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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.
...but why exactly would I want one of these? I can already sit at my pc which I am almost always in front of at home, or whip out my phone, to order stuff on Amazon. I don't understand what value these speakers add to my life.
If you have a smart phone, and you think Alexa is a bigger threat to your privacy, then you are delusional.
The latest models have red, yellow and green lights to let you know if your conversations align with acceptable domestic security guidelines. For example:
Green: consuming Fortune 500 products, watching sports, discussing celebrities, Yellow: discussing taxes, social justice or foreign policy, Red: statements in support of fringe candidates (e.g., from Vermont), negative statements about taxes or fees, unflattering comments about incumbent politicians (or politicians from powerful families), discussion of election security or any foreign or domestic agency's influence on them, and citing of facts not previously vetted by a major TV news organization.
Get your smart speaker today, Citizen, for only 150 Visa credits!
I wonder how many people mis-understood the question and answered yes?
The real question would be to ask how do you use your smart speaker? Unless they say: to answer questions and connect to voice activated services, then their smart speaker are probably just a set of normal speakers they connected to an ipod dock.
As a semi-retired engineer, I use technology whenever I find it useful
"Smart Speakers" and "Smart Appliances" seem like silly fads to me. I can't imagine where they would be useful
Even worse, they raise troublesome privacy issues
They might sneak it in via a Smartphone that is secretly always listening, or like Samsung has done with their TVs/monitors, but I will never knowingly buy one of these Orwellian pieces of shit.
Not only is Big Brother watching you, he has convinced you to pay for the privilege. For this I give a big Orwellian facepalm.
Exactly! I don't get how this supposedly "always listening and spying on me" device is going to get more out of me than the phone that knows almost everything I do and write, all day every day. I don't tell Alexa before I go to a store where I'm going and what I'm going to get, but the phone knows exactly where I went, how long I spent there, and what products I researched before I did it.
All the phones these days are listening all the time, as well. And they follow you around.
I really don't see what the problem with a smart speaker is. And it looks like most people agree.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
I would use voice recognition software that ran locally. It could retrieve shit off of the internet, but only through my direct connection and it must never send or receive any data from anywhere unless explicitly commanded to do so by a user.
All of this crap about "needing" to be connected to Google or Amazon or Microsoft servers for processing purposes is bullshit. A low end smartphone SoC is more than powerful enough to handle all of the processing locally. I was doing accurate voice recognition and voice control of my computer back in the 90s on Pentium 1 CPUs with 16MB of RAM.
Conversations with smart speaker owners usually go something like this:
Friend: "I just bought an Amazon Echo/Google/Apple/whoever smart speaker. It is amazing what it can do."
Me: "What can it do now that you could not do before?"
Friend:"Well it can control my Hue lights, make phone calls, and play music."
Me:"Can't you do that with your phone already?"
Friend:"Yes, but now I can use my smart speaker!"
Me:"So tap-tap-tap-tap on your phone was too much work?"
Friend:"No, but this is newer so it's cooler and more modern!"
Me:"You do know your voice is recorded and sent back to their servers, stored, and is accessible to them and to god-only-knows-whoever their business partners are, right?"
Friend:"They are a hi-tech company and they say they wouldn't do anything to violate my privacy with that, so there!"
Me:"So then, would it be ok if I install a microphone in your home that records whatever you say and have the recordings sent back to me? I will only store them, promise never to listen to them, and never use them for any other purpose without your consent. You can trust me!"
Friend:"NO NO NO! I will not let you do that-it would violate my privacy."
Me:"Sigh!"
No. Previous poster was using colloquial English, which is the language that we speak and understand on Slashdot. The only confusion is yours, since you apparently don't understand that the term "average" is correct in this context.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?