3. Mass produce it at a price people will pay. 4. Have a viable business model. Do these simple things and you'll be a very, very rich person.
- w0m 8y ago
  Possible? Yes. On a Pi? .. Maybe? Probably not with current power I'd guess. Allot goes into the voice training and equivalent operations. There are a few OSS alternatives to build something similar; I don't think anything has a similar power yet though.
  - Xylakant 8y ago
    There’s a Mozilla project for everything https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/02/how-to-build-your-own-private-smart-home-with-a-raspberry-pi-and-mozillas-things-gateway/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/02/how-to-build-your-own-priv... (voice is experimental and I don’t know if it’s on device) Looks cool, but I haven’t tried. I’m the kind of person that gets up and walks to the light switch.
    - vedanshbhartia 8y ago
joshstrange 8y ago
It's a little more than just that. Every light in my house is controlled with Alexa which is a very nice and hard to explain until you have tried it. Also my home theater system is all controllable via Alexa as well. This kind of thinking makes no sense to me. > People are voluntarily paying for their houses to be tapped for the convenience of being able to shout: play me some song. > I’m so out of touch with this world it’s scary. I could just as easily say "People are voluntarily paying for their locations to be tracked for the convenience of being able to get live maps on the go" (ie. cell phones, which also are listening to everything you say unless you disable it)
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > It's a little more than just that. Every light in my house is controlled with Alexa which is a very nice and hard to explain until you have tried it. Also my home theater system is all controllable via Alexa as well. This kind of thinking makes no sense to me. There's no reason why your house needs to be "tapped" for either of those use cases. All those things could be accomplished without leaving your home network.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  I never thought that voice control would be that useful until I had my daughter... being able to turn on the white noise, turn off the tv, play her music, etc while having my hands full of toddler is very useful.
  - jethro_tell 8y ago
    How did we do it before? I can't even imagine. /s
    - watwut 8y ago
      He said that it is useful and makes his life easier. He did not said that whole family would die without it.
      - 8y ago
trumped 8y ago
This is one of the many things that should not be processed in the cloud...
hutzlibu 8y ago
Controlling your devices with voice is nice and I can totally understand people wanting it .. it is just that you don't have real control over it. And about tapped .. well, I don't consider any conversation as private, when there is a Smartphone around.
- jstanley 8y ago
  > I don't consider any conversation as private, when there is a Smartphone around. Is there nothing you've ever said about anybody while in the vicinity of a smartphone that you wouldn't have said to their face?
  - hutzlibu 8y ago
    Privacy ... not only to protect badmouthing There also other things, like pillow talk etc. And I simply don't want anyone else to take part in that, whether they are russian, chinese or NSA hackers, or the company by itself. And I usually tell people in their face, what I think of them.
    - jstanley 8y ago
      > There also other things, like pillow talk etc. Perfect example. Do you always ensure there are no smartphones within earshot?
      - hutzlibu 8y ago
        Actually, yes. But I am not in a formal relationship, so I can imagine this to be harder to arrange when you live together on a regular schedule. But I would certainly try to do this in this situation as well. It is not only privacy btw. it is also just nice to have both persons here in the now and not half distracted because the Smartphone just got new messages. Could be important... but usually never is important enough, to destroy the moment. So when I go to sleep, alone or not, the mobile is off (without battery) or away. Unless there might be a emergency and I need to be avaiable, but those situations are rare.
choward 8y ago
I agree completely. Being able to say things out loud and have things happen is cool I guess. However, that doesn't mean I want to give all my data away and it to be stored in some black box on the Internet. I want control of my data.
amorphid 8y ago
Reminds me of one of my favorite memes: [1] - people in the sixties: "the government will wiretap your home" - people now: "hey wiretap, can cats eat pancakes?" [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/QFjXc https://imgur.com/gallery/QFjXc

People are volunteerelly paying for their houses to be tapped for the convenience of being able to shout: play me some song. I’m so out of touch with this world it’s scary.

williamscales 8y ago

Nevermind that we are already in a world where you can play any song you like from the wireless computer you carry in your pocket. That's not convenient enough. /s

mikeash 8y ago
That pocket computer also has all the same potential threats to privacy. Somehow nobody cares about them, though.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  > That pocket computer also has all the same potential threats to privacy. Somehow nobody cares about them, though. This is just whataboutism. We can complain about Amazon in a thread about Amazon without having to tackle a whole different issue.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    It’s not “whataboutism” to point out that (almost all of) the people who can’t conprehend why anyone would ever have one of these devices have, in fact, already had one for years.
    - mieseratte 8y ago
      There's a big difference between a device that occasionally listens and can easily be powered off or muffled and a device that is actively listening at all times and can easily "accidentally" capture your conversations.
- tambourine_man 8y ago
  That pocket computer can be programed to listen, or not. The whole point of these cylinders is to be listening at all times.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Lots of phones can be set to listen all the time, and you have no way of knowing if it’s been programmed to listen even if you turn that off.
    - tambourine_man 8y ago
      Lots of phone can be set to not listen all the time. iPhone for instance. Yes, it’s ultimately trust in the device maker, the compiler, the chip manufacturer, etc, and those can and have been verified to some extent. But that’s not the point. A phone can listen or not, where you have no doubt with the cylinder. It’s its raison d'etre.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        OK, but you used the word “tapped.” A smart speaker isn’t supposed to be tapping you any more than a phone is. In both cases, they have to be doing something more than they’re supposed to.
        tambourine_man 8y ago
        I disagree. To be listening at all times is the very definition of a tap, don’t you think? And people know this. It’s not like they are being misled. It’s a conscious exchange of privacy for convinence. It’s just that, in my mind, you are getting very little for what you’re giving.
        mikeash 8y ago
        In my mind, you’re giving almost nothing if you already have a cell phone. I made a different choice, but I totally understand why someone would choose not to have a phone or smart speaker due to privacy concerns. What I don’t get is someone who has a phone but sees smart speakers as crazy.
- kec 8y ago
  Aside from cell tower location tracking, you’d know because it would absolutely tank the battery life of your pocket computer.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I doubt it. Recording audio is pretty cheap. Lots of smartphones can now do continuous “wake word” listening just like smart speakers while on battery power.
    - kec 8y ago
      "Pretty cheap" is still likely an order of magnitude or more than actual standby, and using a small ring buffer to identify a pre-established wake word is similarly going to be cheap compared to actually streaming audio to disk. If you actually care, this would be pretty trivial to verify using an oscilloscope to observe the energy draw from the battery while different things are said around your device.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        I’ve verified it accidentally by using an intelligent alarm with my phone unplugged. The battery drain for eight hours (which includes analysis that would be unnecessary for just recording) was a few percent.
pavel_lishin 8y ago
What do I need a car for? I've already got a horse.
- tambourine_man 8y ago
  Is that really a fair comparison?

