Facebook Delays Home-Listening Tech

[FrgMstr]

I guess when you being called in front of Congress to testify to talk about privacy issues that are plaguing your company, it is not the best time to launch your own in-home "assistant" hardware. Just for the record, we are not fans of any of the in-home spying devices. I have two of those here in my office that will never be plugged in. Given the #DeleteFacebook trend, Facebook is making a lot of platform changes as well.


The company’s new hardware products, connected speakers with digital-assistant and video-chat capabilities, are undergoing a deeper review to ensure that they make the right trade-offs regarding user data, the people said. While the hardware wasn’t expected to be available until the fall, the company had hoped to preview the devices at the largest annual gathering of Facebook developers, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing internal plans.[/I

 

[WhoMe]

They never anticipated this in Star Trek and I still want a computer I can talk too (though you'll pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands) . "The cloud" has ruined a lot of potentially good tech. I hope my robot servants don't need to use the cloud to process my voice commands...indeed I hope they have very short memories when it comes to what I say to them...or just say in general...or we will end up with: anything you say can be used against you in a court of law (and that includes ex post facto laws).

 

[FrgMstr]

They don’t need to be plugged in!

Thanks for your grasp of the literal. I sometimes forget what audience I am writing for.

 

[greenman]

Platform changes are just to manage third party apps more? Heh. How about facebook take #DeleteFacebook seriously and make some actual changes?

 

[heatlesssun]

They never anticipated this in Star Trek and I still want a computer I can talk too (though you'll pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands) . "The cloud" has ruined a lot of potentially good tech.

The issue of technology and privacy come up a few times in the Star Trek universe, one in particular I remember is when Geordi created a holodeck replica of one the Enterprise's designers by using all sorts of data to create the program. And she was none too pleased when she found out about it.

 

[Exavior]

Platform changes are just to manage third party apps more? Heh. How about facebook take #DeleteFacebook seriously and make some actual changes?

Why should they? The users wont' take it seriously. In 1 week everyone will have forgot about this and it will be business as normal.

 

[vegeta535]

They never anticipated this in Star Trek and I still want a computer I can talk too (though you'll pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands) . "The cloud" has ruined a lot of potentially good tech. I hope my robot servants don't need to use the cloud to process my voice commands...indeed I hope they have very short memories when it comes to what I say to them...or just say in general...or we will end up with: anything you say can be used against you in a court of law (and that includes ex post facto laws).

You mean robot masters?

 

[Biznatch]

They never anticipated this in Star Trek and I still want a computer I can talk too (though you'll pry my keyboard out of my cold dead hands) . "The cloud" has ruined a lot of potentially good tech. I hope my robot servants don't need to use the cloud to process my voice commands...indeed I hope they have very short memories when it comes to what I say to them...or just say in general...or we will end up with: anything you say can be used against you in a court of law (and that includes ex post facto laws).

The processing power / storage required for interpreting voice commands, on top of the machine learning to increase accuracy is only possible from the giant datacenters running the 'cloud'..... You would not have the resources required to run this at home, at least not if you want it to accurately recognize your voice commands.

 

[Spire3660]

The processing power / storage required for interpreting voice commands, on top of the machine learning to increase accuracy is only possible from the giant datacenters running the 'cloud'..... You would not have the resources required to run this at home, at least not if you want it to accurately recognize your voice commands.

This is an absolute lie. I use voice command every single day, it does not require an internet connection to function. You confuse voice command with 'assistant'. Assistants require internet, voice command does not.

 

[Exavior]

This is an absolute lie. I use voice command every single day, it does not require an internet connection to function. You confuse voice command with 'assistant'. Assistants require internet, voice command does not.

What voice command are you talking about?

 

[Retronym]

I like to plug in the NSA speakers during my alone time

 

[katanaD]

This is an absolute lie. I use voice command every single day, it does not require an internet connection to function. You confuse voice command with 'assistant'. Assistants require internet, voice command does not.

aye. I would love to use something like dragon naturally speaking, which runs on your local machine to tie into smart home features like adjusting lights..etc. Do not WANT or NEED it to report back to anyone what i am doing with my lights/sprinklers..etc

i would LOVE an open source app that i could install on a PC that could be my home server, that all the "smart" home devices talked to, and through it and speech software running on it, controlled everything. Any remote access of devices would run through it, so as to retain control from home.


its something i have wanted since a kid and watching things like star trek, but the way companies have NOT handled security or privacy has, for now at least, completely ruined any trust i have in others with such services.

