Female Asura Tempest sets off Alexa

[starlinvf.1358]

@Bariel.3562 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@JustTrogdor.7892 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:Why would anyone freely get a creepy device like Alexa in the first place? :o It's not a "she", it's

not

even human (just as a small reminder there). "Big Brother is watching you..." :oI love my Echo Dots. I use them all the time to turn on and off lights around my house, adjust my thermostat, and even arm my home security system. It also connects to my stereo system via Bluetooth so I can tell it to play whatever type of music I'm in the mood for while cleaning or entertaining. Think of something I need from the grocery store, "Alexa add paper towels to my shopping list," and it saves it to my shopping list on my phone. Cooking a meal, "Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes."

Just wait a few years, and Alexa will do the cleaning for you as well. Seriously, that kind of dependency to a machine is really worrisome. Many Alexa owners who, if they had to live without Alexa for two weeks, would already show withdrawal symptoms after just a couple of days. I have seen studies on this very topic.

I use it all the time and given my computers and phones all have built in microphones that "Big Brother" could use to listen in if they wanted, I'm not really worried about the addition of the Echo Dots. They would probably be bored to death listening in on my household anyway. :D

That is the type of unconcern that companies are counting on: "I've got nothing to hide!"

I bet there were people like you who spread doom and gloom about computers becoming more popular. You know, that machine that allows you to play your game and post on these forums. Same thing with Alexa, it's just voice interface for the very same computer you can't imagine your life without.

If I don't touch the keyboard, it does nothing. Voice recognition being on all the time has a problem with Context.... which is why up until this point, there was always an activation phrase to avoid VcR from executing off errant conversations. Thats really the biggest flaw in the system that they haven't come close to hammering out yet.... the number of false positives, because the system has a very hard time knowing if a person it actually intending to talk to it or not.

Alexa does still work off an activation phrase, just it's a one word phrase "Alexa". Sure it's not perfect but not like it goes off every 5 seconds trying to wrongly hear something, they're pretty good at filtering out the noise to recognise what you're saying. Like any peripheral for a computer though the earlier versions aren't perfect, even the humble mouse used to have problems with clogging up with dust/hair that you'd have to remove the ball from the bottom and clean it out.

They're pretty kitten good at determining what you ask for a new piece of tech.

So explain to me.... how a that how hockeypuck of listening device is getting set off by the phrase "Charging up", when it shouldn't do anything unless it hears the word "Alexa" first? This is what I'm getting at.... its being rather indiscriminate when its supposedly the exact opposite of it.

[ATMAvatar.5749]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:Skynet

Fixed that for you ;)

Alexa feels more like a SHODAN than a Skynet to me

[Randulf.7614]

@ATMAvatar.5749 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:Skynet

Fixed that for you ;)

Alexa feels more like a SHODAN than a Skynet to me

No idea what that is, sorry!

[Karnasis.6892]

@JustTrogdor.7892 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:Why would anyone freely get a creepy device like Alexa in the first place? :o It's not a "she", it's

not

even human (just as a small reminder there). "Big Brother is watching you..." :o

I love my Echo Dots. I use them all the time to turn on and off lights around my house, adjust my thermostat, and even arm my home security system. It also connects to my stereo system via Bluetooth so I can tell it to play whatever type of music I'm in the mood for while cleaning or entertaining. Think of something I need from the grocery store, "Alexa add paper towels to my shopping list," and it saves it to my shopping list on my phone. Cooking a meal, "Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes." I use it all the time and given my computers and phones all have built in microphones that "Big Brother" could use to listen in if they wanted, I'm not really worried about the addition of the Echo Dots. They would probably be bored to death listening in on my household anyway. :D

Gone are the Halcyon days of standing up to change the thermostat/light switches XD (I am not THAT lazy). The security system / music option however is kinda neat. All the other features I keep scratching my head and going "Why is this a thing?" (and I sell Google Home stuff at my work)

However this story is kinda neat.... go go Asura.

