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from the maybe-listening-to-their-users-again dept.
Mozilla may be working on a voice-controlled browser
Mozilla may be working on a voice-controlled platform of its own. A listing for an all-hands internal meeting appeared about what seems like a new project: Scout. "With the Scout app, we start to explore browsing and consuming content with voice," it read. It's very unclear what the platform may or may not end up doing, as the meeting is focused on technical requirements for a "voice browser" that would, as a stated example, be able to read users an article about polar bears.
[...] CNET interpreted Scout to be a new voice-controlled web browser. With Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft falling over themselves refining their voice assistant technology (with Facebook not far behind), it's unsurprising that Mozilla would join the fray. Given the company's decades of web platform experience, a browser is surely simpler to implement than a new proprietary speaker. Plus, vocal navigation through a browser setup is probably easier for the average person to grasp.
So that's why they needed Common Voice.
Related: Mozilla's Common Voice Collecting French, German, and Welsh Samples, Prepping 40 More Languages
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 15 2018, @08:44PM (17 children)
Let's see, there are ads that play sound, and Mozilla wants a voice-controlled browser. Can't see how this one could possibly lead to shenanigans, nope.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 15 2018, @08:46PM (4 children)
That could be averted by wearing headphones, which are pretty much always plugged into my laptop. Or by analyzing the sound. Or by running an adblocker.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 15 2018, @08:54PM (3 children)
We're talking about the average user here, not people like us.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday June 15 2018, @09:01PM
Sorta-normies rick-rolled my Alexa on me, which was at least kinda funny. That's how old Alexa is, she's been around since before rick rolling became retro. Its gonna be an issue...
Bad ideas and the future are unevenly distributed, so someones vaporware that might roll out in five years was already a shitty product somewhere else five years ago.
None the less we can all pretend to be surprised in 2025 when someone rick rolls my Firefox, assuming Mozilla and Firefox are still around in 2025, LOL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:32AM (1 child)
haha "people like us" and then you get a VLM followup! On topic at least.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:46PM
VLM knows his stuff when it comes to computers. It's just that he's not so good dealing with anything that requires a conscience, that's all. INT and WIS are separate dice, remember?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snow on Friday June 15 2018, @08:53PM (3 children)
It seems stupid to me too, but I also thought the iPad was a terrible idea.
The only place I can see this being useful is as an app on a TV where you don't have a keyboard/mouse to navigate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @10:11PM (2 children)
What about people who don't have hands with which to operate a mouse and keyboard?
(Score: 2) by Snow on Friday June 15 2018, @10:17PM (1 child)
They use their feet, just like they have been doing for the last 30 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @11:03PM
And people used to beat their clothes on rocks in the river to clean them.
If they can get this to work effectively, it would be significantly more efficient for simple tasks and browsing.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 15 2018, @08:59PM (7 children)
To activate it, you have to say "Hey, Boo!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Friday June 15 2018, @09:13PM
God Damn Kids get off my lawn and stop yelling "Firefox open http goat sea dot see ex" thru my kitchen window, kids these days don't use Chrome like the good old days when I was young, what is the world coming to?
Given that the internet is for pr0n, and every strip club has some drunken idiot the bouncers haven't thrown out yet, I'm guessing the activate phrase for most people will be a drunkenly slurred shout of "take it all off"
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 16 2018, @01:10AM (2 children)
No, you will have to say, "Abracazabba." Then when the next version is released you will have to say, "ZabbaBAcabra." Then in the next version you will have to say, "LaChupacabra." Then in the next version you will have to grunt twice, click 3 times, then fart into it.
Things like this are Jew plots to induce learned helplessness into the Goys.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:43AM (1 child)
Your last line spoiled your complete post.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:52PM
I suspect that you misunderstand the purpose of his anti-whatever posts.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:46AM (2 children)
Sigh, nobody gots my joke, Jem.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16 2018, @10:22AM (1 child)
Yeah, no, can't figure it out.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:30PM
Scout. "Hey, Boo!" Jem
Google.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---