Google, Lagging Amazon, Races Across the Threshold Into the Home (nytimes.com)

Google will unveil its answer to Amazon's Echo at an event on Tuesday, the New York Times reports. The Google Home device, which looks like an "air freshener," is expected to go on sale later this month (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source), the publication added. The Google Home is powered by what Google calls Assistant, which uses "artificial intelligence" to understand what users are saying and respond conversationally with the best answers. "Amazon is the accidental winner here," Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at the Stern School of Business at New York University, told the paper. "Amazon got there first, which is superimpressive, and it has been a huge hit." From the report: Google is a leader in natural language processing -- the ability to turn spoken words into terms that computers can digest -- and its search engine is the starting point for how most people get answers on the internet. In fact, the company says 20 percent of Google searches on mobile phones are done by voice. So why didn't Google create an Echo-like device before Amazon? In part, Google was hindered by a balkanized structure that prevented different groups within the company from working together, according to four current and former employees. Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., had a large team working on voice search but its focus was on an app for smartphones. The company had a separate team working on the Android operating system, which runs on smartphones, tablets and internet-connected home devices, and they were building virtual assistant technology into mobile devices.Google is also expected to launch two new smartphones, expected to be called Pixel and Pixel XL. Earlier today, both the phones showed up on a retailer's website, revealing their specifications. The Guardian reports: The leaked images show two sizes of the phone -- a regular and "XL" version, USB-C fast charging, a new interface, video calling and the Google Assistant, which first launched within the company's Allo messaging app. Both devices will have 32GB or 128GB of storage, 4GB of RAM, Qualcomm's latest 821 processor, AMOLED screens, fingerprint scanners on the back, an eight-megapixel selfie camera and a 12-megapixel camera on the back with optical image stabilisation, according to the smartphone retailers listings which have since been removed.

Comments

Yeah, but..

[Lab Rat Jason]

Yeah, but does it have a headphone jack?

Re:Yeah, but..

[Yvan256]

Headphone jack or not, I'm not letting anything with a microphone or camera made by Google or Amazon into my house, let alone pay for one.

Re:Yeah, but..

[VorpalRodent]

Of course not, Google is much too courageous for that.

Re:Yeah, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. One of the leaked photos shows it on the top.

Re:Yeah, but..

[JaredOfEuropa]

This. I have a fairly extensive home automation setup, and that includes cameras (some with mics), but none of this equipment is connected directly to the internet. Anything that requires internet access is not racing across my threshold.

Regarding Alexa-like devices, I am going to hold off on those until the speech recognition is performed on the device itself, with no audio being transmitted to the mothership. And then I will still only use them for local control, and isolate them from the outside world.

I will never install such a device in my home:

[Anonymous Coward]

Until there are serious assurances that my privacy will be respected.

Ideally my device would process all of the sounds, discarding anything that did not generate an inquiry.
Inquiries should be send to the best source of that information, not all to the company that made the device.

Re:I will never install such a device in my home:

[The-Ixian]

Oh, I am sure that all it will take is a subpoena to get that microphone recording and camera flicking pics.... I am sure that the Echo is the same.

These types of devices are a wet dream for law enforcement (or any hacker capable enough).

Re:I will never install such a device in my home:

[ShanghaiBill]

Until there are serious assurances that my privacy will be respected.

There are serious assurances. What assurance would you be willing to accept?

Ideally my device would process all of the sounds, discarding anything that did not generate an inquiry.

That is exactly how Amazon Echo works. It listens for the keyword (default: "Alexa") and only processes queries following that keyword.

Inquiries should be send to the best source of that information, not all to the company that made the device.

This is not feasible within a reasonable price point. You can't do full voice recognition and semantic analysis on $149 worth of hardware. So you need to send the query back to the company's server before you can know "the best source of that information".

Re:I will never install such a device in my home:

[sexconker]

You can't do full voice recognition and semantic analysis on $149 worth of hardware.

Of course you can.

