[ManVsMachine]

Bridget Carey could catch a rope that saucy minx

[getdownonit]

Just got mine this week, it's a great speaker and the voice recognition is quite good. I've still got to work out how to make the best use of it, since it'll play some songs if I tell it to, but others are only short samples. Telling it to play a particular artist or genre usually turns out well.

I suppose it's ideally to be connected with your Amazon Music playlists and library, so you can control the Echo via voice, remote, echo app or amazon music app. Spotify and iTunes aren't connected to the Echo app, so I'll have to copy my playlists over to Amazon.

[Aphex]

Sounds cool. Thanks for the heads up. Just requested an invite.

[Sourcecode]

Amazon Echo doesn't say specifically.
But it works oversees also.
I'm currently in Korea and my Echo work fine.
Even though certain things like, Pandora, Tunein Radio ect, may be banned, It still works even though I use Korean internet.

The only problem I run into is using Amazon Music.
The songs skip...it might be the way the internet is routed.
Instead I just tell Alexa to play the music via one of the other apps.

[cascadecombo]

This will be my next speaker purchase after the ones I have now die.

You've had no real issues with it so far source?

[Sourcecode]

No.
I haven't had an issue with it.
I've had it since November of last year also.

Amazon has also continued to bring out more updates for it.
Since all the updates are "in the cloud" I don't think anything is downloaded to the device.

But they have even added a feature that lets you control electronics and lights in your house via Alexa.

I still continue to use it every day. As soon as I walk in the house, I say " Alexa, play some music"
I also continue to use it to set my wake up alarm or make shopping list for me.


* Possible issue.
Currently the app, only lets you use a US Zip code.
My Zip code is set in America, If I want to know the weather or time, instead of saying "Alexa, what's the weather?"
I have to specifically ask something like, "Whats the weather/time in Seoul?"

This doesn't bother me at all.. but who knows.

[Thrill Jackson]

Being that its much more popular now, has anybody used Echo and had it help them get them bangs?

[texas]

Thrill, I use it constantly. Not sure that it helps get bangs but it facilitates them once you get back to your spot. I wrote a post on it before somewhere on a different thread but it allows you to walk in and seamlessly have whatever music fits the night's mood right from the get-go. The girls seem to like telling Alexa what to do and other dumb fun shit. I usually tell them Alexa is recording us (she probably is) and that it counts as a threesome just to playfully open those avenues too.

[jamaicabound]

I have one, nothing to write home about. I'm not super into tech stuff to begin with so I'm probably not the target audience, I'm not someone who has any desire to have a smart home.

The speaker isn't very loud, I have no plans to buy smart light bulbs and appliances to where this can interact with them. I don't think she can order a pizza or anything like that for you.

I really don't see this doing anything that Siri or Google itself can't do.

My gf uses it, I guess it gets smarter over time, although she gets mad at me because I ask it stupid questions all the time and I guess she has to manually go through on her phone and do something so it gets smarter so she says I'm making it dumber.

I know recently one of these was supeonad in a murder trial, there's a little 3 minute story on vice about it. I also notice it occasionally will turn on and say stuff or start recording when me and friends are just hanging out so I unplugged it.

[DarkTriad]

(11-30-2014 04:37 PM)Sourcecode Wrote:  

So, I was lucky enough to get one of these Amazon Echo things.

Its actually pretty useful as a personal assistant.
The commercial is lame as fuck, but its pretty legit
I think Amazon could have better marketed as a really good bluetooth speaker and music player.

The speaker is really high quality.
On half volume, it can easily fill a large room in my house. Even on high volume, the sound doesn't get distorted.

I'll bet the sound barely gets distorted at all...when the CIA listens to you.

[Baphomet]

Right. Have a device that continuously records every sound in the room, and stores it indefinitely in the cloud, where it is completely accessible by every Alphabet Agency, without a warrant or due process of any kind... (Just like your Dropbox, Evernote, et al )

"You can count me out."

[Vincent Chase]

Remember when Amzon Echo recordings were used in a court case?

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38450658

I suppose it potentially could protect you in case someone does something against you.

At the same time it would be nice for it to be able to "memorise" stuff like Google Home can, like telling it to remember a password or note. It should definitely allow you to take recordings.

This is the beginning of the end for personal privacy. It is like having a wire tap in every room in the world.

Yes I'm buying one.

[Jetset]

(03-12-2017 04:48 AM)Vincent Chase Wrote:  

Remember when Amzon Echo recordings were used in a court case?

Well, it remains to be seen if they'll be useful.

The procedure is along the lines of Echo parsing the language internally to find it's 'wakeword', and then transmitting anything that comes after the wakeword. If it was transmitting everything, that would be pretty easy for a consumer to determine by monitoring their network traffic, and while I haven't performed that experiment at home, other people have and found that it only transmits as expected.

Obviously, it's conceivable that a savvy surveillance team could convert the Echo into an "always-on" monitoring device, but I'd assume anyone who is important enough of a target to warrant that kind of attention would also be important enough to secure their home devices and detect that kind of unusual network activity.

Out of the box, I don't think it's very useful for the purpose of proving or disproving anything other than that someone was likely in the room and using it, but it does raise all kinds of question about authenticating evidence, etc.

I use mine almost exclusively as a music player for Spotify/Audible, also will sometimes ask it what's on my calendar/to-do, weather, or order something on Amazon. It's handy if I'm on the phone to be able to say "Alexa, am I free at 3:00pm".