[JustTrogdor.7892]

@Karnasis.6892 said:

@JustTrogdor.7892 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:Why would anyone freely get a creepy device like Alexa in the first place? :o It's not a "she", it's

not

even human (just as a small reminder there). "Big Brother is watching you..." :o

I love my Echo Dots. I use them all the time to turn on and off lights around my house, adjust my thermostat, and even arm my home security system. It also connects to my stereo system via Bluetooth so I can tell it to play whatever type of music I'm in the mood for while cleaning or entertaining. Think of something I need from the grocery store, "Alexa add paper towels to my shopping list," and it saves it to my shopping list on my phone. Cooking a meal, "Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes." I use it all the time and given my computers and phones all have built in microphones that "Big Brother" could use to listen in if they wanted, I'm not really worried about the addition of the Echo Dots. They would probably be bored to death listening in on my household anyway. :D

Gone are the Halcyon days of standing up to change the thermostat/light switches XD (I am not THAT lazy). The security system / music option however is kinda neat. All the other features I keep scratching my head and going "Why is this a thing?" (and I sell Google Home stuff at my work)

However this story is kinda neat.... go go Asura.

Trust me I am very far from lazy. I do like the convenience smart home devices offer. All cozy on the sofa with my significant other watching a movie and it feels a bit hot or cold, use my Echo Dot to adjust the temperature without having to stop the movie and disturb the mood. Wake up in the middle of the night and temperature is a bit uncomfortable, one voice command and it's back to sleep instead of getting up and walking across the house to adjust it and disturb my sleep more as well as possibly waking up others in the house. Need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, no fumbling in the dark to find the lamp switch, instead use Echo Dot to turn the light on.

That's the thing with new technology, people often say it is making people lazier but they have been saying that for hundreds of years. Yet here I am with my smart home devices and I still go out and tend to my yard, maintain my house, perform my own routine maintenance on my car, exercise daily, enjoy hiking and camping and all sort of other physical activity. I still know how to use a regular old paper map to navigate when traveling. Something I bet many people don't know how to do these days. After all with current technology there is not much need to know how to do that anymore. Just like the Internet, there was a significant part of my adult life where if I wanted to do things like banking I had to actually go to the bank to do it. If I wanted to rent a movie I actually had to go to the video store and rent the movie, watch it, rewind it to avoid an extra fee (Gasp! "Rewind" what is this ancient word? ;) ), then take it back before it was over due. If I needed to pay a bill I had to write the check, put it in the envelope (also go to the post office and buy stamps if I needed them), and take it to a mail box. The Internet offers us a ton of convenience that frees up bits of time in a busy world similar to smart home devices and I don't see many people being called lazy for taking advantage of the convenience the Internet offers.

Anyway, smart home devices may not be for everyone and I'm cool with that too. Just don't assume people that like them and use them are "dependent" on them and lazy. I could easily hammer a nail with a rock but I use a hammer because it is more efficient. That doesn't make me lazy. :)

Lastly all the talk about the pros and cons of smart home technology has indeed gone off track from the original post and is not really a GW2 topic anymore. That said, GW2 audio has never activated my devices. Granted I don't play Asura or Tempest characters. I'd be interested in seeing a video or even listening to an audio file where that happened though.

[Bariel.3562]

I'm a developer and have done lots with Alexa and it's APIs including pulling it apart and digging into what network traffic it sends and when. The hockey puck that you love so much does constantly listen to what is said and locally on the machine itself it matches every sound it hears trying recognise the activation key, usually "Alexa" unless you've changed that.

It doesn't send any of your voice recording to the internet and to amazon until it hears that phrase, once it hears the phrase it does then send your speech to amazon to then do the voice recognition on their servers, helped by the skills people have developed for the device having lists configured with amazon of the requests they are probably looking for to help with the matching.

