
Amazon's Alexa Moves in on Google's Android System - QUFB
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ces-android-alexa-idUSKBN14R005
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tmuir
Is anyone else concerned that tools like Alexa are making the whole automated
home thing too easy? I see it as creating a bunch of automation "experts" out
of people who don't truly understand the whole feature surface/attack surface
coupling. There are multiple tutorials on Amazon's website to learn how to
implement the whole path, end to end. There are "smart" outlets that are
actually pretty dumb, at least when it comes to knowing whats plugged into it.

Whats to prevent someone from connecting this to their smart door locks? Then
if that person has a big party, and someone with bad intentions shows up, they
can simply say "Alexa, at 3:30am tomorrow, turn off the alarm system, and
unlock the doors". Or "Alexa, turn off the dialysis machine".

Sure Amazon might make it more secure in the future, but probably only after
enough of these unintended consequences stack up.

I also understand that the average HN reader is probably not rushing out to
introduce a single point of failure into their home security system. My point
is that Alexa is essentially saying "don't worry about how it happens, just
dream big about what awesome stuff might happen".

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WalterSear
> What's to prevent someone from connecting this to their smart door locks?

August (the premiere door lock people) are very careful who they partner with,
and wouldn't partner with anyone making an integration like this (they won't
partner with my current employer for this very security reason).

2nd & 3rd tier vendors might not be so choosy.

~~~
maxerickson
Grandparent brings to mind "HEY SIRI, UNLOCK THE FRONT DOOR."

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/532gmg/my_neigh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/532gmg/my_neighbor_just_let_himself_into_my_locked_house/)

I've attached my comment to yours because the story mentions the lock was made
by August.

~~~
supergeek133
I would argue that's a result of the way Homekit and Siri interact, and not
the fault of the August Lock. August put the Homekit chip in the device.

Apple should really require a code along with the unlock command. It's also
why Amazon asked some skill makers to remove unlock functionality recently.

~~~
DashRattlesnake
> Apple should really require a code along with the unlock command.

Which could be easily overheard and remembered or recorded.

~~~
supergeek133
I could also watch someone put in their code

~~~
DashRattlesnake
It's harder to conceal a spoken command than a keypad-entered code. Spoken
words are unavoidably broadcast to nearby surroundings, but you can mask your
use of a keypad easily.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_microphone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_microphone)

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mmanfrin
I think this exposes a bit of a flaw in Google's rollout of their 'Assistant';
they only released it to Pixel devices early on which has alienated Nexus
owners (or at the very least this Nexus owner).

I have both a Google Home and an Amazon Echo; the Echo shows some real
strengths from its early lead -- a lot more connected and a lot of baked in
bespoke interactions. The Home has Google's existing work on knowledge graphs
built in and is surprisingly good at knowledge based queries (today I asked
both 'what is a normal heart rate'; Google answered with some 'According to
Mayo Clinic...' answer and the Echo said 'I dont know how to respond').

The thing CES this past week showed me is that the battle lines are being
drawn. Amazon has a _lot_ more partnerships rolling out; the only one I saw
for Google was with the Shield, which is mainly because it's running Android
TV.

I don't know which will win out. If I had my druthers, both would be available
on 3rd party hardware -- I want to know that they are listening when I
explicitly want them to listen, and I don't trust their own proprietary
hardware to do so.

~~~
Eridrus
I noticed that lots of companies are building Alexa in... but besides cars,
the use cases haven't been particularly compelling yet, and would probably
work just as well as a Skill or IFTTT channel.

And while Alexa has a lead in terms of Skills, the integration is so shallow
that there is no lock in and I expect most vendor-backed skills to come to GH
when the platform is opened up.

The fact that 5m people already have an Echo sure is something, but plenty
more people have Cortana through Windows 10.

~~~
mikeryan
Google Home is Opened up via API.ai (now owned by Google)

I think that acquisition caught up google quite a bit on the SDK side.

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ajmurmann
That Google is losing out to Amazon on this is to me largely attributable to
Google always struggling with marketing. I constantly hear about Alexa. I
didn't even know till now that Google has a new personal assistant your thing
that's not Google Now. If I as someone who works as a programmer and reads HN
every day don't know, how many regular consumers do?

It seems to me that Google mainly is able to get attention for their
outlandish projects like car and Glass that go nowhere. That's probably
because those products get tons of PR for free.