The actual processing is dead simple. Signal processing is handled with dedicated hardware. A simple database stores samples, rules, and weights, as well as references to the user's details and shit like their calendar or email. The database can live in local storage or in an sd card. Storage space isn't an issue though access speed may be (don't include a cheapo class 4 SD card). An embedded-class CPU easily processes the minimal logic involved for evaluating an individual query.

Re:I will never install such a device in my home:

[ShanghaiBill]

You can't do full voice recognition and semantic analysis on $149 worth of hardware.

Of course you can.

Great, then do it! Come back and submit an announcement. I am sure it will make the Slashdot front page. If your device retails for $149, then it should cost half that in parts and assembly. You need to do noise filtering, voice recognition of any speaker without pre-training, speech-to-text, and then do semantic analysis of the result to figure out what the speaker meant. Good luck.

Re:I will never install such a device in my home:

[sexconker]

Why would I do that? I think it's a terrible invasion of privacy ripe for abuse.

Signal analysis and noise filtering is largely done in hardware or hardware + free libraries.
Voice recognition of any speaker without training? No one does that today, nor will anyone be doing that in 10 years.
Voice recognition of most speakers with minimal training up front and continual training over time? Everyone does that, and it's fundamentally no different from what Dragon was doing nearly 2 decades ago on my 233 MHz Pentium II, with no dedicated signal processing hardware.
Speech to text? Again, see Dragon.
Semantic analysis? Nice buzzword, tool. Again, Dragon had that, though limited to whatever you were working on at the moment (such as working on a Word document).

Your "semantic analysis" is nothing more than a list of nouns, verbs, objects, and targets within a weighted decision tree. Prepositions and other parts of speech are generally dropped.

It's a simple neural net. And even when it's done well it's fucking shit.
There's a reason so many companies are trotting these out. The hard work is the signal recording and cleanup, and that's all done in commodity hardware now. The "AI" to determine meaning is nearly an off-the-shelf solution as well with everyone just throwing it all into a database and letting their favorite "bigdata" algorithm crunch it into a semi-passable result. It's really no different than typing your query into google.com .

Re: I will never install such a device in my home:

[stevedog]

You think you train Google Now? There is one situation where you give it a modicum of training. Guess where? The only part of the recognition that occurs on the device: "Ok Google" detection. Contrary to how you seem to think this works, this isn't 1999 Dragon NaturallySpeaking on steroids. There is no "database of simple rules and semantics." Their speech recognition (and that of Alexa) is powered by a huge neural net that is constantly expanding based on prior searches. That has strong potential criticisms for sure, but "this is really pretty easy" isn't one of them.

Re: I will never install such a device in my home:

[xvan]

There is another instance. When google suggest something and you correct it (or don't), you're collaborating with it's supervised learning.

OK Google

[Oswald McWeany]

PLEASE tell me you have a choice and don't have to summon it by saying "OK, Google". I refuse to use Google Now because of that. Seems such an egotistical launch phrase to pick.

Speaking of voice, I'm annoyed in Marshmallow google mutilated how TTS worked. I can't use my nice Ivona (Amazon owned company) Welsh chick voice for Google Now or Google Maps anymore. Ivona selection of voices were far superior to anything google has produced; I hate being stuck with google's selection.

Am I going to be stuck with robotic sounding voices with this google device, or will it let me install a superior competitor, like Android used to let me do.

Re:OK Google

[tlhIngan]

PLEASE tell me you have a choice and don't have to summon it by saying "OK, Google". I refuse to use Google Now because of that. Seems such an egotistical launch phrase to pick.

Well, it would be rather fun since I apparently can't help BUT trigger that every time I combine "OK" and "Google".

"Are you OK?" "Google this and you'll get your answer" - I'll reliably trigger every Android phone in earshot. Yes, I can be mean and do "OK Google call 911" and get a few phones dialing as well.

I guess that's why Amazon called theirs Alexa and Apple "Hey Siri". No company name or egotism there, just a friendly name.

Only new thing from Google that I want in the home

[TWX]

...is a pair of 10 micron glass fibers coated in a reflective layer with a kevlar sleeve and a PVC outer jacket, with either 1310nm or 1550nm laser light shining down the center...

