ALEXA - do I want one ??

Davesnave

jackieblack wrote: »

I’d unplug it and stick it in a cupboard or give it away.
There’s no reason why you have to keep it just because someone bought it for you if you don’t want it :huh:

Yes there is. The person who bought it comes to stay, often, but of course we could do as you suggest in the intervening periods and I wouldn't wish to imply that we have no choice whatever.


My post was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I believe there is a serious side to the interconnected smart device phenomenon.

RumRat

Davesnave wrote: »

However, those who mock people concerned by the sudden rise of AI might do well to listen to Elon Musk, who's a guy with plenty of active, fully-updated brain cells. He's worried.

Shame he's not the full shilling though................If you are using him as your example, I'll pass.....Thanks.;):)

Davesnave

RumRat wrote: »

Shame he's not the full shilling though................If you are using him as your example, I'll pass.....Thanks.;):)

That's OK, he has more rockets in the garage than you.

wild666

I have three smart speakers, 2 echo's and a dot I have smart bulbs in most rooms they cost £8 each and are the coloured ones. I also have amazon Prime and music but won't be renewing the music next month, I paid yearly for it £6.59 a month/£79 a year. I use mine for timers and some music plus radio instead on firing up the PC or TV.

RumRat

Davesnave wrote: »

That's OK, he has more rockets in the garage than you.

So has Richard Branson, but I wouldn't go that route either.:D

Ciara.T

The question is why not? It's awesome!

Ashen

In terms of privacy, there's a lot of highly skilled people out there that would analyse and report widely on any suspicious activity over and above the devices uploading audio related to the 'trigger' word.

As the BBC put it:

While smart speakers do always "hear", they do not typically "listen" to conversations.

The major brands record and analyse snippets of audio internally to detect words like "Alexa", "Ok Google" or "Hey Siri", but if those words are not detected, the audio is discarded.

If the wake word is said, however, then the audio is recorded and sent to the voice recognition service at the company.

The big smart speaker companies - Amazon, Apple and Google - all employ staff who listen in to customer voice recordings.

But security researchers have found no evidence that speakers continuously send entire conversations back to a remote server.

Of course, anyone is free to believe unevidenced claims about continual privacy invasion...

LilElvis

esuhl wrote: »

Some friends have a few "Alexas". One is plugged into a big hi-fi system, and it sounds pretty close to CD quality. They already had Amazon Prime, which comes with access to Amazon's music catalogue.

Alexa is particularly good at finding suitable playlists if you ask it to "play some roots reggae" or "play 1990s pop music"... or more vague requests like "play some barbecue music".

And it's great for social gatherings -- adjusting the music doesn't take you away from the conversation.

Annoyingly, Alexa doesn't seem able to play albums. You can ask for a particular track, a particular artist, or a vague genre... but not to listen to an album of tracks played in order.

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My sister received one as a gift. She doesn't have Amazon Prime and didn't really want to pay for access to the music. So it just gets used to listen to Radio 4.

She certainly does! "Alexa, play xxx album by xxx" and she plays it in order. Subjected to the new Neil Young album, "Colorado" this morning.

Found this thread yesterday when I was contemplating adding an Echo to our living room but thinking that 1. it wouldn't be powerful enough to "fill" the room, and 2. we are hardly utilising the expensive hifi we already have. Got up this morning and decided to have a play - unplugged the Echo Dot from the kitchen, plugged in the wall in the living room, selected Bluetooth pairing on my phone's Alexa app and on the Denon receiver. Took less than one minute! An Echo Input arriving tomorrow so that I can take my Dot back to the kitchen. £25 so that we can play music at will and with good quality speakers - bargain! Husband and 9 year old currently shouting over each other - he's trying to shuffle songs by The Ramones, whilst she's hell bent on playing Wonderwall.