
Facebook Delays Home-Speaker Unveil Amid Data Crisis - SheinhardtWigCo
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-28/facebook-is-said-to-delay-home-speaker-unveil-amid-data-crisis
======
hanklazard
Definitely not something I’d consider.

However, someone here on HN recently posted the open source voice assistant
project mycroft:

[https://mycroft.ai/](https://mycroft.ai/)

Fun to mess around with on Raspi and eventually I may link it up with Home
Asssistant.

~~~
cmsimike
Similarly, I've started using Snips.ai in conjunction with Home Assistant, and
I'm continuously overjoyed whenever I ask Snips to do anything, or I ask it
for information, with the knowledge that everything is hosted on site, and
everything is custom made specifically for what I want.

~~~
oulipo
Hi! I'm the co-founder of [https://snips.ai](https://snips.ai) and we build a
100% on-device Voice AI platform. The ASR and NLU are running on a Raspberry
Pi 3, and best of all it is free and we are open-sourcing it, starting with
the NLU [https://github.com/snipsco/snips-
nlu](https://github.com/snipsco/snips-nlu)

[https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-
priv...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-nlu-is-an-open-source-private-by-
design-alternative-to-dialogflow-amazon-lex-and-other-nlu-a95dbe16f4a1)

The whole platform runs on-device which makes it ideal for privacy, cost, and
to allow it to run when there is no network, from hotword to ASR and NLU

We are available in English, French, German, and soon Japanese and Korean,
with more European languages coming!

Take a look at what some people have built with it:
[https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-snips](https://github.com/snipsco/awesome-
snips)

and a few tutorials to get you started: [https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-
a-voice-controlled-home...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/building-a-voice-
controlled-home-sound-system-using-snips-and-sonos-2aaf16523ce9)

~~~
220V_USKettle
Any recommendations for microphones, particularly in an environment with lots
of flat surfaces (concrete/glass) and talkative people? Non-directional.

~~~
jffry
They've got a pretty in-depth article on their blog:
[https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone-
arrays-9...](https://medium.com/snips-ai/benchmarking-microphone-
arrays-950de8876fda)

------
djangowithme
Buying a facebook speaker, or really any home-speaker for that matter seems
like a really bad idea. You give it the ability to record everything in your
home for a slight utility.

~~~
slg
I see this argument all the time, but these things are less dangerous than
smartphones. First off, they ride off your own network so it is easy to see
when they are sending data back home unlike phones which can transfer data
over harder to monitor 3rd party networks. They are cheaper and lower powered
machines so they can't do a lot of processing on device and can't store a
large amount of data for later transfer. They are stationary in your home and
therefore likely spend a majority of the time listening to nothing unlike
phones which might be at their owners side 24/7\. They also only have one
source of data which is audio as opposed to the other various sensors phones
have like GPS. Finally, if you believe that these companies are shady enough
that they are lying to their customers about what these smart speakers are
doing, why do you think they aren't lying about what their mobile OSes or apps
are doing?

All that said, I believe Apple, Amazon, and Google all have worlds more trust
in this area than Facebook.

~~~
saagarjha
> these things are less dangerous than smartphones

I disagree.

> they ride off your own network so it is easy to see when they are sending
> data back home unlike phones which can transfer data over harder to monitor
> 3rd party networks

…if you use a VPN, then you can check for traffic here as well.

> They are cheaper and lower powered machines so they can't do a lot of
> processing on device and can't store a large amount of data for later
> transfer.

HomePod has an Apple A8 processor, and Google Home has some sort of ARM SoC.
These aren't low-powered machines; on the contrary, they can run 24/7 since
they're always powered.

> They are stationary in your home and therefore likely spend a majority of
> the time listening to nothing

I think this makes them more likely to be overlooked, more than anything.

> Finally, if you believe that these companies are shady enough that they are
> lying to their customers about what these smart speakers are doing, why do
> you think they aren't lying about what their mobile OSes or apps are doing

Some of them, maybe.

~~~
ehsankia
You start off with disagreeing that smartphones are more dangerous as home
speakers, then every single subsequent point you make is along the line as
"this may not be as bad as smartphones but they're still an issue".

Yes the processor is still strong but it's weaker than smartphones. Yes you
can still sneak data past home networks but it's harder than 3rd party
networks. Yes they can be more overlooked, but they still have access to less
data than smartphones.

None of the points you make prove that home speakers are as bad or worse than
smartphones. The original comment wasn't arguing that smart speakers are safe,
they were just pointing out the hypocrisy over owning a smartphone and being
against smart speakers.

