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from the giving-the-kids-a-big-brother dept.
Amazon has unveiled a Kids Edition of its Echo Dot smart speaker:
The $79 Echo Dot Kids Edition takes the original device's design and wraps it in a kid-friendly, colorful case. Otherwise, the hardware is the same as the tiny smart speaker that debuted in 2016. While the regular, $49 Dot is considered a more affordable and accessible version of the regular Echo speaker, the Kids Edition costs more thanks to its bundled software. Amazon includes a two-year warranty plus a one-year subscription to the new Amazon FreeTime Unlimited service, an expanded version of Amazon's new FreeTime for Alexa.
FreeTime gives users "family-focused features" and new parental controls that adults can use to restrict what their kids can do with Alexa. Family features include "Education Q&A," allowing kids to ask Alexa science, math, spelling, and definition questions, "Alexa Speaks 'Kid,'" which gives Alexa kid-appropriate answers to nebulous statements that kids may say such as, "Alexa, I'm bored." Parents can also limit the times during which kids can speak to Alexa (like no talking to it after bedtime), restrict the skills kids can use, filter out songs with explicit lyrics, and more.
[...] But even with the added parental controls, some will be wary of a speaker designed to listen to their children. Like the original Dot, the Kids Edition has a mute button and parents can put the device in "sleep mode" to prevent it from responding to commands. However, the mic will always be listening for its wake-word just like other Echo devices.
In the new Parent Dashboard in the Alexa app and online, parents can monitor how kids are using their Echos (including all their utterances, or the phrases Alexa thinks it heard before trying to respond) and limit their abilities. According to a Buzzfeed report, Amazon claims it isn't making back-end profiles for users with data harvested from Alexa. While the virtual assistant can now recognize voices and provide personalized answers based on who's talking, the company maintains that data is only being used to make Alexa smarter and more tailored to each user.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 25 2018, @05:59PM (7 children)
I'm unaware of any instances in which Amazon has balked at providing government and law enforcement with details about a user. I am aware of instances in which Apple and Microsoft have done so. If only there were a scorecard or grading system for that kind of thing . . .
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/boycotts/boycottamazon/amazoncorporateprofile.aspx [ethicalconsumer.org]
I'm not finding much in the way of corporate scores with my searches.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @06:21PM
I searched the WWW for "Amazon" together with "subpoena."
https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/02/23/amazon-subpoena-alexa-data-murder/ [snopes.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @06:23PM (3 children)
Amazon Continues to Resist Requests for "Alexa" Audio Evidence in Arkansas Murder Case [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday April 25 2018, @07:49PM (2 children)
The interesting thing about those stories is they prove the lie about Alexa not recording far more than just the wake-up prompt.
There are multiple published wake words. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201971890 [amazon.com]
Who't to say there aren't more? [reddit.com] You can change the wake words, [aftvnews.com] and so can anyone with access at any time.
Why would Amazon fight so hard to protect none-existent recorded speech, or transcriptions there of?
Alexa believers are almost fanatical jihadists when it comes to praising the benefits they receive from Alexa. It almost borders on cult worship, and they become insulting if you can't think of a single thing you need alexa to do for you.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @10:00PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26 2018, @03:22AM
Amazon Echo devices older than 2017 can be physically hacked and turned into a 'wiretap.' [csoonline.com]
The FBI Can Neither Confirm Nor Deny Wiretapping Your Amazon Echo [gizmodo.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @06:30PM (1 child)
Have you seen the pics of Bezos? That guy's chosen fashion sense just screams gov/military involvement. Obama seemed to be in love with Amazon, and we know how pro-police state that fucker was. Being a lawyer he probably managed to sleep at night by weasel wording his campaign promises. He did bring hope for change, he just forgot to outline the exact nature of those changes and failed pretty hard on the ones he actually tried to deliver.
Anyway, Amazon is the worst. Google and Facebook it is easier to work around and the info vacuumed out of there doesn't quite match the info that can be gathered from your actual purchases viewing habits. Did you order some electronics which make up 75% or more of the common items used to do "bad things"? Congrats you're on a list. Did you buy a suspiciously large supply of some intermediate product used to make drugs? Congrats again! AWS also means Amazon probably has the ability to get root access on any server so effectively their net gets even bigger.
There are certainly benefits to centralized systems, but until we create privacy legislation AND actually secure infrastructure that gets audited then centralized systems are not a good idea. How about allowing people to run their home servers and use their purchased data lines as they see fit?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 25 2018, @08:12PM
I'm curious why this was modded troll? Did I offend some Obamaite? I voted for the guy but he was still a total douche. Charismatic and hip for a politician, not the worst douche ever elected (see successor) but still a douche that liked to drone people.
"Folks we are talking about terrorists. They can't be allowed to continue their efforts to attack our troops and their goal is to destabilize our country. We must use our remote piloting technology to disrupt their plans and save American lives."
"Here is your nobel peace prize sir!"