Today is a rainy day in SF. As I was waking I thought I heard rain drops, so I asked, “Alexa, is it raining?” I was expecting the usual stock weather response that I’ve been getting for years. This time Alexa simply replied, “Yes, it is raining.”
This is a first. Next I want to see how much Alexa is able to adapt to unique requests. I could ask, “Alexa, will I need an umbrella tonight?” This would requiring connecting me to my location and umbrella to rain along with time of day. The stock response has just used the address set with my Echo device and responded with the forecast for the whole day. Connecting these dots from a spoken request would truly be a big step forward. #Alexa
As the "AI" race heats up, those of us who operate servers are going to be getting hit from more and more bots speed crawling our sites like the bad old days... that never really left.
I do hate it when tech companies come up with “improvements” to their systems. Some time ago, I created a Books List on my #Alexa to keep a note of books or authors I’d like to read when I had time to purchase them. It was easy to ask Alexa what was on the list to refresh my memory of books to search for.
But Amazon must have “improved” their system, so now when I ask what is on my Books List, Alexa reads me the titles in my #Kindle library. If I wanted to know that, I’d ask what books were in my Kindle library. Now, to check my Books List, I need to open the app and type the question into the app to see the list. This is not always very convenient.
I was going to create a new List called Library, but I thought she might simply repeat my Kindle Library again, so I’ve now got a list called Bookshelf. That seems to work. At least, it does for the moment. No doubt #Amazon will break it before too long.
I do seem to spend far too much time battling against #Technology in my attempts to make life easier.
"After quizzing these companies about data practices, I learned that most are sharing what’s happening in my home with Amazon, too. Our data is the price of entry for devices that want to integrate with Alexa. Amazon’s not only eavesdropping — it’s tracking everything happening in your home."
#GeoffreyAFowler, 'Alexa has been eavesdropping on you this whole time'
This whole thing started because my family would always leave lights on and lose their keys…
Now the lights turn themselves on and off, all doors are now keyless, I have control over ALL of it, I know exactly what we are consuming at any given moment, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this amazing software can do!
I will buy NO smart home device that isn’t #HomeAssistant compatible.
Forget #HomeKit. Forget #Google. Forget #Alexa. If you’ve got a little tech know-how, get this.
Amazon sent me unsolicited "notification" via my Alexa speaker promoting their Black Friday sales. There was no unsubscribe mechanism which is in violation of the Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation. If you received a similar spam message, please report it.
That's it I've bloody had enough of #amazon#alexa becoming worse and worse at understanding instructions. It was to the point I had to repeat 5 times and shout for it to register. And of course I have no control over which version of the language model it uses.
«Markets have been “replaced by digital trading platforms which look like, but are not, markets”. The moment you enter amazon.com “you exit #capitalism” and enter something that resembles a “feudal fief”: a digital world belonging to one man and his algorithm, which determines what products you will see and what products you won’t see.
If you are a seller, the #platform will determine how you can sell and which #customers you can approach. The terms in which you interact, share information and trade are dictated by an “algo” that “works for [Jeff Bezos’] bottom line”.
The capitalists who rely on this mode of selling are granted access to the digital estate by its virtual landowners, the Big Tech companies. And if “vassal capitalists” don’t abide by the laws of the estate, they are kicked out – removed from #Apple’s App Store or #Google’s search index – with disastrous consequences for their business.
Access to the “digital fief” comes at the cost of exorbitant rents. Varoufakis notes that many third-party developers on the Apple store, for example, pay 30% “on all their revenues”, while #Amazon charges its sellers “35% of revenues”. This, he argues, is like a medieval #feudal lord sending round the sheriff to collect a large chunk of his serfs’ produce because he owns the estate and everything within it.
This is not extracting profit through the production or provision of goods and services, as these platforms are not a “service” in the sense in which the term is used in economics. They are extracting rents in the form of the huge cuts they take from the capitalists on their platforms.
There is “no disinterested invisible hand of the #market” here. The Big Tech platforms are exempted from free-market competition. Their owners – “cloudalists” – increase their wealth and power at a dizzying pace with each click, exploiting a new form of rent-seeking made possible by the new algorithmically structured digital platforms. Parasitic on capitalist production, they are now dominating it.
But something even more transformative has happened, Varoufakis argues.
Even though most of us are regularly interacting with capitalists and earning wages via our labour, now, for the first time in history, all of us contribute to “the wealth and power of the new ruling class” through our “unpaid labour”.
Every time we use our cloud-linked devices – smartphones, laptops, #Alexa, Google Assistant, #Siri – we replenish the capital of the Big Tech cloudalists. This in turn increases their capacity to generate more wealth. How? We train their algorithms, which train us, to train them, and so on, in a feedback loop whose goal is to shape our desires and behaviour. They are “selling things to us while selling our attention to others”.»
Kann ich trotzdem per Spotify App vom Smartphone einen Symfonisk ansteuern?
Hab ein günstiges Webradio bei dem das so geht, der Klang davon ist aber "nur so mittel" 😇
Hier gibt es doch bestimmt #auskenner für das Thema...
This school year we’ve been trialling #alexa announcements to count the kids down to the school run: one announcement 10mins before and one when we need them to put their shoes on. Reduces parental nagging & they have responded really well!
Alexa Rydell (famososefamosasdetodososramos.blogspot.com) Portuguese
Alexa Rydell