~~~
tossaway1
> I didn't even know till now that Google has a new personal assistant your
> thing that's not Google Now.

I'm guessing you're an iPhone user and therefore don't have much interest in
Android...? There were a lot of positive reviews for the Pixel, both on HN and
elsewhere, and most of them seemed to cite the new assistant as the main
differentiator between the Pixel and other phones.

You're probably right that Google doesn't do well with marketing in general
but it's hard to believe that someone who follows tech news wasn't aware of
their assistant before now.

~~~
daveFNbuck
As someone who reads HN most days and is fairly interested in Android, I'm
aware that Pixel and Google Home are somehow different from Google Now but I
have no idea what that difference is supposed to be.

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fharper1961
Money quote at the end:

"“A huge part of an assistant is search,” he said. “Google is a search
company. Amazon is not.”

~~~
freehunter
If Amazon isn't a search company, then Google isn't an OS company. Search is
pretty integral to Amazon, search being the main way that anyone finds
anything on their site. Sure, selling other company's products is what they're
known for, but they do a lot more than that. And funny enough, a search engine
is one of them. A9 (an Amazon company) develops custom search engines and
search technologies.

You can't pigeonhole conglomerates like that. Google is an email company,
Amazon is a cloud hosting provider, Microsoft is a tablet PC maker, Samsung is
a heavy equipment company. No wait, Google is a browser vendor, Amazon is a
bookstore, Microsoft is the maker of an office suite, and Samsung makes
hardware for the iPhone.

Or maybe they're all tech companies and specialize in multiple aspects of that
industry.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
Actually, it's pretty clear that Amazon is not a search company - nor is
Google. Amazon's market is digital retail, while Google's is digital
marketing.

Amazon's tech is all an effort to extend their reach in their primary
business: selling products (both physical and digital) to customers. Google's
tech, on the other hand, is all in an effort to extend the reach of their ad
and marketing services.

~~~
jarcoal
This is silly, Google is clearly a search company.

~~~
bitmapbrother
He's deriving what a company is based on their revenue streams. What he
forgets is that without Google being as good as it is at search there wouldn't
be that lucrative revenue.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
Search is no more than a powerful tool that Google leverages to better
understand and target its users. It is a means to much more lucrative ends.

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skc
Wow, we've come a long way from the outrage over the Kinect supposedly
"quietly listening all the time" to these products now being the next great
thing.

What happened?

~~~
leblancfg
Good point. Is anyone aware of a FOSS implementation of "personal audio
assistants"? Because the Orwellian creepy factor is way up there.

~~~
colinramsay
[https://jasperproject.github.io/](https://jasperproject.github.io/)

However the strength of something like Amazon's devices is the ecosystem and
the microphones that they ship with, which are expensive to buy separately.

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dkarapetyan
How is IBM not winning this game? Watson is an impressive piece of technology.

~~~
whenwillitstop
Watson is all about marketing, it's not that impressive. The stories you see
about it are placed.

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crucifiction
I think, as proven by Glass, that the public seems to view Google as nice but
creepy. Whereas Amazon is usually tops in customer brand/satisfaction type of
scores. My guess is that this is why even though Google definitely has a
technologically superior product (better understanding, better inference, etc)
they seem to be losing the "hearts and minds" of consumers to Amazon's more
bare MVP technology.

~~~
dredmorbius
Both companies have significant image problems.

Google are socially tone-deaf and creepy.

Amazon are Borging retail, and have a major problem with Bezos being widely
viewed as an asshole, with strong justification.

Mind: much the rest of the tech world does little better. Microsoft, Oracle,
Apple, Facebook, IBM, and more.

I'm inclined to think that its the sector itself which selects for this,
though in the selection process, the personnel (and especially management) are
very mich part of the problem.

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MrQuincle
Required: voice identification.

Or facial recognition if that's too hard for now.

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eva1984
What does move in here mean? An App? This is editorialized non-story.

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bookmarkacc
Shouldnt the title replace Google with Huawei? Android is Google but the phone
is not theirs. But misleading.

