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At Least Two Million Children Now Using Smart Speakers in the UK: Report (strategyanalytics.com)

Posted by msmash on from the growing-expansion dept.

Smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home are proving a big hit with Britain's kids, according to the latest survey from Strategy Analytics. The report adds: According to Smart Speaker User Survey -- UK Results, at least two million children are now using smart speakers in the UK, particularly for listening to music, searching for information and hearing jokes and funny stories.

23 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Smart Speakers? by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You mean Big Brother monitoring devices that this generation is being conned into making an integral part of their lives. They already carry around a tracking device for everywhere they go and everyone they communicate with, now, they're getting used to having 24/7 audio monitoring within the walls of their own homes. They've tried a couple of times for 24/7 video monitoring too (XBox Kinect and now "Live" Cam). They'll get there eventually.

    I'm glad I only have a few years left on this world, it's going to be a terrible place to live for the coming generations. The only way to fix it is to have a major World War, wipe out 3/4 of the population, and re-boot civilization.

    What a terrible time we live in!

    1. Re:Smart Speakers? by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      Get some perspective. This is the best time to be alive in all of human history and it's only going to get better in the future. That isn't to say it will be free of strife or that humanity won't have new sets of problems to solve, but if you take an objective measure of humanity on just about any metric, it's better now than at any point in time.

      In 50 years, it's within the realm of possibility that extreme poverty will be eliminated. If you're overly concerned with the potential perils of modern society, you're more than free to move to any of the places on earth where they don't exist. Not that there isn't cause for concern with regards to the information that can now be collected on people with these new devices, but it pales in comparison to the concerns that many in the world still face over whether or not they'll be able to eat tomorrow.

    2. Re:Smart Speakers? by olsmeister · · Score: 1

      Alexa, unlock the bomb shelter and turn on the heat.

    3. Re:Smart Speakers? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      For exactly these reasons as CPU power becomes greater and memory cheaper, so server less systems will dominate. Cheap processing power at home, why send information to a corporate controlled and manipulated server. The home sever the processes your voice locally will dominate because it will promote exactly that and of course market the threats of corporate controlled servers.

      Once home voice recognition becomes cheap enough, so the corporate advertising and manipulation service becomes totally undesirable and will only be for the poorest, which of course are not desired by marketing companies, except those selling corrupt politicians. So Google as the leading manipulator of the poor and for everyone who can afford it, a local home server, that does not reach out to it's corporate masters and in fact becomes the gateway between all your devices and their corporate masters, ACCESS DENIED.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. Please Fix the title by schwit1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At Least Two Million Children in UK Now Under Audio Surveillance

    1. Re: Please Fix the title by TimMD909 · · Score: 2

      Glad that GDPR prevented this... Oh wait...

  3. Re:Not really that smart by olsmeister · · Score: 2

    Yeah, they're just like books. All that information at your fingertips and so easy to obtain, but not committed to memory. It's a tragedy. That printing thing really turned us into idiots.

  4. Our new technology is bunk by alternative_right · · Score: 1

    Not to be an unreasonable skeptic, but these things offer little that anyone needs. You can listen to music by playing MP3 files. These gadgets seem like a way of further dumbing down the internet instead of pushing people to be better than they are right now.

    --
    Alternative Right.
    1. Re:Our new technology is bunk by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      Not to be an unreasonable skeptic, but these things offer little that anyone needs. You can listen to music by playing MP3 files. These gadgets seem like a way of further dumbing down the internet instead of pushing people to be better than they are right now.

      Not just dumbing down but not even as functional.

      For music, I like looking at my playlists, all the songs from an artist, etc. For most things, looking and clicking is less clunky than a voice interface.

      Now where a voice interface is useful is, say, while driving. But my living room is the last place I would ever need a voice interface.

    2. Re:Our new technology is bunk by olsmeister · · Score: 1

      For most things, looking and clicking is less clunky than a voice interface.

      Ummm, no. Complex things, probably so. Simple things, probably not.

