Amazon listens to MORE of your private stuff Having started capturing what you say in your home and sending it to the cloud in November, Amazon has decided that its Echo product needs to do more than just read the news. At launch, Amazon promised that Echo would be “always getting smarter”. It's now delivering on that threat promise. Agence France Presse says home …
Was it ever really on your wish list? It certainly wasn't on mine* precisely because scope had the potential for widening (not to mention the potential this thing has for abuse).
* Except possibly as a Christmas present for annoying people - but the more annoying they are, the less I'd want to spend on them.
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
I've got nest running, a pebble, an old Nexus 7 hooked up as a voice interface and handydandy wall clock/news feed on the wall. I'm looking at getting echo when I can, now I hear it integrates with wemo.
I like the idea of living in Tony Stark's house and having my own Jarvis. What can I say, I'm a technophile.
I was already aware that part of the human condition is to produce pointless widgets to justify one's existence. But a $120 cup that may require firmware updates and is out performed by looking at the bottle you filled the cup from (unless you have developed a new version of Russian Roulette, by keeping beverages and cleaning products in identical unmarked bottles in the same cupboard and only filled your cup blindfold, with a peg on your nose) takes the p***.
Which makes you wonder what it would do if you participated in that particular fetish, maybe there is something in the terms.
Thecowking its been done and required fairly simple engineering.
They have them at hardware stores and they call them buckets.
15 teabags and 30 sugars (or half a shovel) with 2 pints of milk is a reality.
Or 20 sachets of cuppa soup.
18 pot noodles. Whatever you please.
Get one. You'll be clutching your chest and buzzing your tits off in no time.
Incidentally you could also get a cement mixer and make a massive batch of porridge to go with your tea.
The only bottleneck in this setup will be the one solitary arsehole you have. The bane of fat people everywhere. You can shovel it in but can your balloon knot cope?
Darwin hypothesised that based on a particular shape of flower that a type of moth must exist that has evolved to feed from it.
Since we know all you can eat buffets exist there must be a type of human out there with an arse big enough to cope.
Science!
I have one, and am awaiting a second. I can easily monitor its upstream bandwidth so for it to start transmitting vast amounts if conversation would stand out like a sore thumb.
Mostly it's used for playing music or listening to the radio. If I add some hue or wemo outlets, they'll amidst certainly be to control a few lights. Can't say I'm terribly fearful of someone hacking in and turning on the porch light randomly.
... as the world has given up on any semblance of privacy by allowing tracking (phones), network analysis (social networking, phone usage), personal interests (Amazon, et al), audio monitoring (siri, et al), video monitoring (xbox, Samsung, etc)....
It will all ends in tears I tell ye...
Amazon Echo runs on Amazon Web Services. In the default mode the device continuously listens to all conversations, monitoring for the wake word to be spoken. The device also comes with a manually and voice-activated remote control which can be used in lieu of the 'wake word'. Echo's microphones can be manually disabled by pressing a mute button to turn off the audio processing circuit.[1] Echo requires an internet connection in order to work. Echo's voice recognition capability is based on Amazon Web Services and the Amazon common voice platform it acquired from Ivona,[3] a Polish-based specialist in voice technologies used in the Kindle Fire.[4] Echo performs well with a 'good' Internet connection (i.e., a connection with low latency) which minimizes processing time due to minimal communication round trips, streamable responses and geo-distributed service endpoints.
I have a device which switches stuff on when you clap your hands. Great idea for lighting. In theory. In practice you have to clap in exactly the right way. However the thing seems to respond randomly to other sounds. So unless you want lights flashing in time with music,forget using the hifi.
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