| Blogs > chatillion > My Blog |
|
Questioning Alexa... I had time today to set up the Echo Dot device from Amazon that people refer to as ALEXA because the 'wake up' command is the name Alexa. This unit is linked to my Wi-Fi signal and controlled via ph app and direct voice commands. If you keep your app open you can see a history with tranriptions of what commands you've told it to perform. Echo currently only understands English, but working with it for a while I found I am able to open a linked app that does simple language translations from English. The app name is Translated and you tell Alexa to open translated and translate. I am able to get it to speak Chinese words that appear on the screen of the phone with the open app. Hopefully, the makers of Echo (Amazon) will do some upgrades and all for a more sophisticated language translation in the future. It's perfect for line questions lie "What's the current weather" or "Who were the members of The Beatles. If the questions are complex or the answer is obscure there is a good chance Alexa won't have a response. I did poise the question "What is Trickle-down Economics...?" . |
|||
|
I was satisfied with the answer !
| ||
|
As much hacking that takes place, I don't see myself adding a unit in my house that has a targeted function of "listening". All this stuff goes through "someones server", and nothing does so without leaving "footprints" and "recording" what comes through. Not that I have any plan to do anything wrong. I just don't see a want for something that has such high potential of "intrusiveness". I'm sure they will sell 100's of millions of these things. I just can't see "at this time", the need for such a unit, when even things like the "credit bureau's" get hacked. I keep a band-aid over the camera on my lap top, and even with the cell phone, we have no way to know when the speaker becomes silently activated? I at times think we as a society do not know enough about "technology" and web-server functions" to grasp that... this "stuff" is not just flowing through the air monitored and un-tracted as well as what ever else they want to do with it... without being on "someones" server. I don't see the privacy aspect, unless it completely turned off, until its needed, and even then, with wifi capability, would we be assured its off, when we turn it off? The novelty of it sounds great... and it may well be an interesting "entertainment gadget". One the other hand, it could be a good security device, as it could record someone potentially doing something harmful to another, which could be beneficial to the authorities in catching the criminals.
|
