It’s designed to listen to you all the time and delete the recordings as you go.
I assume some enterprising person has already altered this to record everything and to transmit it as needed.
After all, these devices are sold and operated by the giant advertising companies.
Hey** ZipperJJ**, so you read Bill Gates’ The Road Ahead just 5 years before you signed up for the dope. Same year as me.
Privacy can obviously be an issue for devices that are always one and always listening. I was reading about these devices and there was a link to where you could see all the recordings google had for you. There was a lot! Going back years. All the conversations where boring, as the system only records after you activate it by voice. I guess there is always a chance that your device could be hacked, but that is true for any of the devices we have with microphones, which is pretty much all of them. If you want you can delete all of the recordings.
Zero interest here. I find Siri to be fairly useless and I’m really ok with turning things on and off, looking things up, etc by myself. When I get old and decrepit I may change my mind, but right now I just don’t see the need.
The episode of Young Sheldon last week made a reference to the old weird ad claim about getting a PC: Mom will like it because she can use it to organize her recipes.
This is the stage we are at with Alexa and friends. Some of the things companies say we will use them for are stupid. But other things, most not even thought of yet, will be what makes them take off.
Who knows what indispensable use these things will have in the future? After all, who thought that posting pictures of your meals online was going to be a must-do thing?
I own an Amazon Dash Wand (push button) and a Echo Dot. Barely use them. The big problem is the Dot doesn’t work with my TP-Link switch, but everything else does. Grrrr. Also, when I ask for the temperature I only want the temperature, not a weather forecast. Etc.
If you already have your phone out in your hand, maybe it’s faster to launch the weather app. Otherwise I don’t see how you can take the phone out of your pocket/purse and unlock it before someone says “Alexa, what’s the weather”? And many people don’t even carry their phone around in their own house.
Voice assistants aren’t a replacement for smartphones or PCs, but they aren’t meant to be. Sometimes it’s convenient to have one around. And the rest of the time they just sit there, they take up little space and don’t require any effort to maintain.
Well yes and no. Amazon’s Alexa, Siri and I assume others listen locally all the time for the trigger word and that’s it. All else is ‘noise’ to them and not comprehensible to the device that gets deleted as it continues to listen for the magic word. Once it hears the wake up word it then records and sends to the cloud, then the is a record of what you said till that listening task is done.
I seem to recall Google’s device taking this a bit to far and allowing all the time ‘recording’ to the cloud, but IIRC they changed it to only ‘record’ once the wake word is used or the button is activated.
I’m sure it can be hacked, but it only can understand the wake word on it’s own and only sends voice once activated by it (or the button).
Good point from ftr about PCs originally being promoted to organize recipes. It was in all the ads, and I never used it for that at all, and most people didn’t as it was not easier than the system we already had, open a recipe book on the counter. I did not start using the computer for recipes until sites like epicurious came along with massive databases of reviewed recipes. Now it is my go to with a tablet on the kitchen counter, often with more than one recipe on the go.
You can get voice assistants to read recipes to you, but that is a non-starter for me as I usually jump around in recipes, and want to see the entire ingredient list at one time.
I think the two most useful areas for these devices will be entertainment and home automation. I like controlling my tv by voice much more than by finding the remote that disappears after 10 seconds. Especially when I am walking around and doing other things other than just watching tv.
But as** ftr** said, who knows what the breakout app may be?
When I look up the weather, I don’t just want the temperature right now and whether it’s precipitating. I also want to know the wind speed and direction, and what all of those things are expected to do for some span of time in the future, ranging from a few hours to a week. That much information is very slow to deliver via voice: You really need a visual interface to deliver it sensibly. And I can get that by glancing at my phone or my computer.
And light switches? I can certainly flick my fingers next to the door when I walk into a room a lot quicker than I can say “Alexa, turn on the bedroom light”.
I agree that voice is too slow for detailed weather but what you ask for is already here, Hey Siri, start Weatherbug app will do that for you, also Alexa also does this on the Echo Show, displaying the weather. I do expect more integration and customization, such as you tell it how you like your weather reports, but even now it’s there. I can see this coming to Fire TV paired with a Echo, it sort of is in a awkward way. It’s still early, but those things are already possible.
Yes if you set up the test conditions to favor that you will arrive at your favorite outcome, being right by the switch with fingers near it - yes it will be faster. But however, I do find it easier while engaging in sexual intercourse and with with my partner in bed and need the lights out to order Alexa to do it then to interrupt the activity having to get out of bed to get to the switch. If I have my partner is tied up at the moment and she needs to do such a thing voice can be her only way at the time, however if I have the ball gag in her mouth and her mask on that too may become difficult for her. 
I have one (well, my kid got one for Christmas, but it’s hooked up to my Google account and sits in the living room of my house). I don’t really see the use. I have an awesome sounding home theater I can use to play music, Google Home’s speaker is lame in comparison. I don’t have any wifi-connected thermostats or light bulbs. My family mainly uses it to set timers and check the weather, both of which I can do quickly and easily from my phone. It sure seems like a solution in search of a problem. Maybe if we automate our home more it will become more convenient and useful.
