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Nearly Half of American Households Will Own a Smart Speaker by 2019, Study Says (fortune.com)
Almost half of American households will have a smart speaker by next year, according to a new study from Adobe. From a report: The study, released Monday, finds that 32% of the country already owns a smart speaker and another 16% plan on getting one this holiday season. And just as importantly, people are using those speakers. "Technology trends come and go, but we think voice is here to stay," said Colin Morris, director of product management for Adobe Analytics, in a statement. "Consumers continue to embrace voice as a means to engage their devices and the Internet. It's a trend that has fundamentally changed the face of computing." A notable indicator of the growing popularity of the speakers is how comfortable people are talking to the device in front of others. And that number is on the rise: 72% of smart speaker owners say they use voice assistants in front of others. (Only 29% of people without a smart speaker are comfortable with doing so.) Further reading: Google Home Outships Amazon Echo for Second Quarter in Row.
They can play tinny, compressed, poor-quality music.
Only if they pry one into my cold dead hands!
I would hesitate to call them "smart" at all. Setting aside privacy issues these things barely work as intended. I've tried to get my google assistant on my phone to work for several years. Damn things still mis-understands half of what I say and ignores the other half. I figure if I was to bring home one of these "smart" doohickeys I would spend half my time yelling at the damn thing and the other half manually doing with I was yelling at it to do in the first place.
me: "We are out of coke?"
smart thing: "I've ordered you a pound of coke. Would you like a hooker to go with it?"
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.