There is probably a good reason for cheaping out on remotes. Comcast (XFinity) voice remotes quickly program to control your TV. 95% or purchasers of new TVs are probably paying for Cable or Satellite TV; if their cable remotes can control any TV, why should the TV manufacturer supply one?
My new Samsung fails the "intuitive physical interface" test. Their designers pulled a Dilbert and decided to ship with a sleek new remote control with only 5 black-on-black buttons, meaning doing something as simple as switching input sources now requires pushing the Home button to bring up a menu, Left or Right buttons to select the source menu, pushing the Up button, then pushing the Left or Right button to select the new source, then pushing the Enter button... oh yeah, that's much easier than just pushing the Input button to cycle through sources like I do on the LG remote!
It's become the norm now to ship internet connected products with preliminary firmware, then upgrade it as soon as it gets plugged in and connected to the internet. XBox S immediately downloads new firmware for both the console and the controller when you fire it up. I you never connect it to the 'net, how are you ever going to get the firmware upgrades to fix the security holes? Oh, wait... it doesn't need the security fixes if it's never connected to the 'net...
No, I actually like my Samsung Galaxy S7. It's not perfect, but it's a better phone than the iPhone. It's waterproof and takes SDHC memory cards. My biggest complaint is they removed the infrared transmitter, so I can't use it to change the channel on the TVs in sports bars anymore. The other complaint is it's frickin' slippery, so a rubberized case for gripping it is pretty much a necessity. It also fits in my pocket, unlike an iPhone 6 or a Note.
On bright side, Ryan Air cancelled their plan to charge people for using the bathrooms on the plane. I'm amazed nobody thought of what the downside could be for refusing to let people use the toilet without cash in hand...
Raising the ticket price doesn't effect the strategy -- he already said he was buying the most expensive ticket available. Yes, I would expect their algorithm to correct for over-overbooking if it were really that reliable.
My divorce lawyer chared $72 per email, sent or received, because "Oh, we have to archive all those!" Right... and you don't have to file paper documents, which is actually a lot more work?!? She also asked a lot of unnecessary question, obviously intended to generate more emails... and then quit just before the hearing when I wouldn't play her game. Yeah, lawyers are assholes.
Make the penalties for selling someone a seat they don't actually have far, far outweigh the marginal profits of over-selling tickets. Remember the Ford Pinto, and how the Ford Engineers decided paying off a few lawsuits was more cost effective than installing a $2 part that would keep the gas tank from exploding in a rear end collision? The airlines have obviously made a similar cost/benefit analysis and decided that comping a flight costs them less than they make by overbooking.
I've got a Google Home sitting in the same room with my TV, and yes, it tries to parse things based on mishearing "Ok Google" or hearing actual Google Home ads all the time.
Amazon Alexa and Google Home both have a button to disable the microphone, and an LED display that indicates the microphone has been disabled. They are both have firmware dynamically updateable over the internet, so the question is do you trust software that says your microphone has been disabled?
Actual Scenario:
Scotty asks if he can use a computer to spell out the recipe for transparent aluminum. Engineer points him at a PC. Scotty starts talking to the PC. Engineer tells him to use the mouse. Scotty picks up mouse and starts talking into it... at the time time, it was hilarious, The Voyage Home was one of the best comedies of all time; I attribute that to being the only Star Trek directed by Nimoy, who always had a better sense of humor about being typecast than the other actors.
Most recent example: Microsoft announcing XBox Scorpio when it hadn't even been completely designed or specified yet! Yes, pre-announcing far in advance to discourage people from buying competitors products is an old Microsoft strategy, but one they still use all the time.
Streaming everything it hears constantly to the internet to be parsed would severely shorten phone battery life. For Amazon Echo/Google Home or any other home electronics with voice command, it only slightly increases your network usage, so likely would never be noticed.
There is a little big of context; if google home doesn't understand something, it will ask you to clarify, and you don't need to repeat the entire question again, just answer what it asks you. Also, it does seem to be doing context-sensitive evaluation of what you say that is trainable based on your previous requests. You know both Alexa and Google Home keep a record of everything you ask, right?
The business model for Amazon Prime (and jet.com) is to offer items at less than cost to entice you into paying for a membership. If you were buying a lot of stuff in a brief period of time, it might be economically advantageous to sign up for a short time then cancel the account later. I've discovered another hitch though: any company that has a physical office in your state has to charge you state sales tax for anything they ship you. That wasn't a problem when I lived in Oregon, but now that I've moved across the Columbia to Washington, I've found that I'm better off buying from Crutchfield (they only have physical offices in Virginia) than from Best Buy (which has stores in every state). Point is, having both internet sales and brick-and-mortar retail has now become a liability. And yet Amazon has chosen to get into the shipping business and compete with FedEx and UPS, meaning all Amazon orders will have sales tax collected.
The Alexa in my car requires a REALLY LONG extension cord! I've been using Android Auto on my phone in the car, and it does much of what google home does. The only difference is I have to wait for it to beep to signify it's ready to parse my request.
