A significant thread through the net neutrality debate was making sure ISPs (read: cable companies) didn't turn the free and open internet into the thing those ISPs actually want, bundles of cable packages. We have, thus far, been mostly successful in stopping it.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook have defended net neutrality and fought the bundle.
But, deep inside the software that powers their empires, they're each creating a different kind of bundle. It came from places we haven't been watching closely enough, and it has many names: Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Facebook M, and Google Now. There's a problem that's built into them: they only seem to work with certain parts of the web and — here's the real rub — certain apps.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Internet Bundle is already here ...and it's a Bot
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 27 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday February 12 2016, @02:01PM
The solution is an open voice recognition system. One of the foundations has to take care of this (i.e. funding), as the infrastructure requirements far exceed the usually available means. Maybe it's time for the UN to create a cyberspace development branch?
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday February 12 2016, @02:14PM
It's not the recognition, I think the complaint is what they 'connect' to. In the case of Google Now, the app API for it is open I believe, so if you want it to be able to work with it, just wire in the API. All of them will search the open web (well, not sure about FaceBook, I don't use it).
Also. the summary says FaceBook has been fighting for net neutrality, which is not really true, as they've been fight hard to break it with "Internet.org". I don't seem to remember Apple fighting for net neutrality either, but I may just have missed it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @05:00PM
> Also. the summary says FaceBook has been fighting for net neutrality, which is not really true
There is a link right there to back up the claim.
But ultimately facebook fights for what is in facebook's short term interest, just like any other sociopath. That doesn't mean we can't hold them to their lofty rhetoric when it conflicts with their actions as this article is doing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @07:15PM
The fundamental problem with these services is that they are services as a software substitute (SaaSS): your computer (phone) records your voice, then transmits it to a third party, who then performs computation (voice recognition) with your voice recording on your behalf.
When computation is done this way, not only does the third party get access to all your data (voice recordings in this case), but they also control all the results. It doesn't really matter who the third party is (be it Apple or Google or some nonprofit built around such a service). Assuming voice recognition is desirable, the best solution would be for the phone to do its own voice processing with free software. This is likely impractical with current hardware. The next best would be free software you can run on your own server to perform voice recognition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @10:42PM
While I personally don't have any need for voice recognition, it would be more like a novelty thing, it certainly can have use for blind people for example*. But even if I would be blind I wouldn't want my voice recordings to be sent to some server somewhere, I certainly wouldn't use that! What prevents speech recognition from being a local application that I run on my own PC?
*and if the failure rate is very very small it could work for writing text, when you leaning back in your comfortable armchair write your latest book....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @12:46PM
Mobiles had voice dialling since at least 2001 (e.g. the Motorola v60i had it). Surely this peach rack ignition cape ability could be adequate on current models?
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday February 15 2016, @03:10PM
Yeah that's exactly my point, except that one server is probably not enough, just as the phone's hardware is insufficient to achieve similar results to Siri, Cortana, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @02:08PM
You mean that the voice recognition stuff developed in-house at Google, Apple, and Microsoft only works well with products developed (or partnered with) at Google, Apple, and Microsoft, respectively??
TOTALLY blew my mind. I feel as if I lost a bit of innocence or naïvety today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @02:32PM
It is the updated version of microsoft trying to own the web by adding all kinds of proprietary stuff to internet explorer and then giving it away for free.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Friday February 12 2016, @03:52PM
But... why? Are you saying that there are no competitors apps? That you can't find Microsoft websites from "OK Google"?
And... it's voice recognition. Pretty much the only purpose for it is to do quick searches on your favoured search engine, or control apps on the device. So Google will only be able to control Chrome / Android apps. Siri, Apple-based Apps. And Cortana Windows based ones.
Quite where the massive, underlying, suggested problem creates an insurmountable issue such as net neutrality, I can't fathom. Is it really any different to the existence of APK's, EXE's, and DMG's? That one can't work on the others?
Overblown hype, for all I can tell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @04:57PM
> But... why? Are you saying that there are no competitors apps?
> So Google will only be able to control Chrome / Android apps. Siri, Apple-based Apps. And Cortana Windows based ones.
In your first sentence you are arguing that there are competitors and then you recognize the fact that competitor's systems won't work with apps that use each platform's proprietary voice-control system.
It is weird you can name the problem outright and not fathom it being a problem.
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Friday February 12 2016, @03:02PM
And the point they are getting across is that Google/Apple/Microsoft etc are deciding which 3rd party services their respective digital assistants connect too.
And that as a small/new developer there is no "route to market" to get your service included, read "bundled" with their digital assistants.
