“Amazon [has] announced a new device called Echo. With a built-in, cloud connected, ‘always on’ microphone, the Echo can listen for your voice ‘from across the room,'” Greg Kumparak writes for TechCrunch. “You can ask it about the weather. You can tell it to set an alarm. You can ask it for information about Abraham Lincoln. It’s a personal assistant in a tube!”
“But let’s be clear here on what this thing is beyond that — or what it will be,” Kumparak writes. “Amazon is not in the business of telling you whether or not it will rain tomorrow. Nor is it in the business of waking you up in the morning. Nor is it in the business of teaching you about dead presidents.Amazon is in the business of selling you things — and that is why Echo exists.”
“They want their store ‘front end’ to be floating in the ether all around you, just waiting for you to open your mouth,” Kumparak writes. “The Echo is a bit like the Fire Phone in that regard; it may do some interesting stuff, but its driving force, the beat in its heart, will be to accept your money as efficiently as possible… Amazon clearly learned its lesson with the way it marketed the Fire Phone (and the $83 million worth of phones they have sitting around).”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Amazon Echo is simply the Fire Phone without the phone.
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If you’re an Amazon Grime member you can learn about Abraham Lincoln for only $99! (if they let you into their super secret club, which you have to ask to join)
Lack of security when using our phone and computers was not enough, they want to hear us talking off the phone too.
…”want to” being the important part. This superfluous, useless device (useless because there’s really nothing new here, and its implementation looks deeply flawed) is yet another sign of Bezos’s desperation. Bezos has become a sad reactionary wannabe, devoid of innovation, with nowhere to go but down.
His was a grand vision, ultimately destined only for failure – but what can you say about the fools who still cling to this plummeting behemoth, with an insane P/E of over 700?
Get a life Bezos
All I could think is how convenient it would be to have that for Siri, until I realized we already do. You can enable the “Hey Siri” feature and there you go, much better system integrated with your Apple ecosystem.
Amazon’s attempt isn’t even something new, if anything it’s unnecessary hardware trying to scrape dollars off of a free offering that doesn’t need hardware.
Speaking of that, I just used it a few times and it felt amazing. If you aren’t using this feature on your iOS devices I highly recommend it.
I can’t. She doesn’t speek dutch and has problems understanding my ‘dunglish’. When I want her to play some music on my phone I always end up excusing some poor sod she called inadvertently…
it is positively chilling to me, the prospect of a listening device always active in my home. who are the listeners? how could anyone completely cast aside their privacy and own one of these? I think it is reasonable to assume that Bezos would gladly monetize anything his device would overhear in your home said by you or your family. is there a class of people who crave an automated reflex communique from Amazon offering them something for sale based on what they recently talked about?
Look Dan, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
Cool now Jeff Bezos can listen to me watch Big Bang Theory and pretend he has friends.
What was that on another thread about the tv listening to you all the time and a warning to be careful what you say as it may be passed on to third parties. I would have been worried that Amazon WAS one of those third parties let alone sending it to them direct.
If you have one those new TVs or one of these abominations in your bedroom you could start receiving condom or Viagra ads. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
OMG!!! Amazon is trying out a new product! And they’re gonna use it to SELL US STUFF!!!!!!
maybe more like ….. sell us… we are the product and the consumer will be the u.s. gubmint with whom amazon is to provide cloud services.
this is getting very weird… and dangerous
Well your PC already has a mic, and your phones do to. You never know what kind of software on them may be secretly listening in.
What’s another one gonna matter?
Thanks that’s totally put my mind to rest. I can sleep well now with your reassurance Mr Hoover.
My Mac Mini doesn’t, as far as I know, have a mike, and my phone isn’t set up to respond to voice commands.
I have an iPhone that already does more than echo. Another lame attempt to have people waste there money by Amazon, the real monopoly in the ebook world.
NSA, Facebook, Google, Amazon are creepy mean businesses heading for your soul.
The good thing is, they won’t recognize it, so if you have one, it’s safe.
The NSA must truely love Bezos.
‘a open microphone in every home’…
well, it would be; but as it’ll tank.
….. should have called it Hal.
It is not listening in the sense you imply. It only acts when you say a key word. That word is decided by you. I find the whole idea intriguing. You would probably be much more likely to use it than having to pull a phone out of your pocket, press the home button, wait for the beep, and then say something. In fact I have read speculation that Apple TV might someday have similar functions to Echo. “TV, turn on the football game”. “TV, turn down the heat”. Etc.
You are naive to think that. Read the user agreement: it says anything it hears can be used to serve you but only responds when it hears the hey echo. The UA allows them to send the data to their computers for analyzing, it knows where it is installed, it will know the individuals by voice, shopping pattern, it will recognize what tv or radio you are watching, it will recognize people’s names.
Most importantly, everything recorded can be collected by a court order and used in anyway the authorities deem appropriate. OUCH… There is nothing in the UA on what happens to the data collected and we know it will never be deleted…
All your base are belong to us.
“I’m sorry, Dave. I can’t do that.”
“Take a look at your history. Everything you built leads up to me.”
It’s an internet connected open microphone.
If they can hack a switched off phone the “Echo” will be a trivial task. ( ‘will’ – probably already done ).
In which case ‘Echo” might be more appropriate than you think.
It only ACTS when you say a key word. Yes, that part is cool.
This is not mutually exclusive to listening to everything you say.
Amazon should have made it into talking toilet. Then you can have lots of fun in a 2001 space odyssey parody trying to make it flush.
“…but its driving force, the beat in its heart, will be to accept your money as efficiently as possible..”
True. But Amazon would also benefit from figuring out who you are as a consumer to target ads to you. An algorithm listening for key words is potentially more powerful for targeted advertising than any other way of tracking your consumer behavior. I have no idea if Amazon is going to do that, but they certainly can’t be blind to the possibility.
I’m glad this story followed this one on MDN: “The FBI will not have to bug your living room; you will do it yourself”
A microphone connected to the internet that is always on?
Wow!
So for $199 Amazon will let me bug my house for them.
The only way to do this is when the mic and recognition system only runs on your home server. Then it triggers a web search only if the info it needs is not available internally.
Years ago, 70s or 80s popular science magazine I believe featured a home automation system that had very basic voice control and ran on a popular computer back then. PET maybe.
Someone who has an Echo should try repeat the following phase to Echo…
–> Hey Bezos!! You short di*k a-hole!! Go fu*k pretty wife of yours and leave my privacy alone
Oh, and the Echo app is NOT IOS compatible. It does work on the Fire though.