Nothing to prevent an always on, send audio back "listen and record mode" either if a command is sent.
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Amazon and Google Want to Turn Their Smart Home Speakers Into Telephone Replacements
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Nothing to prevent an always on, send audio back "listen and record mode" either if a command is sent.
But once established into your home/life... could just be a change the T&C/Privacy statement. Right? You sure have a great deal of trust in the ethical standards of entities whose aim is to profit from your participation.
Exactly this. I have a five year old $20 Bluetooth speaker that functions perfectly as a speakerphone.
Amazon refuses to turn on the mic over Bluetooth because they're scheming to make money.
I've sent many emails asking them to give my phone access to the mic, and never heard a word back. Jerks.
Voip is simply a different means to the same end. The reality is it's a dedicated home phone, something that we've seen disappearing more and more in the mast decade. I'm not implying we are going to have a phone jack, obviously the hardware doesn't have one to begin with.
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I was speaking towards the fact that we now have a stationary object with which we will interact to make a phone call, much like we had gone phone for more than half a century.
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It's always listening for just the trigger word.
As for your apparent fear of a government hack sending data up all the time, Amazon intentionally built in a hardware microphone disable button. Software can't turn that back on. So if you're about to say something you shouldn't and you're worried, click the button and the top turns red to let you know it cannot listen.
But it sounds to me like you probably won't own any of these devices anyway. Do you worry about your phone in the same way? I think it's just as vulnerable, if not more.
A classic simple answer, but thanks for sharing.
So, it's more an issue around mass data mining and the potential training of AI systems using such data from social networks and any communication based platform. Thinking about this as a privacy issue for a single individual is a classic oversight.
We must think about privacy not in relation to whether we are doing something 'wrong' as individuals, but as a much wider problem around mass data collection in terms of collective data and its use both now and in the future.
As humans, are we collectively happy with our data being used for such purposes? Think about why Alphabet (Google) are buying up robotics companies (including military variants capable of huge destructive capabilities) and at the same time giving away numerous free services in return for our data. It doesn't take too many joining of the dots to see what may be happening...
But then maybe you'd still prefer to lable me as paranoid, or worse?
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This would be a killer App. And the programming is nothing that hasn't been figured out by VOIP. Just ask Alexa to call someone in your phone book and then it does a call over Wi-Fi. Every major player already has programs that do this. Think of the safety advantage if you could call 911 by just talking into your room. This would be a device that every elderly person living at home would want. Folks would pay hundreds of dollars to set this up in their home. If they could just speak into the air and be heard by friends and family right away, so many people would buy this.
And the mass market of buyers are not going to think about privacy and if their phone calls are being recorded.
And when I got my Mom an Alexa, during the set up, the first thing she asked after setting up playing music was if she could make phone calls. It is just instinctive once you are talking to Alexa to think that maybe this device should work like a phone.
And the mass market of buyers are not going to think about privacy and if their phone calls are being recorded.
And when I got my Mom an Alexa, during the set up, the first thing she asked after setting up playing music was if she could make phone calls. It is just instinctive once you are talking to Alexa to think that maybe this device should work like a phone.
The echo last year sold 5.2 million units vs ~11.9 for the apple watch (supposedly by analyst that say apple sold like half of that in the last quarter). So not 3x less and no one knows exactly how many apple watches have really been sold.
I hope you don't use a computer or smartphone then.
Or a myriad of other recent technological products.
Glassed Silver:win
I understand your point but privacy isn't a binary entity that you have or you don't have. There is a continuum of privacy that ranges from the hermit living off the grid in a woods to the social media addict that live streams their entire life to the world. I agree with you that most people have probably already given up way more privacy than they realize but that is not a good reason to give up what little remains.
Personally, I have 1 original Echo and 4 Echo Dots in my home that I use to control everything from my thermostat to my lights to my TV. However, I still use a VPN for most of my online activities, DuckDuckGo for my search engine, I don't have a Facebook account and I try to pay in cash as much as I can because I do value what is left of my privacy.