There seems to be a enough competition in the markets at the moment but it is reasonable that only the services that benefit the providers will be supported not the ones customer actually want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @04:07PM
No it is not reasonable. That's where anti-trust lawsuits are born.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday February 12 2016, @03:23PM
Feed the gravity waves from yesterday's press conference to Siri, Cortana and the rest, and see what they make of it. Would it translate to '42'?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday February 12 2016, @04:20PM
In those press conferences they were talking about gravitational waves, which they did by creating sound waves with their mouth, which then were encoded into electromagnetic waves for transmission into the world, and the explanations might even have used some hand waving here and there. But I'm pretty sure gravity waves were not involved.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday February 12 2016, @08:25PM
I read somewhere (forgot where of course) that the signal lasted only about 0.3 seconds and was around 250 Hz. There even was an audio version of the signal in one of the video's. Perfect for a voice command.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @03:30PM
The article, trying to bundle Net Neutrality to proprietarily developed apps, I mean. The two are nowhere near the same argument and should not be conflated.
Doing that actually marginalizes the argument for net neutrality IMVHO.
In other opinion about the article, I couldn't really care less who the proprietary company partners with to provide information for its proprietary application on its proprietary OS. Again, the article tries to suggest that the use of these apps will be the primary way the public communicates with the Internet. Which is wrong on the face of it. The apps may be the way the unwashed masses will receive information, and the app may use the internet as the mechanism. That doesn't mean the public is "using the Internet" by using the apps. A=B and C=D does not mean A=D.
In fact, I hope that the unwashed masses use the hell out of those apps. Because that means the Internet proper will become less popular of an idea, and gives a chance for the technically skilled public to wrestle it back out of the hands of big business.
(And sure, I use Siri sometimes. But I don't make the mistake of thinking I'm getting "teh internets" through it.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @04:11PM
So much wrong, and your very humble opinion is the least humble I've read.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @09:18PM
I'm very humble about it because I'm willing to be wrong that they're not completely different concepts and shouldn't be combined. If you're willing to prove how they're the same I await hearing it. But the rest of it is my opinion, and that I'm never humble about, just right.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday February 12 2016, @04:30PM
The internet already is largely unused. For most people these days, the web = the internet.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday February 12 2016, @10:02PM
A=B and C=D does not mean A=D.
Stay away from zebra crossings.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @03:38PM
Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Facebook M, and Google Now
What are "Things I don't use", Alex?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @10:02PM
YES!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @04:01PM
Must be pretty slow today to post such a BS puff piece like this... either that or the mods are sleeping on the job again.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday February 12 2016, @04:02PM
Movie trailer time! Now with revised syntax!
\begin{trailer}
\scene{I/O Tower}
\character{Dumont}[voiceonly] \dialog{Come, child.}
\character{Quorra} \dialog{What is it? You seem disturbed.}
\character{Dumont} \dialog{I sense something horribly wrong is happening on the net. It's a fear I've not felt since\ldots}
\transition{cut}[blackscreen]
\character*[voiceonly] \dialog{With the information I can access, I can run things 900 to 1200 times better than any human.}
\scene{Mainframe Dock}
\character{Matrix} \action{Reads through shipping manifest} \dialog{What is all of this?}
\character{Capacitor} \dialog{Ye got me, lad. Ain't not even those scurvy raider dogs can crack this 'ere code. By the by me hearty, pays good.}
\character{Matrix} \dialog{Sounds fishy. This doesn't look like anything from the web.}
\character{Capacitor} \dialog{Aye. This here cargo ain't from yon web. Ye ever hear the story of the five citadels? They say there be five oracles.}
\transition{cut}{blackscreen}
\character{Capacitor}[voiceonly] \dialog{They be so powerful they be able to speak to the User.}
\scene{I/O Tower}
\character{Dumont} \dialog{It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.}
\character{Quorra} \dialog{What is it?}
\character{Dumont} \dialog{This is the Codex of Xe'mpp. Protect it well, and it will protect you, for you must go far beyond the known net to seek the five citadels.}
\transition{fade}[blackscreen]
\movietitle{Secret of Xe'mpp}[Spring 2017]
\character*[voiceonly] \dialog{End of line.}
\end{trailer}
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Friday February 12 2016, @04:45PM
keep blaming us for your greed, wait until we... well let's leave it at that.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday February 13 2016, @05:22AM
I don't know whether it's called an Internet Bundle or not, but we've already got a term for that, a lot of terms actually: vendor lock-in, proprietary software, closed standards, take your pick.
The solution is free software and free standards, free as in freedom.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!