Siri and Alexa Battling to Become Go-To Voice Assistants in Hotel Rooms

[Sill]

It's up to you if you want to sign into the hotel iPad using your iTunes account, so you can ask that iPad to play music over your own iOS devices. Thus there seems to be no reason to do so, unless of course you forgot your own iOS devices for some reason.

I thought the discussion was over hotel chains having Siri-enabled devices waiting in the rooms. Perhaps I misread the article?

As for "gathering data", one would presume that they would "collect" the same kind of info that any good hotel would... such as remembering your breakfast and movie preferences, for the next time you stay at one of their chain places.

I'm pretty sure you've participated in other threads where I've brought this up and explained exactly what data is gathered. It goes about twenty levels deeper than you think.

Oh for goodness' sake. How would they get "voice prints" from either an iPad or Echo?

I'm hoping you're joking. If not, then where do I start explaining this?

The entire concept of something like Cortana, Alexa, and "OK Google" comes down to two things: learn everything about anything the client does, and develop an ever more accurate digital print of the client's voice. To be frank the whole purpose is to copy the client in software, and be able to anticipate their desires. Voice prints can give a great deal of information about the mental state of the client using stress analysis, but also, they can be used for nefarious purposes. As if having such prints in the first place isn't nefarious enough, using speech synthesis software, a voice print with modal variables, and VOIP technology, a "call from that guy" could be faked. A person's entire life could be stolen, wrecked, or they could just be manipulated for some purpose. It could be government, it could be private.

Analog voice print technology has been around since the 50's. Digital came along in the 1980s but the processing power wasn't there to make it commercially viable until the 1990s. It initially drove secure office network assistants like Wildfire back in the mid to late 1990s, and that is where all of today's current digital voice assistants originated.
Even our own Steve Jobs demonstrated this concept on stage at WWDC. Remember "My voice is my password"? That is voice print technology.

 

[kdarling]

You don't know a large percentage of the world. If you are someone that puts low price over other features, you essentially end up with Android by default.

Some of the poorest people in the world own iPhones. It's not about the final cost. It's about the upfront price and always has been. That's why iPhones sell well in countries with subsidies or other loans. Rich or poor doesn't matter as much.

Japan is a perfect example of this well known phenomenon. Modern, wealthy, into smartphones, and yet the iPhone barely sold... UNTIL it was given away for free with a contract, and then boom it jumped to 50% market share.

Anyway, my main point is that whenever Apple wishes to get into this game, they will become a big player in the market.

I think it depends on how tied they make it to the Apple ecosystem. E.g. almost nobody outside of that system buys the Apple Watch. However, plenty of non-Apple phone/computers users have iPads and iPods because they're not dependent on Apple computers to work.

I thought the discussion was over hotel chains having Siri-enabled devices waiting in the rooms. Perhaps I misread the article?

Nope, but perhaps you misread my reply. My point was that it makes no sense to go further and enter our iTunes info into the hotel device, since it'll only play media back to our own personal iOS devices. So, why not just use the latter and skip entering iTunes info in the hotel device.

(re: collecting voiceprints) The entire concept of something like Cortana, Alexa, and "OK Google" comes down to two things: learn everything about anything the client does, and develop an ever more accurate digital print of the client's voice.

Ah, I thought you were talking about the hotels gathering voice prints.

Of course the makers of a voice recognition system are going to try to improve their recognition. Nothing wrong with that.

They don't seem to keep many snippets though. Not anything even close to the 20 to 40 hours of voice samples needed in order to create a good digital reproduction.

Analog voice print technology has been around since the 50's.

Earlier! Back during WW-II much research was spent on creating uniquely secure ways of sending messages. Navajo Windtalkers were one obscure human way that were used.

A secret phone company led initiative was another: they taught a small group of women operators how to read voice prints (!). The physical print or a radio facsimile could be used to send secret messages to a location with one of the trained readers. The war ended before it was put into more than experimental use.

Back in the '70s I ran across an extremely detailed declassified research paper on this, and from it taught myself to do the same from spectral graphs that I made using a homebrew 6802 microprocessor system and display! I tried to implement the recognition rules in a computer program, but just didn't have the RAM and mathematical correlation knowledge to finish.

 

[Uofmtiger]

Some of the poorest people in the world own iPhones. It's not about the final cost. It's about the upfront price and always has been. That's why iPhones sell well in countries with subsidies or other loans. Rich or poor doesn't matter as much.

Japan is a perfect example of this well known phenomenon. Modern, wealthy, into smartphones, and yet the iPhone barely sold... UNTIL it was given away for free with a contract, and then boom it jumped to 50% market share.

Here are some articles:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/22/technology/mobile/iphone-smart-study/
http://www.businessinsider.com/android-is-for-poor-people-maps-2014-4
https://www.comscore.com/Insights/D...Income-Engage-More-on-Apps-than-Android-Users

The average price of an iPhone in 2016 was $651 vs the average Android phone costing an average of $208. That is less than a third of the price for those playing at home. While you may find some places on the globe where the prices are hidden in the contract, I think it is easier to bury $208 than $651.

So, if we take the contracts out of it, we can compare iOS devices (and their compatible watches) vs Android devices that aren't phones. I think this area tells more about the respective buyers. Android watches and tablets are flops compared to the iPad and the Apple Watch. Therefore, we know that when we don't tie the device to a contract (and subsidies), more Apple users are willing to pay for premium priced devices (when compared to the overall market of those devices).

All that being said, I think there is enough evidence that shows that an Android (Google) flop in the tech hardware market (and I don't know that they are flopping in the "Home" area) shows us nothing about whether Apple will flop or succeed in that same market. For the most part, they have a different client base. I am sure there are iOS owners that are buying Google Homes, though. You don't need an Android device to take advantage of the features. That being said, I would not be surprised if many iOS owners are waiting for an Apple version that actually cares about protecting their privacy. Also, if you just want a place holder until that happens, the Dot is a bargain at $50 and can be thrown in a guest room or bathroom when Apple's device comes to market.