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It still baffles me that these things have taken off. I suspect that the people buying them are purchasing the spectacle of having a virtual assistant rather th

It still baffles me that these things have taken off. I suspect that the people buying them are purchasing the spectacle of having a virtual assistant rather than any sort of useful functionality. The last time I interacted with one was at a friend's place. We were talking over coffee and somehow Brad Pitt's age came up. Neither of us knew how old he was. My friend paused, and then yelled out across the room "OK Google, how old is Brad Pitt?" The answer came back almost immediately. "103 years old".

irrational 7y ago
Benjamin Button
badrabbit 7y ago
They don't know enough to be scared. Or they do and the temporary convenience appears to be worth sacrificing the long term freedom. As someone that has had many addictions, I can relate :-)
- meowface 7y ago
  I know the risks. I just accept the risk-convenience tradeoff. I know plenty of people who work in infosec but have an Alexa (including myself).
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    Yes, I know infosec people that use gmail and linjedin too. Knowing isn't caring.
    - meowface 7y ago
      True. For a lot of these things, my threat model is very different from the average HN user's. I don't care in the same ways. I personally fear privacy-related issues stemming from random people I may encounter online far more than I fear privacy-related issues related to NSA dragnet snooping or Google and Amazon monopolies. I have issues with them, and I'm aware of the risks, but in general I don't care much in a personal sense. I do care in a larger societal sense (these are all slippery slopes that are harmful to society), and I care about other people caring and believe their privacy wishes should be respected, but that doesn't change my personal behavior.
sandGorgon 7y ago
This is the NBU market - Next Billion Users. India is the world's fastest growing consumer of voice traffic. At this point 30% of all google searches in India are voice and growing. The fact that we have over 20 mainstream languages contributes to this. a lot of people now write Indian vernacular in Latin script which is highly unstandardised in spelling. Voice is far far superior.
- statguy 7y ago
  Voice is potentially superior only for a set of unambiguous questions - e.g. the temperature outside and that is assuming that the recognition part works.
  - sandGorgon 7y ago
    most people are not using for "knowledge base" kind of questions. they are using it for typical google search usecases where the results are often returned in text ...or more preferably video. in fact there is a cool Alexa-for-the-poor that works on phone calls in India (through a toll free number) powered by Google Assistant : https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/google-assistant-now-available-to-indian-phone-users-through-toll-free-number-will-answer-questions-for-free-1600847-2019-09-19 https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/google-assis... Voice is the most powerful UX that people in countries like India are using.
  - apexalpha 7y ago
    Voice is superior when your language isn't Latin-based. Billions of Chinese use voice as a main input for phones.
tsycho 7y ago
So I, like many on this site, also have privacy concerns about these assistants [1], but I have never seen it [2] give obviously incorrect answers such as your anecdote. Obviously Google Knowledge Graph occasionally gives blatantly wrong answers, so maybe you just caught it on one of those days. [1] In spite of my concerns, somewhat hypocritically, I have a mini in my bathroom which I received as a gift. I find it quite useful for listening to podcasts/music/audiobooks and switching between them purely by voice. [2] From both personal usage, and usage at my friends' places, I find Google Homes as accurate as standard Google search, which is to say, very accurate the vast majority of the time.
kungito 7y ago
I get an answer "He is 55 years old" and usually don't have problems with questions. For me a bigger problem is that I don't know the commands so I still haven't been able to request directions home in Maps. To be honest, biggest reason why I'm getting google home mini is to be able to connect my bluetooth speakers to the tv when playing hbo on chromecast Edit: this made me invest time into figuring out the exact command to navigate so thanks :)
krtkush 7y ago
I was surprised too. But then somebody gifted an Echo Show 5 to my parents and they have become an ardent users of it - great sound quality, no need to take out an app and fiddle with it to listen to music and manage BT connection with a speaker, just tell it what to play and it will do that. What is amazing is how Amazon made an ecosystem around it to hook people to it - my parents were given a free years worth of amazon prime along with their broadband connection but they did not use it much. Then somebody gifted them a firestick and suddenly the prime subscription made sense because of prime videos. Now, they have an echo show 5 which is justifying the prime subscription even more because of prime music.
nightfly 7y ago
I got a free Google home mini from Spotify. It's fairly convenient for music and weather checking when I don't want to grab my phone. And it's great for when I don't remember where I _put_ my phone.
- mantoto 7y ago
  Haha :) Indeed!
mantoto 7y ago
That's just utterly wrong. I have Alexa's and one Google home at home. We now have cheap and good enough multiroom audio, voice controlled. It's used daily We use very regular the weather forecast and timer and control our lights with it as well. The future is here but it will probably go more in direction of offline assistance. The integration in Philips hue, with more av receiver etc. Will just become even better.