~~~
saagarjha
The main issue with smart speakers is that they're in your home and they have
access to continuous power, so they're always on. Sure, they might not have
all of the processing power of your flagship smartphone, and you can check
their traffic, but this doesn't mean that they aren't less dangerous. With
smartphones, you can tell pretty quickly if someone's been recording audio in
the background: just check to see if your battery is depleting quickly. Smart
speakers also have better range than smartphones: they're meant to pick up
noise from far away.

~~~
ehsankia
> The main issue with smart speakers

And? Your phone is with you 24/7

> they have access to continuous power

I don't know about you but my phone hasn't run out of power in months.

> this doesn't mean that they aren't less dangerous

No one is saying that they _aren 't_ dangerous, you're missing the point. What
I'm saying is if you carry a smartphone around, that's just as risky.
Therefore, it's hypocritical to warn against smart homes unless you also don't
have a smartphone.

> Smart speakers also have better range than smartphones

But smartphones are literally next to you at all time, they don't need better
microphones.

~~~
saagarjha
> I don't know about you but my phone hasn't run out of power in months.

I don't understand your argument here. If your smart speaker 100% maxed out
its CPU and sensors for a month, would you notice? Probably not. I guarantee
you would if your smartphone did, though, unless you keep it constantly
plugged in.

> But smartphones are literally next to you at all time, they don't need
> better microphones.

I'll chalk this one up to individual preference. Personally, my phone is
usually not near me at home (e.g. downstairs) since I have access to my
computer, which I prefer using instead.

~~~
ehsankia
Sure, but you don't need to max out CPU to collect and upload data. It's
fairly trivial amount of computation for most things it can collect.

~~~
saagarjha
Using the microphone continuously does require power, though…

------
ProAm
Nothing sounds more invasive than a Facebook created in-home, always-on
device.

~~~
cryptoz
That's exactly what the Facebook app is on a mobile phone, though. Has access
to the microphone to listen whenever it wants (even if it doesn't do it, it
has access). Is always on, not just in your home but everywhere you go. Knows
who you talk to and where you are and how long you spend there and often what
you're doing quite exactly to the details.

There's not much difference between having the Facebook app installed on your
phone and this device, in terms of creepiness and data collection capability.
Probably their smartphone app creeps me out more, actually.

~~~
on_and_off
in which condition does Facebook asks for microphone access ?

On my install Facebook has zero permissions and remains useable. It is by
design though.. they have already way too much data.

IIRC in P only a foreground app can access sensors, still, don't give this
permission to facebook.

------
jessaustin
Tomorrow: Uber will announce the delay of their new airline.

~~~
tyingq
Lol at the idea of using minimally qualified pilots to fly people around at
wages that barely incent them to continue. It might even happen.

People flying around with probably alcoholic tendencies, overly adventurous
ideas, spraying toxic insectesides, or otherwise borderline pilots because
"gig economy". You're probably right.

~~~
galdosdi
It would never happen because FAA. Taxis on the other hand are regulated on a
state by state and even town by town basis.

Anyway, not much blood to squeeze out of that stone. A 747 fits about 400
passengers and only needs 2 pilots. Doubling or halving the pilot salary will
not make a noticable difference in ticket prices.

I'm not sure what the main costs of air travel are, but unlike taxis, it ain't
the drivers. I would guess fuel?

~~~
sho
> A 747 fits about 400 passengers and only needs 2 pilots

It needs many more than that. Depending on the workload it could be 10 or more
per plane.

Consider a daily shuttle between LAX-NRT, a 11h40m flight. This will usually
require 3 pilots, as pilots cannot legally fly more than 8-9 hours per day.
When they arrive, the plane is turned around in a few hours and comes back -
but the original crew needs rest, so at least 3 pilots have to be waiting at
the other end, ready to go. And when the plane arrives back in LAX, who's
going to take it back to tokyo? Those 3 are resting! So straight up that's 9
required, at an absolute minimum, with no margin for sickness or holiday.

Longer segments can require 4 pilots, so again that's 12 at an absolute
minimum. Realistically speaking, depending on a whole bunch of factors,
airlines would aim to actually have about 15-20 pilots per plane in a long
haul heavy scenario.

And we haven't even mentioned cabin crew, which would be 12 or so on our
hypothetical 747. So again, multiply that by 3 at a minimum and you've got
something like 40 cabin crew per aircraft.

So 15 highly paid pilots (say 150k/yr) and 45 slightly less paid cabin crew
(50k/yr) - that's close to $4.5m/yr just on crew. For ONE airplane. You've got
to be making $12k/day on that plane just to pay flight staff, let alone ground
staff and everything else.

In the world of narrowbodies the economics are even more brutal. If a plane's
on the ground it's not making money, so say you try to have the plane in the
air 10 hours a day. Due to flying limits over extended periods you would need
8 pilots to fill that with no margin, and probably 8 or so crew for a 737 with
4 active. Realistically you're looking at a crew bill of $2m/yr, or ~$35 per
seat per day. Even if you manage to squeeze 7 segments out of the plane per
day with 100% load factor that's $5 per ticket just on crew in a market where
every single dollar counts.

Now obviously I'm grossly oversimplifying and pretty much every number I
mentioned can vary - but not by all _that_ much. I'd say those numbers are at
least in the ballpark for a full service carrier and if anything the long haul
estimate is probably too low - I've heard up to 24 pilots per plane for long
haul carriers like the ME3. So finally the point is, crew wages absolutely
make a difference!