Now the important bit there is the wake-word.. since that is done locally and on a far less powerful device than Amazons cloud infrastructure it will be less reliable as the computational power is a lot less, also remember this is a device listening not a human ear and as such it doesn't really understand words it is looking at patterns in the audio waves and when it finds a match to the wake-word pattern.

Now sound waves projected from a speaker are never as clear and clean as them coming straight from a natural source in the room, obviously the better the speakers the cleaner the sound but even so that's why Tv and computer speakers trigger it more. Also remember sound waves bounce off of surfaces and walls so if you have your Echo against a wall, close to a speaker or on a surface that reflects sound a lot it will also cause the device to struggle more.

It's not perfect, but remember these are first generation of these devices. They are working on voice recognition for a future release/update to the software which should help as it will be able to determine who is speaking, it can apparently differentiate between two nearly identically sounding twins however I am not sure if that is the wake word done locally or once the device is woken and amazons cloud computing infrastructure takes over... I would assume the latter.

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@Bariel.3562 said:

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@JustTrogdor.7892 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:Why would anyone freely get a creepy device like Alexa in the first place? :o It's not a "she", it's

not

even human (just as a small reminder there). "Big Brother is watching you..." :oI love my Echo Dots. I use them all the time to turn on and off lights around my house, adjust my thermostat, and even arm my home security system. It also connects to my stereo system via Bluetooth so I can tell it to play whatever type of music I'm in the mood for while cleaning or entertaining. Think of something I need from the grocery store, "Alexa add paper towels to my shopping list," and it saves it to my shopping list on my phone. Cooking a meal, "Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes."

Just wait a few years, and Alexa will do the cleaning for you as well. Seriously, that kind of dependency to a machine is really worrisome. Many Alexa owners who, if they had to live without Alexa for two weeks, would already show withdrawal symptoms after just a couple of days. I have seen studies on this very topic.

I use it all the time and given my computers and phones all have built in microphones that "Big Brother" could use to listen in if they wanted, I'm not really worried about the addition of the Echo Dots. They would probably be bored to death listening in on my household anyway. :D

That is the type of unconcern that companies are counting on: "I've got nothing to hide!"

I bet there were people like you who spread doom and gloom about computers becoming more popular. You know, that machine that allows you to play your game and post on these forums. Same thing with Alexa, it's just voice interface for the very same computer you can't imagine your life without.

If I don't touch the keyboard, it does nothing. Voice recognition being on all the time has a problem with Context.... which is why up until this point, there was always an activation phrase to avoid VcR from executing off errant conversations. Thats really the biggest flaw in the system that they haven't come close to hammering out yet.... the number of false positives, because the system has a very hard time knowing if a person it actually intending to talk to it or not.

Alexa does still work off an activation phrase, just it's a one word phrase "Alexa". Sure it's not perfect but not like it goes off every 5 seconds trying to wrongly hear something, they're pretty good at filtering out the noise to recognise what you're saying. Like any peripheral for a computer though the earlier versions aren't perfect, even the humble mouse used to have problems with clogging up with dust/hair that you'd have to remove the ball from the bottom and clean it out.

They're pretty kitten good at determining what you ask for a new piece of tech.

So explain to me.... how a that how hockeypuck of listening device is getting set off by the phrase "Charging up", when it shouldn't do anything unless it hears the word "Alexa" first? This is what I'm getting at.... its being rather indiscriminate when its supposedly the exact opposite of it.

[ATMAvatar.5749]

@Randulf.7614 said:No idea what that is, sorry!

SHODAN is the AI antagonist in an early-90s cyberpunk video game series called System Shock. She was almost certainly the inspiration for GlaDOS in Portal.

If only you could switch out Alexa's voice to either of those two...

[Batel.9206]

@"ATMAvatar.5749" said:If only you could switch out Alexa's voice to either of those two...

"ALexaDOS, set a timer for thirty minutes.""of course. would you like me to put neurotoxin in it as well""What!? No! It's just a...cake. Oh no. Oh no don't you say it--""that is a lie""...close enough, darn you!"