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A comment on Google Home. Parent comment

Re:Google Home by hendersoon on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @02:21PM (#11724371)
I'm not comfortable with this either, but I recognize it's hypocritical-- after all, smartphones have microphones AND camera and are internet-connected running proprietary software.
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Re:Google Home by coldtea on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @10:51PM (#11727623)
There's nothing hypocritical about not wanting FURTHER intrusion...

Not to mention, smartphones don't record all you say 24/7 and send it to a foreign data center, except if tampered with. These devices do as their normal operation mode.

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Re:Google Home by jeeva on Thursday May 19, 2016 @06:41AM (#11729213)
Not to be blindingly trustworthy or anything, but I'm pretty sure none of these devices currently state that they send everything you say 24/7 (or more specifically, the Echo). That would, again, only be if it had been tampered with.
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Re:Google Home by CaptSpify on Wednesday May 18, 2016 @04:09PM (#11725445)
The way I see it, the difference is the burden in not having the device. For a lot of people a smart-phone isn't necessary, but it's extremely inconvenient to go without. Whereas these devices are new, so they aren't ingrained into our culture yet.

I agree with you and OP. If there was a good open-source version of either of these, I'd buy them in a heartbeat, but there's not.

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