~~~
galdosdi
WHOA. Outstanding comment, thank you. This was not obvious to me. I had no
idea pilots got paid rest. Taxi drivers are required to rest too, but at their
own expense.

~~~
sho
Well thank you but actually you are right. Pilots are NOT paid rest. Per
regulation they can work 1000 hours per year and they will ensure this is
fully utilised. Airlines cannot just hire and not use pilots or, of course,
they will jump ship to someone who can.

It's a pretty interesting industry.

------
rococode
Internal: "Quick, dev team, make it a little harder to figure out that our
speakers actually are recording 24/7!"

Public: "Uh we're having some unexpected delays"

~~~
gboudrias
I'm imagining a Stewart Lee "sell phones to cars" type skit: "Quick, sell
data! Sell data to anyone! Get more data to sell! Hurry!"

The values of Facebook, of which there are none.

------
doe88
Attracted by the smell of fresh new data, all the usual suspects are present
on this field. More and more _smart_ home speakers/assistants really just look
like to me the new 2018 widespread trojan horse way for collecting large
amount of new data on users. Pass.

------
Finnucane
I'd say no, but I have no desire for a home assistant. Aside from the security
concerns, the thought of talking to my devices just makes me reflexively gag.
I mean, the main thing I like about them is that _I don't have to talk to
them_.

~~~
canadianwriter
I've got some Google Home Minis and I didn't realize how much I use them until
I decided to make note of it: I use it to control my TV every night (Play
bob's burgers, next episode, pause) and in the morning I ask for the weather
and while drinking we ask it random questions we happen to be discussing. At
night I say "bedtime" and it turns off the TV and lights and my dog knows that
means it's time to go to bed and gets up as well. All stuff we used to do on
our phones but now ask verbally - I guess I'm saying I find it more convenient
now than bringing out my phone and having to type stuff. It becomes way less
weird after like a week.

~~~
Finnucane
I don't find turning off the tv to be particularly challenging; it's one
button on the remote. Maybe this works for you, and fine if it does. I don't
really care if it's 'convenient'. I don't want to do it.

------
zer00eyz
Probably smart -- cause Facebook listening to what goes on in your house is a
sound idea.

Then again why does any one trust the companies who provide this service at
all?

~~~
phil248
I have one of these devices and, to answer your question, I don't trust the
company that made it.

I don't trust most companies, but that doesn't stop me from buying their goods
or using their services.

~~~
dingo_bat
Then you should have no problem with Facebook's device too.

~~~
snakeboy
That is what he implied.

------
danso
I was going to say that I couldn't even imagine the selling point of this to
the average consumer, but I'm not someone who uses my Echo for social uses
(i.e. calling, or sending/receiving messages). For the FB/Instagram-addicted
crowd, I guess I could see the appeal of being able to do voice-activated
messaging, and to look at photo albums. And it's not something FB should want
to give API access for to Alexa/Google/Siri.

That said, I think as popular as Echo devices are, people already have a bit
of paranoia about them, and that's before considering the controversy FB is
now undergoing. Unless the hardware is best-in-class, hard to see how this
will fare any better than Facebook's failed attempt at its own phone with HTC:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First)

~~~
TallGuyShort
> people already have a bit of paranoia about them

I was given one as a gift, and found it useful enough after a few days that I
was willing to trust that it wasn't recording unless it detected the
activation word locally.

And then I walked into the room while it was carrying on a conversation with
my 2 year old, asking his name, etc. Unplugged it and plan to destroy it.

~~~
danso
I woke up at 2AM to my 3-year-old nephew asking for it to tell him bedtime
stories. Though to be fair, I taught him how to invoke that skill from Alexa.

