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Google Tells Home Audio Vendors To Ditch Competing Smart Assistants If They Want To Use Google Cast: Variety (variety.com)
Google is telling its home audio vendors that they won't be allowed to add support for smart assistants by rivals such as Amazon's Alexa if they want to continue to use Google Cast, according to Variety. The Mountain View-based company reportedly conducted a meeting in June with 50 of the biggest names of home audio to discuss the plan. The publication adds that Google's talks with OEMs were at least partially successful, with many of those companies planning to unveil their Google Cast-powered smart speakers as soon as next year. From the report:"Google Cast has become a Trojan horse," said one of the attendees, who wasn't authorized to speak on the record with Variety. Google's overtures to consumer electronics makers come at a time of upheaval for many home audio brands. Premium stereo equipment makers, in particular, have seen their sales diminished in recent years by both changing listening habits and a rapid evolution of technology. The move to streaming audio led music fans to massively embrace headphones and cheap Bluetooth speakers. Then Sonos came along and established itself as the market leader for premium Wifi-connected speakers. And finally, Amazon surprised everyone with the Echo, a device that redefined what a speaker does, thanks to smart voice control that can be used to request songs, news headlines, the weather, and even to order a pizza or an Uber.Weirdly enough, Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft announced a partnership this week to conduct research and promoting best practices on AI.
sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
microsoft was in the same boat in europe wrt browsers and oem customizations.
granted, microsoft's marketshare was/is higher than google's is with "smart" speakers.. but give them time, they'll strong arm enough manufacturers to kill even echo, relegating amazon's product to a fancy order placer -- just like amazon's android-derived phone died an unglamorous death and (color non 'e reader') kindles are second-rate android tablets.
All I need in a speaker is a diaphragm that converts electrical impulses to movement of air that I can hear. That is a loudspeaker. Putting an amplifier in a 'speaker doesn't make it a bluetooth speaker any more than adding a computer to provide "smart voice control", whatever that might be, redefines what a "speaker" loud or otherwise, does.
Slashdot needs some better sources of articles than it's currently choosing from, it's not meant to be news for the completely clueless.
Also Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft policing AI, what could possibly go wrong.
Building with openness and interoperability in mind = nice
Contributing to FOSS community = fluffy
Building your own service "stack" = cool
Pressuring vendors to support your stack exclusively = dick move
If one thing is clear about these (so called) AI assistants, is that they can provide enormous amounts of incredibly juicy data. And it looks like Google wants all of it.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Weirdly enough, Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft announced a partnership this week to conduct research and promoting best practices on AI.
Why is that weird? It's just a trade association. Its purpose is to come up with a minimal code of conduct in the field of AI so that the government doesn't impose something more stringent, to give what may be mistaken as an independent body to take complaints about its members to, and to the extent practical to establish ways to restrict outsiders from entering the market. This is perfectly normal, every industry with money sloshing around has them. It doesn't mean the companies don't compete (or indeed engage in anti-competitive practices against one another).
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Support nobody else but Google which will drop their own thing in a few months/years, or support everybody but Google?
That's not really a choice, Google are shooting themselves in the foot.
Two things that come to my mind are that Miracast is a standard remote display technology that lots of things support, including many Smart TVs and STBs.
The other thing is that I've run across several non-Google platforms that enable some sort of media casting, using an Android Intent (the Share button, basically) to show media on another device and definitely works with Android to Kodi or Plex Clients or from the desktop with a browser plugin. As far as I know, there's no special Google magic in it.
What's so special about Google Cast in any of this?
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
I remember when digital music was going to revolutionize quality of music reproduction. No loss, no compression, more sonic head room and better frequency response. Now we seem destine for convenience over quality, wireless mono speakers, small single drivers, internet devices with a lack of real quality drivers. Besides these proprietary technologies meant to lock people into a ecosystem. Sure the music is DRM free but now the devices are becoming locked. Not good in my opinion.
Why would an oligarchy of multi billionaires tell others, "don't do that?"
What would happen if a certain business type elected president instructed the DOJ to assist any with litigation against large search engine companies?
Ask John F. Kennedy.
Title says it all
I mean really? They are designed to listen to every tiny sound inside your home.
"Oh, trust us, we don't record or keep recordings of these things, we don't give access to these things to ~other people~"
Right. How about FUCK YOU?
I have intentionally destroyed friendships because of people I was "friends" with having Facebook and google spyware installed on their phones.
I won't have phone conversations with people that use "smart phones". I won't go to people's homes that have these fucking "digital assistants" in their homes (Alexa, googlethingie, whateverthefuck). I don't communicate with people via email or chat or anything else that goes through the internet. I've gone back to 1975 and I drive to people's homes to talk or they come to mine and when we do talk, power your shit off. Power it off or we don't talk.
You don't value you your privacy? Fine. I don't care. But I value mine and if you're my friend you'll fucking well RESPECT my privacy.
Are you kidding? Obama and Clinton are in bed with the high tech industry, as well as media companies and Hollywood. They aren't going to hurt their major supporters, donors, and propaganda machine.
You just used to the internet to post to slashdot. But nahhhhhhh you don't use the Internet. Where is that high horse when you need him?
In Vino Veritas.
You're reeling from poor reading comprehension.
TFS said "biggest names", not "big names."
There are far more than 50 home audio manufacturers, and of that set, 50 of them will be the biggest.
Carry on.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I have intentionally destroyed friendships because of people I was "friends" with having Facebook and google spyware installed on their phones.
I guess they're still weeping over this. You sound like a lot of fun.
Casting audio is much better than using Bluetooth from your phone. That said, you can use a cheap Chromecast Audio if you dint want the smarts in the speaker itself.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Isnt this exactly the kind of awful behavior that saw Microsoft and others excoriated? Can you legally tie the ability to turn on an OS feature to a commitment not to use a completely different technology that has no technically reasonable explanation for why the two should be linked?
Usually I am all for free market, whatever you can get in a contract go get it, but this seems exactly the kind of muscle move that anti-trust concerns are designed to prevent.
You don't have friends if you intentionally destroyed the relationship because they have Facebook installed on their phone. You don't even know what the word "friend" means if you'd consider that a rational act. You should really find someone to talk to if you have any trust left whatsoever. I've got a pretty good idea what privacy concerns look like and an even better idea what mental illness looks like, and this is the ravings of someone deep within the latter.
"Look up Standard Oil."
The AI war will be fought by humans on their behalf... for market share? Quite a twist of fate on the old school sci-fi notion. Google has made some ill conceived dick moves in the past, this is a whole bag of dicks.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Somebody rate this Insightful, please.
OS/2 was also pretty neat.