Apple entering the Home Assistant Fray

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

In my book, Echo and all other similar devices/gadgets (Siri, Cortana...) fall into the category of gadgets that do things you should be doing (should be able to do) yourself.

How do you stream music from the cloud without a gadget?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by wodin

It can prevent my wife from having to crawl into her wheelchair and wheel herself across the room to turn off the light, only to wheel herself back and crawl back into the bed.

Granted, my use case might be different than yours, but for Susie it's a Godsend!

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

YouTube can he helpful there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6JpcBF_zBY

But of course, there is the always effective four step process:

1- Run
2- As long as at least one of your companions lags you, keep running.
3- When the last lagging companion starts to pass you, trip him.
4- Don't look back.

[Cinisajoy]

FWIW, I can look up stuff in an encyclopedia but my smartphone is so much easier and recommended a fabulous Chinese restaurant on Christmas day. We had gone to see my mother.

I can read a map but Garmin is so much easier.

I can do math in my head but for a string of numbers give me a calculator or spreadsheet.

And not to mention a gadget is the only way to post here.

We will not discuss all the kitchen gadgets that make life easier.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

How do you stream music from the cloud without a gadget?

I don't. Why should I either put my own music in the cloud, or rely on someone else's cloud to listen to music, if I have everything right here?

New Age Hipster: "Data plans must change! Too expensive, too limited! How can I stream music to my phone when I've only got 2GB of data?!"
Practical Me: *Rockin' a 128 GB FLAC player (can be extended to 256 GB with a second SD-card), listening music for 16 hours straight before the battery's dead *

It's the same with computer games and/or consoles. I'm often derided when I tell people that I refuse to buy games that are not on GOG.com, or require online activation when bought on CD-ROM. Until...

Them: "My internet is down. I can't play! The game won't activate!"
Me: * Gaming until my eyes are square *

Cloud, schmoud. It's just an old concept in hipster clothing: all the computing power and storage under control of some big companies, with people using those services with low power hardware. You know when that kind of computing was the norm? Between 1965 and 1980. Now I live in 2016, and I have the money and capability to have everything under my own control. I'm not going back to 1970, depending on the whims of some big company.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

FWIW, I can look up stuff in an encyclopedia but my smartphone is so much easier and recommended a fabulous Chinese restaurant on Christmas day. We had gone to see my mother.

I can read a map but Garmin is so much easier.

I can do math in my head but for a string of numbers give me a calculator or spreadsheet.

And not to mention a gadget is the only way to post here.

We will not discuss all the kitchen gadgets that make life easier.

True, but you *can* do without them if you need to. There are many people for whom "easy" is so important that they stop thinking for themselves. If I look around during my commute to work every morning, do you know what I see?

People who's field of view of the world is very small. It's between 4,5 and 6 inch. Their entire life seems to be in that one gadget they're holding.

[dickloraine]

Maybe people want to spend their time thinking about more important/interesting things than to calculate numbers in their heads, carry a map and planning and memorizing a route etc.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

---
There are many people for whom "easy" is so important that they stop thinking for themselves. If I look around during my commute to work every morning, do you know what I see?

People who's field of view of the world is very small. It's between 4,5 and 6 inch. Their entire life seems to be in that one gadget they're holding.

I wouldn't assume gadgets are their entire life. I would assume it is people taking advantage of the time.
What would you think of a person doing needlework or reading a book on the commute?
Same exact idea just a different use of the time.
Just out of curiosity, other than people watch, how do you occupy yourself on the commute?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I wouldn't assume gadgets are their entire life. I would assume it is people taking advantage of the time.
What would you think of a person doing needlework or reading a book on the commute?

It would be a useful activity. Tapping sentences into a phone one after another (what I see most younger people doing) is not. If there is something you'd need to discuss you could just call and be done with it MUCH faster.

Just out of curiosity, other than people watch, how do you occupy yourself on the commute?

If the commute is long enough (at least 20 minutes or so), I read a book or listen to music. The chance of me answering my phone in any way in public transport is very low, except if you're one of the people who has a ringtone assigned instead of a vibration alert.

The chance of me engaging in a Whatsapp conversation longer than two or three sentences is about the same as hell freezing over.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It would be a useful activity. Tapping sentences into a phone one after another (what I see most younger people doing) is not. If there is something you'd need to discuss you could just call and be done with it MUCH faster.

My experience with heavy texters is that they don't answer their phones. You need to text them and set up an appointment for a phone call.

[tubemonkey]

I'm a digital monkey and I want a voice activated world

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

YouTube can he helpful there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6JpcBF_zBY

But of course, there is the always effective four step process:

1- Run
2- As long as at least one of your companions lags you, keep running.
3- When the last lagging companion starts to pass you, trip him.
4- Don't look back.

Yep, the smart outdoorsman always brings along companions he can out run

Tripping -- a survival skill well worth the time to practice doing

Companions - gotta love 'em

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It would be a useful activity. Tapping sentences into a phone one after another (what I see most younger people doing) is not. If there is something you'd need to discuss you could just call and be done with it MUCH faster.



If the commute is long enough (at least 20 minutes or so), I read a book or listen to music. The chance of me answering my phone in any way in public transport is very low, except if you're one of the people who has a ringtone assigned instead of a vibration alert.

The chance of me engaging in a Whatsapp conversation longer than two or three sentences is about the same as hell freezing over.

I personally find it much easier to text my oldest daughter. Usually need quick information which is more easily texted.
Example: baby name, her address, assorted phone numbers or in one case she sent me a baby pic. The baby will arrive in September.

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It would be a useful activity. Tapping sentences into a phone one after another (what I see most younger people doing) is not. If there is something you'd need to discuss you could just call and be done with it MUCH faster.
.

Most people don't just comunicate if tgere is a need to discuss. And maybe, just maybe they are even tapping sentence after sentence into the phone and this sentences appear here on mobile read.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by dickloraine

Most people don't just comunicate if tgere is a need to discuss. And maybe, just maybe they are even tapping sentence after sentence into the phone and this sentences appear here on mobile read.

Some might even be writing/editing their sociology paper (or novel) about the lives and habits of commuters in stinky overcrowded cities.

(SOFTMAKER OFFICE is good for that. And it has a free version.)

[leebase]

My 71yr old mother got lost and confused driving home at night recently. Not "alzheimer" confused. But "missed my turn, it's dark, and there's lots of construction making the familiar, unfamiliar".

She had a mobile phone to call and let us know she was scared and worried...but not a smartphone that could have told her where she was and routed her home. A paper map would not have helped given she didn't know where she was.

Yes...when the nukes go off and fry our tech toys....I pray to be at ground zero. Have no desire to live without my tech.

And yes...there are always stupid people. They existed before tech too. Some of them write posts