I seem to recall, back in the early days of Google Voice, you used to be able to program your own unique keyword into it. Instead of “OK, Google” you could make it respond to “HAL” or “computer wife” or any number of things. Now you can’t, it responds to Google and nothing else. I’m sure the same is true of Alexa, Cortana and Siri. It’s just a painful reminder that this isn’t a device I own and control, it’s a device I let Google install in my home for them to control and benefit from. And that’s the deeper problem I have with these devices. I understand that smartphones have been that way for most people for years, and I’m on the losing end of this battle, as everyone else on earth seems enthusiastic about renting their powerful and intimate products from huge corporations instead of owning them outright and maintaining full control, but I still don’t like it.
Wow, that is way better than the response I had about reading in bed, haha.
I know this isn’t GQ but I’m gonna ask for a cite for this. (When searching, make sure you use “Google Assistant” not “Google Voice” which is a different product) Google Assistant IS in its early days still and I have no recollection of it ever allowing a custom phrase. I see a lot of requests online for that as a feature, though. And I got my Echo from the beta test program when it first came out and there was never the ability to use a different phrase (it’s Alexa or Echo I believe).
The rest of what you said is valid, though. The companies are definitely steering the ship, and putting themselves into your home like so much carbon monoxide 
But I believe you’re mistaken in your wistful remembrance of when they…didn’t.
Oh yeah, if you’re leery of Amazon coming into your house, check this shit out. An article about the Amazon Key service - when you LITERALLY give Amazon a key to your house! :eek:
Google Voice is Google’s phone service, providing call forwarding, voicemail, VoIP, etc. I don’t recall it ever having voice-activated features. The predecessor to Google Assistant was/is Google Now, but I can’t find any evidence that it ever allowed users to choose a wake word, unless you use a third-party app to activate it.
The wake word “Alexa” was chosen because it’s easily and reliably recognized by a computer, and doesn’t sound like any phrase that are likely to come up unintentionally. With today’s technology, if they allowed the user to choose any wake word, it would require a more expensive processor, and they would still be inundated with complaints from people who chose wake words that are difficult to detect, or sound too similar to commonplace words. “OK Google” and “Hey Google” are less arbitrary, but still, they are phrases they identified as something people don’t say unintentionally (rather than just “Google”, for example).
I despise the wake word “okay google” it is a bit of a mouthful, and 4 syllables. Google assistant also allows Hey Google which is one syllable shorter and easier to say. I have read articles about them possibly allowing another word to be the wake word, like someone’s name. Belinda, please… There are technical issues, and also they very much do not want to give up their branding built into the wake word.
You can also make phone calls from Google assistant, and as it has very good microphones, and a half decent speaker, it works pretty well. Call Mom, for example. I assume that it is using google voice to do this.
It has 4 colored LEDs on the top of it that can be seen only when it is activated. I wish there was an app to play with those lights, lol. They are fairly bright if the room is dark.
I believe you are thinking of what Motorola did when it made the Nexus 6 and its own phones. I think it can still do that. However, Google itself never programmed its own keyword apart from the Moto partnership.
As to the OP question, yes. Everyone will eventually use it. Star Trek voice control will become more of a reality. I already use my Amazon Echos and Google Homes (yes, I have both) to control the lights and control/play things on my TV (through Chromecast). If I didn’t live in an apartment, I would have long ago attached a Nest and then been able to voice control that device as well.
I find it simpler for a lot of things that just using my phone. I like voice checking the weather as I’m going into my closet to decide to what to wear for the day, or turning off room lights as I’m entering or exiting a room simply by speaking it out loud, or (and this is by far my most common use) setting timers in the kitchen while both hands are occupied (also I generally don’t want to use hands covered with whatever food particles on my phone or even my stove timer).
Sure, sure. And like some Doctor Who episode, someday Google and Alexa will program you in your sleep to prepare for the Borg/Unity/Cyberman invasion.
Well unlike you, they’ll have to cut off my head and stick it in a metal box while I’m kicking and screaming, thank you very much!
After all current generations of people die, maybe. But I’m pretty confident I’ll personally never use such a thing. I can’t think of a use of smartphones that outweighs their obvious downsides - what chance does this stuff have?
Yes, I assume you are right. At some point, I’ll need to buy a TV or other appliance, and the only TVs offered will require such an interface. Or I will want to do some activity - I don’t know, like Skype or something - that can only be done with it. Eventually the market will get to a point that I HAVE to adopt. That is the moment I will buy one, and not a moment before.
I remember when I bought my first computer back in the late 80s, there was a list of products, and the technology needed to perform them. For much of what people do on computers - keeping lists and such, it recommended a pencil.
I’m not going to go so far as to require manual crank windows on my cars, but there is some validity to the idea that the more automated things you have the more things there are to go wrong. I’m thrilled to use technology when it truly helps me in some way. Turning the lights on and off by voice or with my phone doesn’t come close to approaching that.
When you add in the possibility (however remote) of something being hacked or monitored, makes the decision a no-brainer for me.
OP did say “eventually”.
I think of the kids today who are flabbergasted when they are told that phones used to connect to the wall and you could only use them as far as a cord would stretch. It’ll be like that. Kids born in the last few years will grow up in a world were voice control is natural and ever present.
Hmmmm… Is it an old model? Here’s one on Amazon that claims it works with Alexa. And if it doesn’t then, can you do a work around through IFTTT?