Actually, no. Putting touchscreens in cars is the stupidest innovation imaginable, the driver is _required_ to look at the screen to use a touch screen. Putting voice recognition in cars makes a LOT more sense, and in 5 years voice recognition will have replaced touch screens for automotive applications. Whether or not you want an easily hackable, always listening, internet connected device in your home is another issue. A lot or people already have privacy worries about internet connected devices with microphones and cameras, and very rightly so; we are inviting 1984's telescreens into our homes as we speak!
Anyone remember Galaxy Quest, where there was a running joke that Sigourney Weaver's only job was to repeat questions to the computer, then repeat back to the crews whatever the computer's response was? I just watched a TED talk that suggested that was the most valuable position on the ship, that in the future our pay will be based on how well we interact with powerful AI that will be running everything. 100 years ago being able to work well with a horse was important, in 20 years being able to work well with an AI will be just as important. So look at it this way: Siri, Alexa, Google Home, Cortana, et al are training people for the future! First lesson: if the voice recognition isn't specifically trained to your voice, then you need to talk like a national television news anchor to minimize the probably of it misunderstanding your words.
The only one I remember was asking the computer to compute PI to the last digit at highest priority, which effectively tied up all computer resources and didn't allow it to do anything else. The best Spock computer joke I every saw was in The Voyage Home, where Spock is doing a test answering questions on several terminals simultaneously and is suddenly confronted with the only question that stumps him: "How do you feel?" I was rolling in the aisles laughing when I first saw that in a theater, but for some reason nobody else there appeared to find it funny...
Although Google Home is very transparently a ripoff of Alexa, I'd also point out that Google is quickly catching up, and I just gave away my Amazon Echo in favor of several (cheaper) Google Home devices. Big selling point: Amazon tried to make money from the git-go on Amazon Prime, whereas Google gives away 6 months of YouTube Red with every Google Home. I'm still not clear on what happens to the thousands of songs I uploaded to Amazon Music or Google Music when I stop paying for the subscription...
I agree in part; the biggest problem I see with many home automation systems is they are built around routing all requests through a server in the cloud instead of handling things locally. In other words, they are inserting huge delays and failure modes into the system in an attempt to achieve vendor lock=in. Routing everything to the net and back add no value to the customer, it just makes it slower. Voice recognition is an exception to this, server farms are better at parsing human speech than any hardware you can afford locally.
Slashdot Mirror
There is probably a good reason for cheaping out on remotes. Comcast (XFinity) voice remotes quickly program to control your TV. 95% or purchasers of new TVs are probably paying for Cable or Satellite TV; if their cable remotes can control any TV, why should the TV manufacturer supply one?
My new Samsung fails the "intuitive physical interface" test. Their designers pulled a Dilbert and decided to ship with a sleek new remote control with only 5 black-on-black buttons, meaning doing something as simple as switching input sources now requires pushing the Home button to bring up a menu, Left or Right buttons to select the source menu, pushing the Up button, then pushing the Left or Right button to select the new source, then pushing the Enter button... oh yeah, that's much easier than just pushing the Input button to cycle through sources like I do on the LG remote!
It's become the norm now to ship internet connected products with preliminary firmware, then upgrade it as soon as it gets plugged in and connected to the internet. XBox S immediately downloads new firmware for both the console and the controller when you fire it up. I you never connect it to the 'net, how are you ever going to get the firmware upgrades to fix the security holes? Oh, wait... it doesn't need the security fixes if it's never connected to the 'net...
ChromeCast for 1080p or ChromeCast Ultra for 4K? (Currently $25 or $65)
No, I actually like my Samsung Galaxy S7. It's not perfect, but it's a better phone than the iPhone. It's waterproof and takes SDHC memory cards. My biggest complaint is they removed the infrared transmitter, so I can't use it to change the channel on the TVs in sports bars anymore. The other complaint is it's frickin' slippery, so a rubberized case for gripping it is pretty much a necessity. It also fits in my pocket, unlike an iPhone 6 or a Note.
"... and nothing of value was lost."
On bright side, Ryan Air cancelled their plan to charge people for using the bathrooms on the plane. I'm amazed nobody thought of what the downside could be for refusing to let people use the toilet without cash in hand...
Raising the ticket price doesn't effect the strategy -- he already said he was buying the most expensive ticket available. Yes, I would expect their algorithm to correct for over-overbooking if it were really that reliable.
My divorce lawyer chared $72 per email, sent or received, because "Oh, we have to archive all those!" Right... and you don't have to file paper documents, which is actually a lot more work?!? She also asked a lot of unnecessary question, obviously intended to generate more emails... and then quit just before the hearing when I wouldn't play her game. Yeah, lawyers are assholes.
Make the penalties for selling someone a seat they don't actually have far, far outweigh the marginal profits of over-selling tickets. Remember the Ford Pinto, and how the Ford Engineers decided paying off a few lawsuits was more cost effective than installing a $2 part that would keep the gas tank from exploding in a rear end collision? The airlines have obviously made a similar cost/benefit analysis and decided that comping a flight costs them less than they make by overbooking.