 

[Verge]

Platform changes are just to manage third party apps more? Heh. How about facebook take #DeleteFacebook seriously and make some actual changes?

You think Alexa isn't MORE invasive than facebook? No one seems to mind putting one of those in their homes though.

 

[scojer]

They already listen through your phone, if you don't think they do, You're lying to yourself.

 

[bigthoughts]

"video chat capabilities".
...i see you need to buy some skin cream and some hair replacement service...

 

[noclevername]

"video chat capabilities".
...i see you need to buy some skin cream and some hair replacement service...

I can see this now. In the middle of a video conference call. The feed stops and starts playing an unskippable ad for something.

Our quarterly projections are up from last year and it would seem that...

Screen goes black

Hello? Are you there?

"Having trouble satisfying your lady, or maybe you need some more energy Tom? As men get older their testosterone level start dropping and...."

All eyes peering over at Tom as he buries his head.

Cmon somebody skip this. Where is the skip button? What the hell?

 

[Biznatch]

This is an absolute lie. I use voice command every single day, it does not require an internet connection to function. You confuse voice command with 'assistant'. Assistants require internet, voice command does not.

What voice command are you talking about?

I would also like to know what voice command you are talking about. Because pretty much any voice product (google, siri, alexa etc.) all send the recorded commands to the server farm for processing. The only processing it does locally is the trigger word. There's a reason it's so ridiculously accurate (At least when I use google voice in AA while driving a noisy car), and that is the processing power and insane amounts of test data they get from users. There's no way your phone could do that by itself, with anywhere near that level of accuracy.

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

I like to plug in the NSA speakers during my alone time

Does your case agent reply to you, too?

 

[Spidey329]

Does your case agent reply to you, too?

I have a business partner doing business in the KSA with the Saudi Bin Laden group.

I've accepted that I likely have a case agent in Maryland that is listening to all of my phone calls. It's likely a side-effect of the long distance call, but whenever I call him the phone never rings, just dead air until he says hello.

 

[greenman]

Why should they? The users wont' take it seriously. In 1 week everyone will have forgot about this and it will be business as normal.

I dunno.. I'm tired of this treatment, I'm deleting my facebook. Just sucks I'm losing all my contacts, would choose a different platform to keep them on but there's no real alternative. Oh well.

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

I have a business partner doing business in the KSA with the Saudi Bin Laden group.

I've accepted that I likely have a case agent in Maryland that is listening to all of my phone calls. It's likely a side-effect of the long distance call, but whenever I call him the phone never rings, just dead air until he says hello.

Aw, how sweet! You should have conversations with him (no matter how one-sided)! Invite him to Thanksgiving dinner with the family, too!

 

[WhoMe]

The issue of technology and privacy come up a few times in the Star Trek universe, one in particular I remember is when Geordi created a holodeck replica of one the Enterprise's designers by using all sorts of data to create the program. And she was none too pleased when she found out about it.

I shouldn't write before morning coffee. What I meant was they didn't specifically address using the voice data the ship's computer no doubt recorded to come back at them. Also I meant TOS not the later ones. Though say in TNG episode The Drumhead they might have used such recordings to go after Picard (but hey it's only an hour show).

 

[WhoMe]

The processing power / storage required for interpreting voice commands, on top of the machine learning to increase accuracy is only possible from the giant datacenters running the 'cloud'..... You would not have the resources required to run this at home, at least not if you want it to accurately recognize your voice commands.

We had fairly decent voice recognition back in 2000 (especially after some work training it to a specific voice), now our desktops are a lot more powerful. When I say computer, I don't mean phone or tablet....I mean desktop . Sure they may require some training still, but we are getting there though I'd sure like to see desktop processors pushing past 8GHz now (with 12 cores) and that as a middle of the road system. We'll get there, until then I'm not giving my house over to home invaders in the guise of convenience technology.

