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Samsung Says It's Working on an Amazon Echo Competitor (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Samsung is working on a smart speaker that will be launched "soon", the company's mobile chief told CNBC, which will pit it against the likes of Amazon, Apple, and Google, in the hotly-contested space. DJ Koh, the president of Samsung's mobile division, said a smart speaker was on the way. "Maybe soon we will announce it. I am already working on it," Koh told CNBC in an interview ahead of the Note 8 smartphone launch which took place on Wednesday. And it appears the company could be moving fast on the product. "As I mentioned I wanted to provide a fruitful user experience at home with Samsung devices, and I want to be moving quite heavily on it," Koh said.
Well, I can't speak for anybody but myself but I bought an Amazon Echo about six months ago because I wanted a Bluetooth speaker and because I'm not an audio-nerd, it sounded just fine in my living room for music streamed from my phone or tablet. The Echo part was just kind of a fun bonus at first. Then I found it very useful for streaming BBC radio. I found out it can play all my Audible books. I use it for the customisable news-flash from the BBC, CNN and Sky News, setting timers, telling me what the weather is going to be tomorrow, finding out what is on at my local cinema this weekend, telling the time without having to fumble for my phone. It'll play the latest podcast episodes of my fav shows and order stuff from Amazon for me. As I'm into astronomy, it'll tell me what celestial objects are above the horizon in my part of the world and at what time and which direction. It'll tell me when the ISS is overhead. I can order Dominos Pizza from it and request an Uber. My young son loves it because he can request music without having to navigate any complex UIs, it can answer basic general knowledge questions for him, tell him jokes and stories and play interactive audio adventure games - some of which are surprisingly polished. I have two more Echo Dots in the study and the bedroom now. The technology may not be a necessity yet and not for everyone, but for a tech geek like me it's much more useful than I thought it would be.
Oh shut up. I keep hearing this paranoid bullshit. I did a network traffic analysis on my Echo as soon as I set it up. It doesn't fucking transmit anything until you say the assigned keyword. At least back up your tinfoil hat wearing bullshit with something more than "yeah, right!".