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There is an alternative to the spying devices of Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft: https://snips.ai/technology/ https://snips.ai/technology/ "Our technolog

by amai 8y ago

There is an alternative to the spying devices of Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft: https://snips.ai/technology/ https://snips.ai/technology/ "Our technology runs on-device, works offline and guarantees Privacy by Design"

sambroner 8y ago
Is it good? I’m excited for the day when it is!
saagarjha 8y ago
How does this device grab the current weather and buy things offline?
- binomialxenon 8y ago
  It can get data from the internet, I think the point is that it "lives" on-device and hence can be interacted with offline, unlike Siri/Alexa/Cortana which live entirely on the company's servers.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Siri/Alexa/Cortana are assistants, while the part you are talking about is speech recognition. Sure, it’s great that this is done offline, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to more services because at that point you do need to get data from the internet just like any other service.
    - pard68 8y ago
      I would say your comment was the unfair one. Sure, it cannot tell the weather without internet. But it can still do plenty of more important home automation functions, namely automation. No one owns one of these home assistants for it to tell the weather. You get it for controlling other devices with your voice and this can do that without access to thr world wide web.
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        Voice Control in iOS can do some of this. It’s older than HomeKit, though, so it can’t do home automation-it’s limited to running commands on-device.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  I believe the intention is providing a voice recognition system you can use to interface with other things, like APIs. Products from Big Data (in my usage like Big Oil, Big Tobacco, etc.) offer convenience at the cost of privacy. For many people, this is a minor trade-off. For others, alternatives with perhaps less convenience.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    I think it’s misleading to sell this as a “privacy-focused AI” (specifically, similar to Siri or Google Assistant) when it’s really an offline speech recognition tool. This keeps the “privacy” part accurate, and makes it clear that intents are still being sent out from the device (as opposed to audio recordings).
cmsimike 8y ago
Been using snips in 3 different rooms in my home for about a year now, hooked into home assistant, with many custom actions that I specifically made for my apartment. I LOVE being able to control my apartment without the need for the internet. Too bad local control seems to be a luxury these days, rather than the standard.
flukus 8y ago
I can't believe that so many people, especially the ones on tech sites like this, bought into the idea that speech recognition is such a hard job that it needs to be run on the supercomputers of tech giants. We had somewhat decent voice dictation software on desktops 20 years ago, when 100Mhz processors and 32MB of RAM were top of the line, yet now it's impossible with an order of magnitude more resources.
- applecrazy 8y ago
  The main reason this kind of thing is outsourced to the cloud nowadays is because of deep neural network voice recognition technologies we have. Most of these models are too hefty to run inference on-device. Also, online learning allows for STT to get better as it’s used more if it’s centralized in a place like the cloud.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    My iPhone runs machine vision on my phone at night (locked, plugged in, on wifi) to determine which people are in which photos. My iPhone.
    - applecrazy 8y ago
      That's true. I didn't realize that when I wrote my comment (from an iPhone, haha).
    - m0zg 8y ago
      Your iPhone is also a $1k device that's faster than some laptops. And it still cant do convincing on-device text to speech a-la Google Tacotron, and its NLU capabilities _even in the cloud_ leave much to be desired.
      - flukus 8y ago
        Much of the cost of the iPhone is in the screen, battery, form factor and fashion accessory premium. Take that away and your much closer to raspberry pi territory.

by amai 8y ago

sambroner 8y ago

Is it good? I’m excited for the day when it is!

saagarjha 8y ago

How does this device grab the current weather and buy things offline?

binomialxenon 8y ago
It can get data from the internet, I think the point is that it "lives" on-device and hence can be interacted with offline, unlike Siri/Alexa/Cortana which live entirely on the company's servers.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Siri/Alexa/Cortana are assistants, while the part you are talking about is speech recognition. Sure, it’s great that this is done offline, but I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to more services because at that point you do need to get data from the internet just like any other service.
  - pard68 8y ago
    I would say your comment was the unfair one. Sure, it cannot tell the weather without internet. But it can still do plenty of more important home automation functions, namely automation. No one owns one of these home assistants for it to tell the weather. You get it for controlling other devices with your voice and this can do that without access to thr world wide web.
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      Voice Control in iOS can do some of this. It’s older than HomeKit, though, so it can’t do home automation-it’s limited to running commands on-device.
wavefunction 8y ago
I believe the intention is providing a voice recognition system you can use to interface with other things, like APIs. Products from Big Data (in my usage like Big Oil, Big Tobacco, etc.) offer convenience at the cost of privacy. For many people, this is a minor trade-off. For others, alternatives with perhaps less convenience.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I think it’s misleading to sell this as a “privacy-focused AI” (specifically, similar to Siri or Google Assistant) when it’s really an offline speech recognition tool. This keeps the “privacy” part accurate, and makes it clear that intents are still being sent out from the device (as opposed to audio recordings).

cmsimike 8y ago

Been using snips in 3 different rooms in my home for about a year now, hooked into home assistant, with many custom actions that I specifically made for my apartment. I LOVE being able to control my apartment without the need for the internet. Too bad local control seems to be a luxury these days, rather than the standard.

flukus 8y ago

I can't believe that so many people, especially the ones on tech sites like this, bought into the idea that speech recognition is such a hard job that it needs to be run on the supercomputers of tech giants. We had somewhat decent voice dictation software on desktops 20 years ago, when 100Mhz processors and 32MB of RAM were top of the line, yet now it's impossible with an order of magnitude more resources.

applecrazy 8y ago
The main reason this kind of thing is outsourced to the cloud nowadays is because of deep neural network voice recognition technologies we have. Most of these models are too hefty to run inference on-device. Also, online learning allows for STT to get better as it’s used more if it’s centralized in a place like the cloud.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  My iPhone runs machine vision on my phone at night (locked, plugged in, on wifi) to determine which people are in which photos. My iPhone.
  - applecrazy 8y ago
    That's true. I didn't realize that when I wrote my comment (from an iPhone, haha).
  - m0zg 8y ago
    Your iPhone is also a $1k device that's faster than some laptops. And it still cant do convincing on-device text to speech a-la Google Tacotron, and its NLU capabilities _even in the cloud_ leave much to be desired.
    - flukus 8y ago
      Much of the cost of the iPhone is in the screen, battery, form factor and fashion accessory premium. Take that away and your much closer to raspberry pi territory.