At least not until they come complete with self-cleaning... Do you realize cleaning and repairing Real Dolls is now an actual profession? Ewwwwwww!!!!
I've got a Google Home sitting in the same room with my TV, and yes, it tries to parse things based on mishearing "Ok Google" or hearing actual Google Home ads all the time.
Amazon Alexa and Google Home both have a button to disable the microphone, and an LED display that indicates the microphone has been disabled. They are both have firmware dynamically updateable over the internet, so the question is do you trust software that says your microphone has been disabled?
"In Soviet Russia, Google Home free, Comrade!"
Actual Scenario: Scotty asks if he can use a computer to spell out the recipe for transparent aluminum. Engineer points him at a PC. Scotty starts talking to the PC. Engineer tells him to use the mouse. Scotty picks up mouse and starts talking into it... at the time time, it was hilarious, The Voyage Home was one of the best comedies of all time; I attribute that to being the only Star Trek directed by Nimoy, who always had a better sense of humor about being typecast than the other actors.
Most recent example: Microsoft announcing XBox Scorpio when it hadn't even been completely designed or specified yet! Yes, pre-announcing far in advance to discourage people from buying competitors products is an old Microsoft strategy, but one they still use all the time.
Streaming everything it hears constantly to the internet to be parsed would severely shorten phone battery life. For Amazon Echo/Google Home or any other home electronics with voice command, it only slightly increases your network usage, so likely would never be noticed.
There is a little big of context; if google home doesn't understand something, it will ask you to clarify, and you don't need to repeat the entire question again, just answer what it asks you. Also, it does seem to be doing context-sensitive evaluation of what you say that is trainable based on your previous requests. You know both Alexa and Google Home keep a record of everything you ask, right?
The business model for Amazon Prime (and jet.com) is to offer items at less than cost to entice you into paying for a membership. If you were buying a lot of stuff in a brief period of time, it might be economically advantageous to sign up for a short time then cancel the account later. I've discovered another hitch though: any company that has a physical office in your state has to charge you state sales tax for anything they ship you. That wasn't a problem when I lived in Oregon, but now that I've moved across the Columbia to Washington, I've found that I'm better off buying from Crutchfield (they only have physical offices in Virginia) than from Best Buy (which has stores in every state). Point is, having both internet sales and brick-and-mortar retail has now become a liability. And yet Amazon has chosen to get into the shipping business and compete with FedEx and UPS, meaning all Amazon orders will have sales tax collected.
The Alexa in my car requires a REALLY LONG extension cord! I've been using Android Auto on my phone in the car, and it does much of what google home does. The only difference is I have to wait for it to beep to signify it's ready to parse my request.
Actually, no. Putting touchscreens in cars is the stupidest innovation imaginable, the driver is _required_ to look at the screen to use a touch screen. Putting voice recognition in cars makes a LOT more sense, and in 5 years voice recognition will have replaced touch screens for automotive applications. Whether or not you want an easily hackable, always listening, internet connected device in your home is another issue. A lot or people already have privacy worries about internet connected devices with microphones and cameras, and very rightly so; we are inviting 1984's telescreens into our homes as we speak!
Anyone remember Galaxy Quest, where there was a running joke that Sigourney Weaver's only job was to repeat questions to the computer, then repeat back to the crews whatever the computer's response was? I just watched a TED talk that suggested that was the most valuable position on the ship, that in the future our pay will be based on how well we interact with powerful AI that will be running everything. 100 years ago being able to work well with a horse was important, in 20 years being able to work well with an AI will be just as important. So look at it this way: Siri, Alexa, Google Home, Cortana, et al are training people for the future! First lesson: if the voice recognition isn't specifically trained to your voice, then you need to talk like a national television news anchor to minimize the probably of it misunderstanding your words.
The only one I remember was asking the computer to compute PI to the last digit at highest priority, which effectively tied up all computer resources and didn't allow it to do anything else. The best Spock computer joke I every saw was in The Voyage Home, where Spock is doing a test answering questions on several terminals simultaneously and is suddenly confronted with the only question that stumps him: "How do you feel?" I was rolling in the aisles laughing when I first saw that in a theater, but for some reason nobody else there appeared to find it funny...
Although Google Home is very transparently a ripoff of Alexa, I'd also point out that Google is quickly catching up, and I just gave away my Amazon Echo in favor of several (cheaper) Google Home devices. Big selling point: Amazon tried to make money from the git-go on Amazon Prime, whereas Google gives away 6 months of YouTube Red with every Google Home. I'm still not clear on what happens to the thousands of songs I uploaded to Amazon Music or Google Music when I stop paying for the subscription...
I agree in part; the biggest problem I see with many home automation systems is they are built around routing all requests through a server in the cloud instead of handling things locally. In other words, they are inserting huge delays and failure modes into the system in an attempt to achieve vendor lock=in. Routing everything to the net and back add no value to the customer, it just makes it slower. Voice recognition is an exception to this, server farms are better at parsing human speech than any hardware you can afford locally.