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posted by martyb on Sunday June 23 2019, @02:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the New-is-not-always-good dept.

Voice activated gadgets are all the rage with smart devices capable of taking human voice commands as input. The most recent upgrade on an old game is with Monopoly replacing physical money with a talking hat. The reasoning behind this change is to prevent the person playing as the bank from cheating. While the talking hat may very well reduce the potential for underhanded activities it will also remove the learning opportunities Monopoly provides such as the handling of cash and bargaining skills. The first release does not require an internet connection with the smart device powering the hat having sufficient information stored locally to manage game transactions without relying on a third party system.


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  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Sunday June 23 2019, @04:53PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Sunday June 23 2019, @04:53PM (#859099)

    Not only that -- but that it's OK to always be recorded when speaking to force you into being honest even if you had no intention to steal and it never occurred to you to do so, because only criminals cite privacy concerns about always-on surveillance that one cannot opt-out of. What do you do--refuse to play with your friends, or buy an optional accessory of monolopy money that they don't include with the game anymore? Screw that.

    A side effect is going to be from here on out, the next generations won't even get the joke about being paid in monopoly money meaning that they got something worthless in exchange for something of value. Maybe they can be told to tell it to the hat instead.

    I'm all for modernization and improvements, but games are supposed to present some sort of challenge if there is the expectation someone can win or lose. Being the banker or dealing with someone that doesn't make a good banker... is part of learning how to negotiate and enforce agreed upon rules. This just dumbs it down and.. well. yeah. cashless society that is a consumer panopticon. I wouldn't be surprised if what the hat hears in addition to , it doesn't do the voice processing within the hat itself, and thus sends all conversation to a third party on the internet somewhere. Then whatever is talked about nearby in addition to the game commands ends up as ads on someone's phone, tv, or computer.

    (Personally, instead of a hat, I want a hand, so generation AA or whatever is next can learn to speak to the hand from birth... anyone that doesn't and instead uses paper money and proves they can both count and be considered trustworthy will probably will prove to be exceptional in some way compared to people politely waiting for the hand to reply to them)

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