virmundi 8y ago

I like the idea, but wonder if the same features are possible on a stand alone tool. For example, the device does the NLP there on the premise. It exposes a plugin API for apps. The app gets the text translation by registering a callback URI. Then it can do want ever it wants with that. Expose a streaming receiver api for music. Essential get rid of the middle man service. Is this possible of a Pi?

tzahola 8y ago
Yes. https://snips.ai https://snips.ai
solipsism 8y ago
Of course it's possible. Then all that's left to figure out is... 1. Make it work really well across a vast array of voices, accents, and background noise. 2. Make is easy to add new features to, in order to keep up with the competition. 3. Mass produce it at a price people will pay. 4. Have a viable business model. Do these simple things and you'll be a very, very rich person.
w0m 8y ago
Possible? Yes. On a Pi? .. Maybe? Probably not with current power I'd guess. Allot goes into the voice training and equivalent operations. There are a few OSS alternatives to build something similar; I don't think anything has a similar power yet though.
- Xylakant 8y ago
  There’s a Mozilla project for everything https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/02/how-to-build-your-own-private-smart-home-with-a-raspberry-pi-and-mozillas-things-gateway/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/02/how-to-build-your-own-priv... (voice is experimental and I don’t know if it’s on device) Looks cool, but I haven’t tried. I’m the kind of person that gets up and walks to the light switch.
  - vedanshbhartia 8y ago

joshstrange 8y ago

It's a little more than just that. Every light in my house is controlled with Alexa which is a very nice and hard to explain until you have tried it. Also my home theater system is all controllable via Alexa as well. This kind of thinking makes no sense to me. > People are voluntarily paying for their houses to be tapped for the convenience of being able to shout: play me some song. > I’m so out of touch with this world it’s scary. I could just as easily say "People are voluntarily paying for their locations to be tracked for the convenience of being able to get live maps on the go" (ie. cell phones, which also are listening to everything you say unless you disable it)

kinsomo 8y ago
> It's a little more than just that. Every light in my house is controlled with Alexa which is a very nice and hard to explain until you have tried it. Also my home theater system is all controllable via Alexa as well. This kind of thinking makes no sense to me. There's no reason why your house needs to be "tapped" for either of those use cases. All those things could be accomplished without leaving your home network.
cortesoft 8y ago
I never thought that voice control would be that useful until I had my daughter... being able to turn on the white noise, turn off the tv, play her music, etc while having my hands full of toddler is very useful.
- jethro_tell 8y ago
  How did we do it before? I can't even imagine. /s
  - watwut 8y ago
    He said that it is useful and makes his life easier. He did not said that whole family would die without it.
    - 8y ago

trumped 8y ago

This is one of the many things that should not be processed in the cloud...

hutzlibu 8y ago

Controlling your devices with voice is nice and I can totally understand people wanting it .. it is just that you don't have real control over it. And about tapped .. well, I don't consider any conversation as private, when there is a Smartphone around.

jstanley 8y ago
> I don't consider any conversation as private, when there is a Smartphone around. Is there nothing you've ever said about anybody while in the vicinity of a smartphone that you wouldn't have said to their face?
- hutzlibu 8y ago
  Privacy ... not only to protect badmouthing There also other things, like pillow talk etc. And I simply don't want anyone else to take part in that, whether they are russian, chinese or NSA hackers, or the company by itself. And I usually tell people in their face, what I think of them.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    > There also other things, like pillow talk etc. Perfect example. Do you always ensure there are no smartphones within earshot?
    - hutzlibu 8y ago
      Actually, yes. But I am not in a formal relationship, so I can imagine this to be harder to arrange when you live together on a regular schedule. But I would certainly try to do this in this situation as well. It is not only privacy btw. it is also just nice to have both persons here in the now and not half distracted because the Smartphone just got new messages. Could be important... but usually never is important enough, to destroy the moment. So when I go to sleep, alone or not, the mobile is off (without battery) or away. Unless there might be a emergency and I need to be avaiable, but those situations are rare.

choward 8y ago

I agree completely. Being able to say things out loud and have things happen is cool I guess. However, that doesn't mean I want to give all my data away and it to be stored in some black box on the Internet. I want control of my data.

amorphid 8y ago

Reminds me of one of my favorite memes: [1] - people in the sixties: "the government will wiretap your home" - people now: "hey wiretap, can cats eat pancakes?" [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/QFjXc https://imgur.com/gallery/QFjXc