Amazon Is Reportedly Working On Alexa-Enabled Smart Glasses (techcrunch.com)

According to the Financial Times (Warning: source paywalled), Amazon is working on building a pair of smart glasses to house its Alexa voice assistant. The report also mentions a home security camera that is in the works, capable of linking up to Amazon's existing Echo connected devices. TechCrunch reports: According to the FT, the smart glasses are intended to be purely an earbuds-free housing for Amazon's Alexa AI -- with a bone-conduction audio system that would enable the wearer to hear Alexa without the need to be wired in. The FT reports the glasses would wirelessly tether to a user's smartphone for connectivity. They are also apparently being designed to look like a regular pair of spectacles, so they could be worn comfortably and unobtrusively. The paper notes that Amazon hired Babak Parviz, founder of Google Glass, in 2014, and says he's been closely involved in the project. It also points to several other Glass researchers, engineers and designers having moved to Amazon's labs -- per analysis of their LinkedIn profiles.

Comments

This is exciting!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can imagine zero uses for this!

Interesting

[JohnFen]

Take Google Glass and literally remove everything that made it useful. Sounds like a win!

Re:Interesting

[JohnFen]

There was a lot useful in Google Glass, mostly around AR. The reason it failed wasn't a lack of usefulness.

People will think you are talking to yourself

[jfdavis668]

Alexa, tell me a joke. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...

Re:People will think you are talking to yourself

[coofercat]

"Alexa! This meeting is really boring - Turn on fake eyes so I can go to sleep without anyone knowing"

Re:People will think you are talking to yourself

[JohnFen]

That's an amateur move. The pros know how to sleep with their eyes open while occasionally writing down some gibberish "notes".

One should never

[taustin]

keep all of one's suck in one basket. If you drop it, you'll get suck all over your shoes.

Alexa, how can l look even more pretentious?

[elrous0]

Already answered.

That might prevent smart birds ordering ...

[angel'o'sphere]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabul...

More surveillance

[Rick Schumann]

Do I need to elaborate?

Re:More surveillance

[PolygamousRanchKid]

The report also mentions a home security camera that is in the works, capable of linking up to Amazon's existing Echo connected devices.

Hey, so Amazon can snoop around your house, and suggest that you need a new toaster or coffee table.

That would be very nice of them, wouldn't it . . . ?

Re:More surveillance

[Rick Schumann]

I used to scoff furiously at people who didn't believe that protecting their privacy was all that important because "they aren't doing anything to be ashamed of so why should they care?". I'd ask them how they'd feel if I came around and installed cameras and microphones in their houses so they could be watched and listened to 24/7/365; they'd always scoff at me and say "nobody is ever going to do that, that's ridiculous!". And now here we are, in 2017, and these same people are probably the ones installing internet-connected cameras and audio monitoring devices all through their homes, likely without a thought or a care in the world about who might be watching or listening. They are fools.

Joking about all that surveillance gear being used for something as pedestrian as collecting marketing data

Laugh-out-fucking-loud, I'd be so much happier if that's all they were doing with it!

Yet another...

[VeryFluffyBunny]

...silicon valley wearable that makes you look like a dork and none of your friends want to hang out with you anymore because, you know, constant surveillance.

Equal opportunity insult

[markdavis]

"Glasshole" knows no brand :)

Re:Equal opportunity insult

[just another AC]

I always kind of thought it more suited an Apple type brand.

Google just never had enough salesmanship to turn "condescending self importance" into "cool" which is the hurdle these things must clear. Amazon will fail for the same reason.

Only Steve Jobs era Apple could've pulled it off.

Color me impressed when.....

[mark-t]

.... the tech cannot be distinguished from regular eyewear by any kind of cursory examination.

I have no interest in spying on people, but I do very much like the idea of having a life-recorder with which I can record my day's experiences without my having to reach for another recording device such as my smart phone, and I could go back later and review things that I experienced that I might wish to review some detail on for posterity that would otherwise be forever lost simply on account of an imperfect memory and the fact that I didn't have my phone ready to record at that precise moment.

However, I don't particularly want to get my ass handed to me by people who think I'm wanting to spy on them every time I go out wearing such a device... or interested in uploading content to the internet or whatever, so I would rather that the device be completely invisible to onlookers.

Re:Color me impressed when.....

[Gilgaron]

As with many things suggested on Slashdot these days, that's a Black Mirror episode... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...