Re: Amazon Echo disaster

[Luthair]

It's popular amongst the tech press and gadget hounds. Since Amazon hasn't released numbers to my knowledge it's hard to know otherwise.

Re:Nest, lest not forget

[Oswald McWeany]

You make the nest sound like a cult.

I am a non-believer in the nest. I reject the warming air from the nest. I refuse to have it cool me in the summer. My soul will sweat and shiver throughout eternity.

Re:Amazon Echo disaster

[FictionPimp]

I got a echo free at a tech show. It is impressive enough that I plan to get the new small ones for the whole house.

Re:Amazon Echo disaster

[Gilgaron]

Somehow I know multiple people that love the things. I don't see the appeal and find the idea of paying for it all the more bizarre. But from what I've heard it is doing better than I would have thought...

Re:Only new thing from Google that I want in the h

[Gilgaron]

Maybe Google will let you have fiber if you agree to have one of these surveillance devices installed too?

Re:Amazon Echo disaster

[ShanghaiBill]

The echo was a disaster.

As of April 2016, they have sold 3 million. That doesn't seem like a disaster.

Disclaimer: I have one. There is plenty of room for improvement, but I am mostly happy with it.

Only applicable to younger users

[thinkwaitfast]

Us greybeards know how to order things from Amazon the old fashioned way on their website. And sometimes, in the case of CME or EMP, using the post office and mail order. I pity younger generations. So impatent.

Re:Only applicable to younger users

[antdude]

Patent? Weird. ;)

Re:Not really

[sexconker]

Easy. Hairy nipple.

Long lifecycle?

[Aqualung812]

Google does a lot of things well, but staying around for the long haul on personal-focused stuff isn't one of them.
If I'm going to invest in hardware to manage my home, I expect a 10 year lifecycle at least.
I'm not saying everything should last for 10 years, but the lights I install in 2016 should still be able to be controlled in 2026.
With Google's tendency to cancel stuff with short notice, I'm not feeling like being one of the people burned by that.

Like a Fart In A Cane Seat Chair

[Anonymous Coward]

Google can't decide what it's doing. It spins up and kills off products like its VM processes in the cloud.

Search, browser, operating system, phones, blogs, email, apps, driverless cars, artificial intelligence, home automation, media storage, drones, airships...

Re:Like a Fart In A Cane Seat Chair

[mr_mischief]

Search has always been around. The have four OSes now if not more (Android, ChromeOS, Fuschia, Andromeda). They've had email for more than a decade.

I want to know when I can by my an artificially intelligent pilotless airship that orders its own fuel and maintenance.

Re:Like a Fart In A Cane Seat Chair

[thsths]

Indeed: search and Gmail have been around for a long time.

Android and ChromeOS are well established, too, but they are really just a way to push the Google Play store. Even Nexus phone are very quickly dumped as unsupported, so not much love there.

And then there is the whole area of messengers and other personal apps, where Google has a terrible track record. I would put any interactive device into the same category: bound to be abandoned soon.

Use existing device? [Re:Amazon Echo disaster]

[Tablizer]

Why can't a cellphone app do the same? Why buy Yet Another Small Computer? Factor, people. Idontgettit

Re:Use existing device? [Re:Amazon Echo disaster]

[ShanghaiBill]

Why can't a cellphone app do the same? Why buy Yet Another Small Computer? Factor, people. Idontgettit

1. Being "always on" would drain the cellphone battery.
2. If I tell my cellphone "Play some music", it will sound terrible on the tiny speakers.
3. I can say "Alexa, turn on the kitchen light", without going upstairs to get my cellphone.
4. My cellphone can't monitor my house (door lock, motion sensors) when I am not home.
5. The whole family can use it, including young children who don't have cellphones.

Re:Use existing device? [Re:Amazon Echo disaster]

[Tablizer]

One can potentially use the phone for the interface, making the sensing device(s) not need speech-AI power chips, etc.

I see it as a way for Amazon to shove a "shopping machine" into your house. I suppose they are willing to subsidize hardware to place such; but from computing hardware perspective, it still seems poorly factored to me.

Re:Not really

[0100010001010011]

Damn, merging a Fark meme into a Slashdot thread. Bold move Cotton.