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posted by chromas on Tuesday September 18 2018, @08:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the And-microwaves-that-turn-into-cameras,-et-cetera.-So-we-know-that-that-is-just-a-fact-of-modern-life dept.

Amazon plans to release at least 8 new Alexa-powered devices, including a microwave, an amplifier, and an in-car gadget

Amazon is doubling down on its Alexa-powered devices, with plans to release at least 8 new voice-controlled hardware devices before the end of the year, CNBC has learned.

The devices include, among others, a microwave oven, an amplifier, a receiver, a subwoofer, and an in-car gadget, people familiar with the matter said. All of the devices will be Alexa-enabled, meaning they can easily connect to the voice assistant. Some of the devices will also have Alexa built in.

Amazon is expected to reveal some of these devices at an event later this month, according to an internal document describing the plans.

The new devices reflect Amazon's ambition to make its Alexa voice technology ubiquitous by focusing on areas where people spend most of their time — at home and in the car. Alexa was initially considered a geeky experiment at Amazon. Now it is now one of the most popular voice assistants, leading the growth of the burgeoning smart speaker market, which is expected to be worth $30 billion by 2024, according to Global Market Insights.

Alexa-"powered" microwave ovens would be among the first consumer "AI" devices with the ability to harm small animals or babies.

Also at The Verge.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:12PM (5 children)

    by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 18 2018, @09:12PM (#736734)

    No, just no! I don't want "smart" voice enabled devices! My dumb refrigerator, stove, microwave, toaster, dishwasher, clothes washer/dryer, thermostat, light switches, TVs, alarm clock, etc. all work JUST FINE without voice control and without phoning home to someone else's spy server.

    It's bad enough that I have to take serious measures to keep my PC and my cell phone from completely siphoning up my life. I probably don't do enough to be honest. I suppose I could get rid of my phone and Internet and be a hermit (more than I already am).

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday September 18 2018, @10:19PM (3 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @10:19PM (#736777)

    Seriously, this. Isn't it bad enough that pretty much everything has migrated from 2-3 easy-to-use knobs to annoying cheap keypads with badly designed software interfaces to save a few nickles in production costs? Now they want to, what, ditch the buttons for voice commands that will be flaky at the best of times, utterly useless at worst, and spy on you all the time? While increasing the cost to boot? Not just no, but Hell No!

    If you really want "smart" electronics - leave the brains out of the electronics, just give them basic controls and a standarized wireless remote interface. Then I can use whatever "brain" I want to run the whole house, or no brain at all, as *I* choose. Why limit your device to only selling to people who use Alexa, when you could also sell it to those who use Siri, Google assist, or whatever privacy respecting self-contained digital assistant they want.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @10:57PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 18 2018, @10:57PM (#736797)

      So you admit the speech recognition is absolutely terrible at recognizing speech, and complain that it reports what it hears? If it reports after parsing, nobody is getting reliable spy data ...

      • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday September 18 2018, @11:48PM

        by deimtee (3272) on Tuesday September 18 2018, @11:48PM (#736826) Journal

        These are actually different use cases.
        Amazon is probably happy enough with 80% correct recognition. A simple algorithm can probably throw out most of the garbage and give them useful data.
        If one time in fifty your thermostat hears "heat the house to seventy degrees"* instead of "heat the house to twenty degrees" it is completely useless.

        *temps in C. probably just as bad for the yanks if you swap the numbers and do it in F.

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      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:30AM

        by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 19 2018, @12:30AM (#736841)

        Your "smart" device almost certainly doesn't send parsed data to Amazon - it sends voice recordings to Amazon, who then parse the results. If it does any parsing locally, it's probably just of "Alexa..." to let it know that the next clip should be sent, rather than always sending everything. Though it'll still always send everything (to someone) if you've installed any of the malignant "apps" designed to do so.

        As for spying - it's easy enough to store both the audio recording (voice-specific audio compression has gotten extremely good), *and* the parsed text - so you'd look for "interesting" text, and then listen to the audio of the surrounding time period. After all, you're likely to say several "interesting" things in a "conversation of interest", and the parsing will probably catch at least a few correctly enough.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:10PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 19 2018, @06:10PM (#737155) Journal

    I don't want "smart" voice enabled devices! My dumb refrigerator, stove, microwave, toaster, dishwasher, clothes washer/dryer, thermostat, light switches, TVs, alarm clock, etc.

    But just imagine!

    What if you could get them all arguing with each other.

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