Exactly the opposite. By the time Apple releases (if it releases at all) something similar to Echo v1, Amazon and Google will have much more advanced products.
Adding a phone call feature is a smart move.
Even in the area where Apple was first (Siri) it is now behind any competition. They lost Siri developers with their new more advanced product to Samsung.
Dude, I was in the process of making our house "smart," but I realized it's easier to just turn on the lights with the switch on the wall.
I'd rather see an optional built in cell phone added to the iPad Pro.
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Good question. "The world may never know."
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Yep. The idea of programming everything in the house that runs on electricity seems like overkill.
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Good question. "The world may never know."
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Yep. The idea of programming everything in the house that runs on electricity seems like overkill.
lol, ownedI use a VPN on all my devices.
Don't use Facebook or similar crap.
There are plenty of technologies available to keep yourself, especially your IP address, private from most observers. Onion routers, VPNs, proxies...
Fun fact, though: If you're running Sierra or iOS 10, I can send you an iMessage message that'll immediately tell me your IP address and user agent (includes OS version and such), simply by sending you a URL pointing to my web site. This is because the link previewer in iMessage is so darn stupid that it visits the page using your device rather than having Apple's server do it! I don't know if iOS will always stay connected to a VPN, even when it's sleeping/waking, so you might want to check that.
This actually came in very handy for me because I needed my grandma's IP address but couldn't explain to her to send it to me or click a link I sent her. So I just sent her a link and let her iPhone tell me it.
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I don't get the point of such a product.
I can do all of this with my iPhone better plus the phone comes where I am, not vice versa.
These products seem like what you might do when you are augmenting a phone offering which doesn't have much penetration while not wanting to have a competitor's platform between you and your customer.
I can do all of this with my iPhone better plus the phone comes where I am, not vice versa.
These products seem like what you might do when you are augmenting a phone offering which doesn't have much penetration while not wanting to have a competitor's platform between you and your customer.
I am extremely paranoid about these voice, video recording systems that are always connected to the internet by companies gathering information about you in extremely fine print in a 2000 page privacy policy manual.
I guess 1984 turned out to be 2017 after all...
I guess 1984 turned out to be 2017 after all...
Excellent generalization and extrapolation of my comments, but you're wrong. I may want to choose how much or how little the world and Google/Amazon/Apple/etc. know about me. I didn't say that I want total privacy, I was only expressing my concern that we are indeed giving up something that should be extremely important to all of us -- the right to privacy and the understanding of how to protect it.
I have windows in my house but I also have curtains so that I don't have neighbors peeking in. Does that mean that I'm committing criminal acts or doing something nefarious? No. The more we allow digital companies to see, hear, detect, and record what we're doing, the less privacy we have. We're voluntarily removing the curtains and exposing ourselves to outside entities. Just because we're doing it digitally instead of visually doesn't change the facts.
Some people may want to be totally open without concerns about who is watching or what the watchers are doing with the information. Others of us may still value the ability to keep some aspects of our lives private. Feel free to take down your curtains, but do it will full knowledge that someone may be looking and can use the information in ways that you won't like.
Just another $.02.
Maybe there's something to this. Google seems to have recently done some updates to their Google Voice service after years of leaving it wither and rumors of its demise. Maybe they will integrate it into their device.
I have an Echo that I got for half price when they first came out. I really think they are overrated. I hardly ever think to ask it something.
I have an Echo that I got for half price when they first came out. I really think they are overrated. I hardly ever think to ask it something.
As opposed to a device you type everything into that leaves a trail?
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I believe you're being extreme here with no facts.
They Amazon and Google aren't recording your conversations . Does it log in your commands? Yes.
Does safari keep your browsing history? Yes
You think these companies are being nefarious and that's just not true.
"Alexa - end response"
"Okay"
