
Amazon and Google fight crucial battle over voice recognition - intuzhq
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/22/home-battleground-amazon-google-voice-technology
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talktime
I'm enthusiastic about the potential for this technology but I don't like
either of these options. I feel like both the customer and the product. I'd
like an open source, neutral voice assistant that is working for me, not
trying to exploit me.

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candiodari
Neither of those options is very scriptable either. They just kinda suck. None
of them have any compatibility with actually used home automation ("computer !
lights !" is actually useful). You're right. We need an assistant that's just
a piece of software. Paid for, working for me, not caring which messenger it
has to use.

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notheguyouthink
Yup. I'm not really going to be interested in this landscape until i can get a
full NLP / Intent Recognition / Voice Transcripting package in my home,
completely offline.

I'm not even paranoid about the NSA/etc either, i'm paranoid about a potential
3rd party listening in and knowing when to rob my home, or viewing my family
through the IP camera, etcetc.

I want a smart home. I don't want an internet connected smart home. It's
simply too dangerous.

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Yetanfou
Intelligence services of the world, are you listening? There is something to
learn from the way these companies have managed to create themselves an army
of informers. First they managed to convince people to pay for their own
personal tracking devices, putting one in nearly every pocket. They come
equipped with microphones and cameras, with satellite positioning, with
everything you could wish for to keep tab on your subjects. Next they managed
to convince them to use those devices to create a detailed profile of their
interests and their friends and relatives, there to be perused at will. And
now they've gone a step further, convincing them to put microphones in their
domiciles, always listening, net-connected, recording all the time. With voice
recognition to ease the transcription of anything of interest. If anything
these commercial intelligence services suffer from an overload of data on
their subjects, not a dearth of such as is the usual case for governmental
services.

Note to current and future governments: outsource intelligence gathering, it
is much more effective that way.

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amelius
Voice is just an input device like a keyboard is.

Why do we see companies fighting over this technology, but didn't we see those
fights back in the days when the keyboard was invented?

Also, why is open-source lacking behind? Surely there's plenty of free
training data available, so that can't be the reason.

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ragebol
Because this stuff is very compute-intensive and that is simply expensive.

Also, I don't think there is as much free training data publicly available as
Google or Amazon have gathered privately.

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0xbadf00d
Without having any "hands on" (or off) with either of these devices - Can
anyone tell me if there is any training data held locally on either of these
or do all voice commands get sent to Amazon/Goolge for parsing centrally?

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shshhdhs
In the case of Echo (I have one), it only sends to data to Amazon when her
name is heard. The training for the detection of that name is local to the
device, which is why there are only a few name options (Alexa, Computer, Echo
and Amazon)

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Nr7
Do either of the devices do actual voice recognition or do they only have
speech recognition?

