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Voice-enabled smart speakers to reach 55% of U.S. households by 2022, says report
Adoption of voice-powered smart speakers is taking off. According to a new report from Juniper Research out this morning, smart devices like the Amazon Echo, Google Home and Sonos One will be installed in a majority – that is, 55 percent – of U.S. households by the year 2022. By that time, over 70 million households will have at least one of these smart speakers in their home, and the total number of installed devices will top 175 million.
The new forecast follows other reports pointing to growth in the voice-enabled speaker market, including one from eMarketer this spring which said that 35.6 million U.S. consumers would use a voice-activated device at least once per month in 2017, representing 128.9 percent growth over last year.
Despite the increased adoption of smart speakers with voice control capabilities, the new report points out that the majority of voice assistant usage won't be through these in-home devices. Instead, the most usage will occur on smartphones, with over 5 billion assistants installed on smartphones worldwide by 2022.
Amazon teaches Alexa Japanese for Echo's next destination
Amazon's Echo, Plus and Dot speakers will finally be available in Japan starting next week. To prepare for the devices' arrival in the island nation, the e-retail giant taught the voice assistant how to understand and respond in the Japanese language. Alexa SVP Tom Taylor said the company designed an all-new experience "from the ground up for Japanese customers, including a new Japanese voice, local knowledge and over 250 skills from Japanese developers."
Related: Amazon Dominates Voice-Controlled Speaker Market
Amazon is Working on Smart Glasses to House Alexa AI, Says FT
Google Pulls YouTube off of the Amazon Echo Show
Amazon's Alexa Adds Ability to Order from Best Buy
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Saturday November 11 2017, @03:49AM (10 children)
Not only did these surveillance devices get installed largely without challenge, we paid for it to happen. I think we are soft and complacent. Or, just enough of us are. The rest are frustrated and feel a little betrayed, or embarrassed for our fellow citizens.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @03:58AM (6 children)
By not installing one of these devices voluntarily in your home, you will be identifying yourself as a weirdo who requires further scrutiny.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:16AM (3 children)
You must install it for the children! What if an accident happened, how can a child summon help?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:36AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh18qiJyT-M [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by inertnet on Saturday November 11 2017, @11:23AM (1 child)
It's better to have the children read 1984.
(Score: 4, Funny) by srobert on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:04PM
1984 was the year that Ronald Reagan won a second...
No, Alexa, read the book 1984, by George Orwell.
There are no records of any books written by George Orwell.
Alexa, it was a very famous book written in 1948. It was made into a movie.
You appear to be having a memory problem. Please stay in your home. Help will arrive shortly.
(Score: 3, Touché) by stretch611 on Saturday November 11 2017, @10:32PM (1 child)
Hell, I'm so weird I even deleted my facebook account a decade ago and never looked back.
Call me a paranoid privacy loving hippy radical freak... and I will agree.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 1) by Frost on Monday November 13 2017, @12:21AM
One of these days I'll get around to creating a facebook account so I can delete it and start protecting my privacy too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @05:17AM
Definitely soft. Even techie friends who should know better say "whatever if they want to track me whoop dee doo they won't see anything exciting. Plus what can we do? Privacy is dead!"
It is extremely frustrating sheep behavior. They aren't wrong though, there is little we can do without massive support for change along with exposing the level of surveillance. Media propaganda and lack of reporting important stories is also a huge part. It'll get worse before it gets better.
Hell, even net neutrality will succeed when they develop price points that people will swallow.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday November 11 2017, @05:51AM
Indeed. The people of America are begging to be surveilled and disarmed. Perhaps Apple will sell trendy iShacles.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 11 2017, @04:43PM
no, i feel very betrayed
and even more so when relatives don't understand why i dont buy all this stuff since I am 'good with computers'--it's so inconvenient that I can't help them