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Amazon Bringing Echo and Alexa To 80 Additional Countries in Major Global Expansion (geekwire.com)
Amazon is launching three of its Echo devices with Alexa in 80 additional countries starting today -- a major international expansion for the company's smart speakers and voice-based assistant. From a report: New markets for the Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus include Mexico, China, Russia and other countries in regions and continents including Europe, Africa, South America, the Middle East and Asia. Other Echo devices, such as the touch-screen Echo Show, are not included as part of the international expansion. Echo devices were previously only available in the US, UK, Germany, India, Japan, and Canada. Amazon earlier announced plans to bring Echo and Alexa to Australia and New Zealand next year. In addition, Amazon says its Music Unlimited subscription streaming service is available in 28 additional countries, including many of those where the Echo is now expanding, as well. Recommended reading: Don't buy anyone an Amazon Echo speaker.
I hate when mommy and daddy global monopoly fight...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Amazon Alexa supports Black Lives Matter.
https://www.vibe.com/2017/12/a...
Waiting for the alt-white boycott.
You are welcome on my lawn.
All this means is you can order the English-speaking Alexa in those countries. (Or Japanese or German). So if you speak Chinese you'll have to look at the various Chinese-speaking devices available.
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I give these gizmos a 50/50 on being a fad. On one hand those who purchased them overall give a roughly "C-" grade in practicality, and the potential for headline-making hacks is high.
But, they will get gradually better over time and maybe hit a threshold utility quality level to stay. Based on past patterns of new gizmo categories, I expect there will be a crash in their use, but they'll then come back in roughly 5 years with improved technology and with some hard lessons applied from the first round.
Table-ized A.I.
It's nice that they've gotten the language support to roll out in additional countries, but I wish they would put a bit more work into improving the device.
The use of skills is very clunky. It feels like I'm coding when I'm talking to it. Skills should be able to register questions that they can answer, so if Alexa gets a question she doesn't handle natively, the first active skill that does can be triggered. So instead of "Alexa, ask ," it would just be "Alexa, ."
The inability to stream music from a local server is really annoying. I have a huge library, and as it is now, I can either pay to upload it to the cloud (they let you do a small portion free), or I can pay for their streaming service. Google Home is no better, again because they want to sell you their own music service. Sure, you can use it as a bluetooth speaker, but you don't have voice control over your library, which is rather the point. I'm hoping that Apple will release their product, as it should talk to a local iTunes server, which just might push the others into adding local support.
What I really want is to be able to write a local skill that would interact with my own home computer. For example, it would be very convenient to ask her how much time is left on the current TV show, and have it query the MythTV and get the answer (knowing how much time is left on the kid's show when cooking is very helpful). I'm sure if I had this ability, I would find all sorts of things that would be nice to have.
They know where the phone is anyway if it's on; tower-based location has been with us for some time. Any time your GPS could have reported the phone live, the phone was in range of a tower anyway. So... they still know where that phone is. The only way to win that war is to not carry the phone, or take its battery out. If possible.
BTW, "off" isn't always "off." If you really want "off", you need to take out the battery.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
As this matter is one that I directly dealt with only a few months ago, I can positively assert that Alexa has most definitely *NOT* ever been available in Canada.... and although I've heard workarounds exist, they are not officially supported. As of the time that I'm writing this, it is still not available here, and I've heard of no indication of when it will be, if ever.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's this: https://www.att.com/cellphones... OFF is OFF and YES the battery comes out. Do you really think I'm that dumb?
I think if you turn the phone on, they know where you are. If you don't turn the phone on, why do you own one?
You can't have "they can't track me" and "I use the phone" both, that's all.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
IDGAF if they know what cell tower it's connected to. That's only an accuracy of, what, a mile? So what. As to the other: Why the actual fuck do you care if I have my goddamned phone on or not? If someone can't be bothered to leave a voicemail then I guess it wasn't important to call me in the first place. Why do you think you have to have a phone on 100% of the time? Do you really think you're such and important person that you need your phone on 100% of the time so you don't miss a call or text? I'd sooner believe that someone *convinced* you that your phone needs to be on all the time, played on your fears, or somesuch. Do you even remember when there were no cellphones, and you'd have to wait until you got home to hear your messages on your answering machine? I sure do, and life went about it's business just fine, the world didn't collapse because people weren't available instantly. Maybe you need to think about that?
Oh and by the way, you totally took me off onto a tangent that wasn't even relevant, here, let me fix that: I will NOT have a listening device in my home, EVER, and I think you're all a bunch of FOOLS if you have one of these -- and don't sit there and try to claim it's not a listening device, because it clearly is, has been demonstrated as such. Enjoy having ZERO PRIVACY even at home, because you want 'convenience'. I think you're stupid if you do and you get what you deserve for that.