Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e...
by brewdad on Thursday October 17, 2019 @11:58AM
(#21283383)
We recently remodeled our kitchen and updated appliances. One microwave we looked at had Alexa built-in. I couldn't think of a single scenario where I would interact with my microwave without standing right in front of it.
I could maybe see it's usefulness for certain elderly or disabled people but I couldn't figure out why the majority of the population would ever want that.
Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e...
by SmellyGeekBoy on Thursday October 17, 2019 @08:16AM
(#21281183)
> Not sure what the solution is
A soldering iron?
Unfortunately, the trend is to stick a camera and microphone (and compute/network stack) on every consumer device sold to you, including TVs and refrigerators. Not sure what the solution is, since the vendors can make a plausible argument for the convenience provided by voice control and additional features enabled by object detection. Perhaps some combination of local (rather than cloud) inferencing, immediate deletion of data, and privacy laws that clearly assign ownership of data to the consumer and dramatically limit what telemetry data can be sent back?