irrational 7y ago

Benjamin Button

badrabbit 7y ago

They don't know enough to be scared. Or they do and the temporary convenience appears to be worth sacrificing the long term freedom. As someone that has had many addictions, I can relate :-)

meowface 7y ago
I know the risks. I just accept the risk-convenience tradeoff. I know plenty of people who work in infosec but have an Alexa (including myself).
- badrabbit 7y ago
  Yes, I know infosec people that use gmail and linjedin too. Knowing isn't caring.
  - meowface 7y ago
    True. For a lot of these things, my threat model is very different from the average HN user's. I don't care in the same ways. I personally fear privacy-related issues stemming from random people I may encounter online far more than I fear privacy-related issues related to NSA dragnet snooping or Google and Amazon monopolies. I have issues with them, and I'm aware of the risks, but in general I don't care much in a personal sense. I do care in a larger societal sense (these are all slippery slopes that are harmful to society), and I care about other people caring and believe their privacy wishes should be respected, but that doesn't change my personal behavior.

sandGorgon 7y ago

This is the NBU market - Next Billion Users. India is the world's fastest growing consumer of voice traffic. At this point 30% of all google searches in India are voice and growing. The fact that we have over 20 mainstream languages contributes to this. a lot of people now write Indian vernacular in Latin script which is highly unstandardised in spelling. Voice is far far superior.

statguy 7y ago
Voice is potentially superior only for a set of unambiguous questions - e.g. the temperature outside and that is assuming that the recognition part works.
- sandGorgon 7y ago
  most people are not using for "knowledge base" kind of questions. they are using it for typical google search usecases where the results are often returned in text ...or more preferably video. in fact there is a cool Alexa-for-the-poor that works on phone calls in India (through a toll free number) powered by Google Assistant : https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/google-assistant-now-available-to-indian-phone-users-through-toll-free-number-will-answer-questions-for-free-1600847-2019-09-19 https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/google-assis... Voice is the most powerful UX that people in countries like India are using.
- apexalpha 7y ago
  Voice is superior when your language isn't Latin-based. Billions of Chinese use voice as a main input for phones.

tsycho 7y ago

So I, like many on this site, also have privacy concerns about these assistants [1], but I have never seen it [2] give obviously incorrect answers such as your anecdote. Obviously Google Knowledge Graph occasionally gives blatantly wrong answers, so maybe you just caught it on one of those days. [1] In spite of my concerns, somewhat hypocritically, I have a mini in my bathroom which I received as a gift. I find it quite useful for listening to podcasts/music/audiobooks and switching between them purely by voice. [2] From both personal usage, and usage at my friends' places, I find Google Homes as accurate as standard Google search, which is to say, very accurate the vast majority of the time.

kungito 7y ago

I get an answer "He is 55 years old" and usually don't have problems with questions. For me a bigger problem is that I don't know the commands so I still haven't been able to request directions home in Maps. To be honest, biggest reason why I'm getting google home mini is to be able to connect my bluetooth speakers to the tv when playing hbo on chromecast Edit: this made me invest time into figuring out the exact command to navigate so thanks :)

krtkush 7y ago

I was surprised too. But then somebody gifted an Echo Show 5 to my parents and they have become an ardent users of it - great sound quality, no need to take out an app and fiddle with it to listen to music and manage BT connection with a speaker, just tell it what to play and it will do that. What is amazing is how Amazon made an ecosystem around it to hook people to it - my parents were given a free years worth of amazon prime along with their broadband connection but they did not use it much. Then somebody gifted them a firestick and suddenly the prime subscription made sense because of prime videos. Now, they have an echo show 5 which is justifying the prime subscription even more because of prime music.

nightfly 7y ago

I got a free Google home mini from Spotify. It's fairly convenient for music and weather checking when I don't want to grab my phone. And it's great for when I don't remember where I _put_ my phone.

mantoto 7y ago
Haha :) Indeed!

mantoto 7y ago

That's just utterly wrong. I have Alexa's and one Google home at home. We now have cheap and good enough multiroom audio, voice controlled. It's used daily We use very regular the weather forecast and timer and control our lights with it as well. The future is here but it will probably go more in direction of offline assistance. The integration in Philips hue, with more av receiver etc. Will just become even better.