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Why are you baffled? They’re great little devices. I have two Amazon echoes. Now that I can use my Apple Music, they are used constantly. Voice-first devices

Why are you baffled? They’re great little devices. I have two Amazon echoes. Now that I can use my Apple Music, they are used constantly. Voice-first devices are long overdue.

thfuran 8y ago
>Voice-first devices are long overdue. Sure, that's not really anything that anyone disagrees with. It's the acceptance of data collection and exfiltration that is odd.
- eyjafjallajokul 8y ago
  Maybe a naive question, but how are they any worse than having phones with non-transparent hardware/radio drivers in your living room? We seem to have accepted that risk, and even carry phones around everywhere.
  - alpaca128 8y ago
    We use smartphones for the same reason we don't avoid any non-free software like Stallman: a huge amount of additional possibilities. But what Alexa, Siri etc. offer is just a different way to use a limited set of existing features, in exchange for a much higher risk of a privacy breach. Everyone needs to draw a line somewhere, I just don't see a reason to use voice assistants, definitely not with internet connectivity and where the company keeps all recordings for some reason.
    - agildehaus 8y ago
      They keep all recordings because they train their voice recognition off them. GOOG-411 kept all recordings too, for the same reason, as do hundreds of other services, but I don't recall anyone caring about them. Google gives you a UI to view and delete your recordings and suddenly they're monsters.
- samstave 8y ago
  Has anyone on HN put their phones into Airplane mode with WiFi on and then had wireshark tracking all outgoing packets from the wifi devices in their home? To see exactly what outbound connections were made by which device and which app when either device was being actively used, or laying dormant? This is how it was discovered in the UK that SmartTVs were sending viewing data....
- schwank 8y ago
  I would disagree. I despise voice interfaces and despite working for one of the major tech companies that build these devices and interfaces, I use exactly zero. I do trust my employer to do it correctly based on the processes I witness every single day, but I don't own any because I don't like voice interfaces. Remote control on my phone, sure. Clicking the button to change a song, sure. But no voice, thanks.
  - thfuran 8y ago
    You dislike the very idea of voice interfaces or the current state of voice interfaces?
LinuxBender 8y ago
This is just my opinion, based on my experience and personality. Voice first running entirely on prem with no internet connectivity, sure I would go for that. Talking to the internet? No way. Not even if I had root on the device with the source code to the OS, firmware and applications.
- melling 8y ago
  I guess you’ll have to wait another decade or two. In the meantime, I’m “feeding” my devices every day. Hopefully voice-first becomes a solved problem, and you’ll get your device sooner.
  - LinuxBender 8y ago
    What's funny about that is, I had voice recognition software in 1991 that could start up any application on my computer, reboot my computer, etc. Surely there must be a small device with the processing power of my old 386-DX40. I believe it was made by a company called Covox or something? There were several other companies that made similar software back then.
    - danso 8y ago
      Could your device recognize multiple speakers, with varying accents and grammar style?
      - LinuxBender 8y ago
        Yes. Not very well, but yes. Each person had to say a few sentences. This is fine for home use unless you run a halfway house. Certainly not as well as the software we implemented to listen to phone calls in the background on wireless networks in the mid 90's. That was the wildfire project and was fun. We abandoned it, since our lobbyists were able to kick the hands-free laws down the road.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

Why are you baffled? They’re great little devices. I have two Amazon echoes. Now that I can use my Apple Music, they are used constantly. Voice-first devices are long overdue.

thfuran 8y ago

>Voice-first devices are long overdue. Sure, that's not really anything that anyone disagrees with. It's the acceptance of data collection and exfiltration that is odd.

eyjafjallajokul 8y ago
Maybe a naive question, but how are they any worse than having phones with non-transparent hardware/radio drivers in your living room? We seem to have accepted that risk, and even carry phones around everywhere.
- alpaca128 8y ago
  We use smartphones for the same reason we don't avoid any non-free software like Stallman: a huge amount of additional possibilities. But what Alexa, Siri etc. offer is just a different way to use a limited set of existing features, in exchange for a much higher risk of a privacy breach. Everyone needs to draw a line somewhere, I just don't see a reason to use voice assistants, definitely not with internet connectivity and where the company keeps all recordings for some reason.
  - agildehaus 8y ago
    They keep all recordings because they train their voice recognition off them. GOOG-411 kept all recordings too, for the same reason, as do hundreds of other services, but I don't recall anyone caring about them. Google gives you a UI to view and delete your recordings and suddenly they're monsters.
samstave 8y ago
Has anyone on HN put their phones into Airplane mode with WiFi on and then had wireshark tracking all outgoing packets from the wifi devices in their home? To see exactly what outbound connections were made by which device and which app when either device was being actively used, or laying dormant? This is how it was discovered in the UK that SmartTVs were sending viewing data....
schwank 8y ago
I would disagree. I despise voice interfaces and despite working for one of the major tech companies that build these devices and interfaces, I use exactly zero. I do trust my employer to do it correctly based on the processes I witness every single day, but I don't own any because I don't like voice interfaces. Remote control on my phone, sure. Clicking the button to change a song, sure. But no voice, thanks.
- thfuran 8y ago
  You dislike the very idea of voice interfaces or the current state of voice interfaces?

LinuxBender 8y ago

This is just my opinion, based on my experience and personality. Voice first running entirely on prem with no internet connectivity, sure I would go for that. Talking to the internet? No way. Not even if I had root on the device with the source code to the OS, firmware and applications.

melling 8y ago
I guess you’ll have to wait another decade or two. In the meantime, I’m “feeding” my devices every day. Hopefully voice-first becomes a solved problem, and you’ll get your device sooner.
- LinuxBender 8y ago
  What's funny about that is, I had voice recognition software in 1991 that could start up any application on my computer, reboot my computer, etc. Surely there must be a small device with the processing power of my old 386-DX40. I believe it was made by a company called Covox or something? There were several other companies that made similar software back then.
  - danso 8y ago
    Could your device recognize multiple speakers, with varying accents and grammar style?
    - LinuxBender 8y ago
      Yes. Not very well, but yes. Each person had to say a few sentences. This is fine for home use unless you run a halfway house. Certainly not as well as the software we implemented to listen to phone calls in the background on wireless networks in the mid 90's. That was the wildfire project and was fun. We abandoned it, since our lobbyists were able to kick the hands-free laws down the road.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]