Essential Home is an Amazon Echo Competitor That 'Puts Privacy First' (theverge.com) 68
In its bid to take on Apple, Google and Amazon, Essential has unveiled "Home," a new intelligent assistant that it hopes owners will be proud to show off. From a report: Essential Home is the new intelligent assistant with round "auto-display" just announced by Andy Rubin's new venture. It can be activated with a question, a tap, or even a "glance," according to Essential, and it's designed to never intrude upon the home. In that way Essential calls it "an entirely new type of product" but it mostly borrows ideas from existing products in an attempt to outdo them. Essential Home lets your control your music, ask general interest questions, set timers, and control your lights -- capabilities we've seen from Google and Amazon -- only Essential promises to do it better, somehow. It's like Google Home or Amazon's Echo series of assistants only without the "boxes, tubes, or strange lights." It's like Nest but it doesn't try to make your home smart by anticipating your needs -- it suggests certain behaviors instead. "In the end people decide," says Essential. Earlier today, the company also announced the Essential Phone. Unlike the Essential Phone, however, much about the Essential Home is not know. It is expected to ship in a few months.
And so... (Score:5, Informative)
Until these devices can do speech-to-text and home control and local resource interaction (your PC, basically) without going out on the net, there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Closest so far is MyCroft. [mycroft.ai] It's modular, it's open source, and so it has the potential to be as good as we want to make it.
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To talk to other people.
There are lots of things that are better and easier without talking to other people, though. That's why you need to think about what should be under your control vs what should be under someone else's. If you try thinking, you'll find it to be not quite as hard as you thought, but also not necessarily easy, and usually fun. Try it. Think today!
Not desirable (Score:2)
It'll never be as good at sharing data with people you don't know and shouldn't trust, anyway. But the fact that you, a human, can do excellent speech-to-text, means that local software and hardware can get there eventually. And it'll very likely get there faster if that's the goal we preferentially chase.
And we should.
MyCroft also processes voice remotely (Score:2)
From https://github.com/MycroftAI/m... [github.com]:
Once signed and a device is paired, the unit will use our API keys for services, such as the STT (Speech-to-Text) API. It also allows you to use our API keys for weather, Wolfram-Alpha, and various other skills.
So yet another IP-connected, trigger-phrase-activated microphone then. Not interested.
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You can replace the remote voice recognition in MyCroft. And you should.That was my entire point.
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One more thing: Bugs abound in Amazon's Echo. As well as some fairly annoying designed-in, unfixable shortcomings. MyCroft is brand new. A little late, but not horribly so. I'm perfectly willing to give it some time and effort. Seeing as how I can change it to address any shortcomings that really concern me; I can't change the Echo, nor can I get it to do the things I really want it to, nor the way I want it to. And yes, I own the Echo.
My questions (Score:1)
My question is will these devices collect user information and phone it home to the company? Will it spy on its "owner"?
"What Essential Home is exactly, isn’t clear (Score:4, Funny)
So, why does this article exit, and why is it on Slashdot?
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I think the real story here is more "There's a new company that is announcing some new products that sort of look cool." It's meant to build hype for a more detailed announcement tonight.
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"There's a new company that is announcing some new products that sort of look cool."
If that is the point, then TFA should have said what is "new" about it. What can it do that Alexa and Google Home can't do? Nothing that I can see. If the only difference is that it is "private" then TFA should have explained what makes it more private (nothing that I can see) and why I should trust this "new" company.
Essential Home... (Score:1)
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Except I'd trust Target...
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I'm in Canada. We had Target for about 4 months. Guess it wasn't around long enough!
Suggestive Idiocy (Score:3)
"...it suggests certain behaviors instead. "In the end people decide," says Essential."
People decide? That's a laugh. People are more manipulated by what someone or something else tells them more than ever, to the point where they absolutely rely on it. Can't date without running it through a profiling engine. Can't eat at a restaurant without reviewing the opinions of several million taste buds first. Can't buy products without validating that purchase with a strangers opinion. Create a friendship or relationship from scratch? No way. It must be suggested or recommended by a network of friends of friends first.
TL; DR - A human engaging in cognitive thinking? What the fuck for? - The Future
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How can it put privacy first (Score:3)
Does it require a connection to a backend server? (Score:1)
If someone made a voice activated service device that could work with no internet connection, I would bite. Play my MP3s/FLACs on command from a network share, control my lights or TV with an IR blaster, support SIP for VoIP calls, perform internet searches with my preferred provider (if a 'net connection is present). In short - do not connect to the internet unless I tell it to and never transmit my voice unless it's a VoIP call.