    3. Re:Our new technology is bunk by ranton · · Score: 1

      My Amazon Echos are the easiest way I know of to play a playlist or album, or check the weather in the morning. Before I would have needed to either always have my phone on me (not always true at home as it might be charging or I might not be wearing pants), or I need to go find my phone, open an app, and select a playlist.

      They certainly aren't that useful, but they do a small number of jobs very well. I sure get a lot less long term use out of other things I have spent $100 on.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    4. Re:Our new technology is bunk by MerlinTheWizard · · Score: 2

      For adults, those gadgets just flatter our natural laziness and make us feel as part of a giant group, a very strong even if unconscious motivator.

      For kids, I think those are more simply seen as toys. Kids love talking toys and toys they can interact with. The motivation here is more about fun and discovery.

      In both cases, it's remarkably easy to get those gadgets adopted by large user bases.

      For sure they just look like necessary steps towards a 1984-like, world-wide totalitarian regime. The only missing part for now is video, but I'm certain it's just a matter of a few years. Devices with integrated video will happen. They will be marketed as wonderful aids that you can wake up by waving in front of them, but also that can look after your cat when you're away, after the elderly and maybe even after your kids so you won't need any babysitters anymore. A huge potential market, so it WILL happen. Then we'll have the infrastructure for total surveillance. What Orwell didn't envision though, being influenced mainly by the soviet regime, is that it's not just our governments that will be able to spy on us all. It's also private companies, potential hackers and governments from foreign countries.

      We're not heading towards "1984". It's possibly going to be a lot worse.

  5. Enjoy your life being recorded by ITRambo · · Score: 1

    Nothing will be private for these poor kids. Enjoy your new "smart" speakers citizens.

  6. Siri..... by Zorro · · Score: 1

    Read me 1984 by George Orwell.

    1. Re: Siri..... by TimMD909 · · Score: 1

      I'd only be interested if the forward was written by Edward Snowden

  7. Common conversations with the Smart Speaker by Seven+Spirals · · Score: 1

    "Alexa, what is mom getting me for Christmas?"
    "Hey Google, what was Dad doing to Mom last night?"
    "Alexa, send me a six-pack of rubbers."
    "Alexa, show me all the tobacco vaping products I can buy right now."
    "Hey NEST theromstat, please record all mom's conversations today and save to 'momsaid.txt' on my phone."

  8. Re:Not really that smart by registrations_suck · · Score: 1

    So I can imagine a kid doing homework with a smart speaker and basically learning nothing. But when testing comes along you won't have that crutch to fall back on.

    Oh, give it some time. It may not be very long before students can use these devices on tests because it is unfair to have dumbasses competing with non-dumbasses without something to level the playing field.

    Equality Now!!!

  9. Re:1984 by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

    Big Brother is happy to have such a obedient followers.

    Yep, the old saying is true...

    What one generation accepts, the next generation embraces.....

    Constant surveillance will be the common 'norm' to them as they grow.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  10. GPDR? by MerlinTheWizard · · Score: 1

    It's not there to help prevent this. It's just there to make people believe they have a choice.

  11. We're heading toward "Brave New World" by alternative_right · · Score: 1

    In my view, and I state this in addition to your excellent points, we are heading toward "Brave New World": our desire to be important, successful, experience pleasure, etc. will make our consumer society into a soulless empty hell in which there is no escape. We're already mostly there. The movie Idiocracy began as satire, became prophecy, and now is basically a documentary, and that's in a dozen years.

    --
    Alternative Right.
    1. Re:We're heading toward "Brave New World" by MerlinTheWizard · · Score: 1

      Speaking of Idiocracy. http://www.24usatv.com/feeds/h...

  12. Easier than clicking? by alternative_right · · Score: 1

    I have an old laptop with 200 gigabytes of MP3 files. I can waddle over to it, hold the donut I am eating with my teeth, and click on whatever I want.

    Is Alexa that much easier?

    --
    Alternative Right.
  13. Requires a deliberate person by alternative_right · · Score: 1

    This requires you knowing what you want, instead of randomly shouting out song titles because they appeared on social media, as most people seem to do.

    --
    Alternative Right.