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

We had fairly decent voice recognition back in 2000 (especially after some work training it to a specific voice), now our desktops are a lot more powerful. When I say computer, I don't mean phone or tablet....I mean desktop . Sure they may require some training still, but we are getting there though I'd sure like to see desktop processors pushing past 8GHz now (with 12 cores) and that as a middle of the road system. We'll get there, until then I'm not giving my house over to home invaders in the guise of convenience technology.

Just remember that these smartphones are just as powerful as most desktops, and have chips designed to capture the human voice in better clarity than ever before.

I had an old Motorola flip phone that did voice recognition better than most of the following smartphones, so the tech is *there*, it's just a matter of how and by whom.

 

[WhoMe]

Just remember that these smartphones are just as powerful as most desktops, and have chips designed to capture the human voice in better clarity than ever before.

I had an old Motorola flip phone that did voice recognition better than most of the following smartphones, so the tech is *there*, it's just a matter of how and by whom.

I guess it's the fact that most calls I make I understand only about 90% of what the person says, now you might say it's my 10 year old flip phone, but the same happens with people I know talking top end phone to top end phone. Maybe they are just using too much of that computing power to spy on people (yeah I know, the cell networks are over crowded, but don't spoil my fun and even in the middle of the night the sound quality is often still pretty bad).

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

I guess it's the fact that most calls I make I understand only about 90% of what the person says, now you might say it's my 10 year old flip phone, but the same happens with people I know talking top end phone to top end phone. Maybe they are just using too much of that computing power to spy on people (yeah I know, the cell networks are over crowded, but don't spoil my fun and even in the middle of the night the sound quality is often still pretty bad).

Most of my problem is people trying to use speakerphone in a really noisy environment (and pretty much all of the damn time). Those with decent Bluetooth headsets I can hear great, and vice-versa. Hell, even my roommate with her Sync system sounds good when using it.

 

[WhoMe]

Most of my problem is people trying to use speakerphone in a really noisy environment (and pretty much all of the damn time). Those with decent Bluetooth headsets I can hear great, and vice-versa. Hell, even my roommate with her Sync system sounds good when using it.

I call my 85 year old mom every day to check on her...twice I've gotten her Bluetooth head sets...she never even opened the boxes . Stuck with her iPhone speaker, but I can't tell the difference between when she uses the speakerphone or not. But we are both in rural areas and so the signals are not always full strength I can't say things are any better than with our first cell phones c2000. I will say that my internet connection (which uses 4g) is a lot better when I use an antenna with my mifi so I'm guessing a good antenna might actually solve a lot of the problem...but who makes a phone with a good antenna any more, costs too much money. I remember when they put two antennas in some early tablets, then later these were reduced to one and, surprise, wifi connections weren't as good (in certain situations), but hey saving 50 cents is really important.

But when you come down to it, as powerful as the processors and components are in phones there are still a lot compromises due to the small size, which is why I think true Star Trek like computer interaction (without the need to use "the cloud") will come to my desktop first.

 

[Big_Rig_Stig]

I call my 85 year old mom every day to check on her...twice I've gotten her Bluetooth head sets...she never even opened the boxes . Stuck with her iPhone speaker, but I can't tell the difference between when she uses the speakerphone or not. But we are both in rural areas and so the signals are not always full strength I can't say things are any better than with our first cell phones c2000. I will say that my internet connection (which uses 4g) is a lot better when I use an antenna with my mifi so I'm guessing a good antenna might actually solve a lot of the problem...but who makes a phone with a good antenna any more, costs too much money. I remember when they put two antennas in some early tablets, then later these were reduced to one and, surprise, wifi connections weren't as good (in certain situations), but hey saving 50 cents is really important.

But when you come down to it, as powerful as the processors and components are in phones there are still a lot compromises due to the small size, which is why I think true Star Trek like computer interaction (without the need to use "the cloud") will come to my desktop first.

My old Nokia 8250 candybar phone was so good that in the middle of the King Ranch in South Texas, where bag phones couldn't get signal, my little 8250 would get good signal and had good battery life. Damn, what a great phone. I also loved my Ericsson T19LX flip phone (as close to a Star Trek communicator as any cellphone got in 1998), small and fit in a pocket perfectly, with meh battery life.

 

[MrGuvernment]

it has it as noted, cell phones and everyone person who puts facebook on it..