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MisterHouse has been doing all of that, or at least most of it, for 15-20 years now.
Call serious BS on this (Score:2)
Very misleading to imply that this device is structurally any different from Google Home/Alexa/Siri/Google Assistant.
It says it is running proactive intelligence locally on the device. OK... but there is no way it's running ASR and NLU locally on a device of this form factor. There may be some notification logic locally on the device, fine, but this is pretty much negligible from a privacy impact perspective.
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Here, LMGTFY:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Wow, sorry if those were the second Google results rather than the first. I'm sure it was really hard to disambiguate these acronyms for you.
Moreover, if you don't know what these acronyms mean, you are likely not qualified to comment on the privacy implications of products in this domain.
Performance dependant... (Score:2)
OK... but there is no way it's running ASR and NLU locally on a device of this form factor.
I would say, it depends on the expected performances.
There a difference between an (cloud-based) AI that can listen and answer nearly in realtime.
And an AI that react slower, requires a simpler vocabulary, etc.
(but thusly works even if the connection is down).
With the advance in moore's law, the latest gen of small form-factor hardware might be able to run locally some significant deep neural-nets.
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With the advance in moore's law, the latest gen of small form-factor hardware might be able to run locally some significant deep neural-nets.
Especially if it's just running them, and the training happens elsewhere.
I don't get it (Score:1)
Why would I want any of this?
I already have non-wired heating cooling in my house and I don't need my IoT fridge to spy on me while pretending it doesn't.
Security first (Score:2)
The deciding factor for me... (Score:2)
I'll buy the first one of these that lets me change the activation phrase from whatever the default is to 'computer'
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Also, they should build in a full suite of sound effects, make any related GUI based on LCARS. Actually, I wouldn't mind having a small wireless communicator badge that, if you tap it, it connects over the Internet to talk to the computer.
... and FTL travel. That's all one of these virtual assistants needs for me to buy one. Respond to "computer" with Majel Roddenberry's voice, use a GUI based on LCARS, provide a communicator badge, and warp drives. Oh! and a holodeck.
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I'm okay without the FTL travel, but I totally need to be able to tell it to beam me someplace else.
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Actually, I wouldn't mind having a small wireless communicator badge that, if you tap it, it connects over the Internet to talk to the computer.
Right here: http://www.thinkgeek.com/produ... [thinkgeek.com]
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I think it's safe to say that as long as it came with a self-contained power source, most slashdotters would settle for the holodeck.
Oxymoron? (Score:1)
You can't 'Put Privacy First' that is constantly listening for something to trigger it.
Bullshit. (Score:2)
Bullshit. (Score:2)
I don't believe you.
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I don't really have any interest in a "Home" product. Although, if someone released a high end Android phone that has all the Google spying and cloud syncing disabled out of the box and you have to ability to opt into what you want, that would be something I would be interested in if it had the right feature set. Also a lot more control over what apps have access to. I would really like to be able to block Internet access for apps that have no need for Internet access. I have no interest in the Essentia
No thanks. Try again in 10 years or so (Score:2)
This crap is just so annoying, I can't believe that anybody would take it seriously? Even Siri and the like are irritating and don't get it right all the time. If something isn't 100% then it's junk, and this kind of crap isn't getting anywhere near my house.
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Why do I need a box listening to my every word to do simple things for me? I've seen my brother trying to use the so-called "smart" remote on his curved LCD screen, which doesn't have up and down volume buttons. Every time I see him pick the thing up and speak "volume 30" or whatever into it, the thing gets it wrong. He has to say things several times. There is no way I could tolerate such crap. Just put some standard buttons on the god-damned remote, you know, like volume up and down. I wouldn't trust an A
nothing changes (Score:2)
Simple. (Score:2)
Wanna make an assistant AI private?
Essencially *cough*, what is needed is for it to work offline, period. No buts and ifs.
Core AI functionality could get updates overtime to make it more efficient, but no sending data through the Internet while it's in use. A concept that is very easy to understand.
Here's what they put on their page:
"Privacy by design
The home is your own space where you should be able to say what you want, without having to worry about your privacy.
We’ve designed Essential Home to run
DSPs (Score:1)