~~~
cpeterso
That's an interesting use case! Where does Alexa gets its bedtime stories?
Does it read from public domain storybooks or must you purchase them like
audio books?

~~~
danso
It's an official-branded skill, "Amazon STorytime" that is a built-in for
Alexa, e.g. you can invoke it by saying something informal, such as "Tell me a
bedtime story" or "Tell me a story", rather than the way other skills are more
narrowly namespaced.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073X5FYVF](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073X5FYVF)

It says the app "contains curated stories from the Amazon Rapids app library
as well as a selection of Audible short stories". It's pretty good, as it
features actors and sound effects. Can't say any of the stories were
interesting to me (was hoping for Aesop Fables type stories, which is about
all I remember growing up myself).

------
sAbakumoff
Yep, like it's not enough that Facebook already knows a ton of information
about your online life, these greedy monsters want to inject a spying device
into your offline life. I am not an expert, but I guess that this Facebook
product has pretty slim chances to be a hit.

------
tanilama
Well they better not, they have lost almost all consumer trust at this point.
They need to rebuild that, maybe for years to come.

~~~
downrightmike
You were always the product, not the consumer.

------
ravenstine
If developing for it is anything like developing for other Facebook platforms,
I want nothing to do with it.

------
hso9791
The article quotes "people familiar with the matter". For all we know, this
could be a controlled leak, and the "people familiar with the matter" could be
CXOs and Facebook's core management team. :)

Funny to see the alleged data abuse giant unravelling with all the hustle and
bustle of upper management panic.

~~~
hso9791
Sorry to answer to my own post. I joined Facebook last week. After eleven
years of refusing to play Facebook's game.

Here's the information I gathered from 20 minutes on Facebook - a powerful
platform indeed.

The author (Sarah Frier) seems to be on good terms with the CXOs of Facebook:

CPO Chris Cox [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-
reactions-c...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-reactions-
chris-cox/)

COO Sheryl Sandberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-27/how-
shery...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-27/how-sheryl-
sandberg-s-sharing-manifesto-drives-facebook)

CEO Mark Zuckerberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-virtual-
rea...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-facebook-virtual-reality/)

To drive it all home: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/how-
fake-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/how-fake-news-
blew-up-into-a-political-crisis-for-facebook)
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/mark-
zuck...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-09-21/mark-zuckerberg-s-
political-awakening)
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-11/facebook-s...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-11/facebook-
s-zuckerberg-says-fake-news-and-echo-chambers-didn-t-drive-election)

------
collyw
Should really be called the Facebook microphone.

------
zzmp
They call all of their sources "the people". It's not coming out yet, "the
people said". Kinda strange...

~~~
vanilla_nut
I think that's actually part of a general journalism style guide. It
definitely sounds strange, but so does the constant third person passive voice
you tend to see in journal articles.

------
feelin_googley
""Facebook has been playing fast and loose with their data ever since they
started. ... It was only a matter of time before that data was misused, and I
think that advertisers knew that," said Andy Amendola, senior director of
connections strategy at agency The Community. "We know there was this line
that verges on creepy because we know the consumers' data, but I think that's
what makes the advertising work so well."

For the most part, agencies are skeptical many people are going to leave
Facebook - or at least enough to make a difference for advertisers. The
public's attention span is fleeting, noted one executive, and even massive
data breaches that affected Yahoo, which included 3 billion accounts, and
Equifax - 147.9 million accounts - haven't turned people off those services.

...

In addition, the public already held Facebook in low regard leading up to the
scandal. According to app analytics firm Sensor Tower, sentiment about the
company during the the two weeks leading up to the Cambridge Analytica stories
was already 83 percent negative - and people were still on the platform."

Source: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/facebook-cambridge-
analytica...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/22/facebook-cambridge-analytica-
scandal-wont-deter-advertisers.html)

"3\. The idea that users will abandon Facebook is unlikely. There's really no
alternatives. An abandonment of Facebook and related apps would basically be
an abandonment of social media altogether, which is an unrealistic
expectation.

...

4\. While Facebook currently produces the majority of its revenue from
advertising, that's only the tip of the iceberg. Facebook can do many things
to begin diversifying its revenue stream including entertainment or
e-commerce.

...

So far Wall Street's opinion on Facebook has not been altered by the data
scandal. According to MarketWatch, 37 out 44 analysts rank the stock as a
"buy". The average price target is $221.56, which represents 39% upside based
on the current stock price of $159.09."

Source: [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4158807-facebook-let-
others...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4158807-facebook-let-others-fears-
opportunity)

~~~
pktgen
> The public's attention span is fleeting, noted one executive, and even
> massive data breaches that affected Yahoo, which included 3 billion
> accounts, and Equifax - 147.9 million accounts - haven't turned people off
> those services.

The public wasn't turned off of Equifax because they weren't Equifax's
customers in the first place.

~~~
Lionsion
> The public wasn't turned off of Equifax because they weren't Equifax's
> customers in the first place.

The public aren't even Equifax's _users_.

------
axiom92
These discussions always remind me of
[https://xkcd.com/1269/](https://xkcd.com/1269/)

