No TMD till Monday
MG: Voicing assistants
Alexa is now the unwanted stepchild, we learned recently. Lord knows how, but the voice assistant was going to cost Amazon $10 billion in losses this year. I guess when you’ve got that scale of money to burn, it’s easy to lose track. But then one day you realize something isn’t right.
My wild-guess assumption is that these services take up a lot of server space and server bandwidth, while providing nothing at all to the bottom line. I imagine the parent companies also have some royalties to pay out for music played without ads or user subscriptions. The main problem for Amazon, at least, seems to be that they can’t get users comfortable with placing orders by yelling instructions to their voice assistants. (“Alexa, send me a pair of men’s black saddle oxfords size 10 wide, a 12.5 oz jar of generic chunky peanut butter, and a lithium-ion 40-volt rechargeable leaf blower. Did you get that, Alexa? Alexa, read that order back to me, please!”)
No one seems to know what this will mean for the voice assistant services offered by Amazon (Echo devices/Alexa), Alphabet (“OK Google”), and Apple (“Hey, Siri”). But their services may get skimpier since none of the companies have quite figured out how to make money off the things.
Maybe they’ll start charging subscriptions for them. At any rate, the devices themselves have been quite convenient and even helpful to people with disabilities, such as loss of vision. And they have managed to spark a competition for improved performance among tech giants that have money to burn on product development. Silly and frivolous as they may be for many of us, I hope the manufacturers find a way to keep them going without turning them into some expensive, luxury add-on service.
Here’s the news article from Business Insider.
Alexa isn't welcome in my house. Or any of the other digital voice assistants for that matter.
Just creepy, IMO.
Anyway, hullo Dispatch peeps! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (or Thursday for our international folks). I, for one, am looking forward to the weekend. This week has been a mess, and I ain't just talking bout the kitchen after dinner yesterday. . .
My oldest friend plays guitar and sings in San Diego. Last night, he had an outdoor gig and took this pic from where he was playing. I thought it was worth sharing here. https://photos.app.goo.gl/9KXE8HgywpwmsG3RA