Amazon Echo Club

[ApK]

Originally Posted by mlewis78

For a few months my Tap Alexa has been saying "Have a Good Weekend" if I ask it something on a Saturday, say what is the weather or what time is it. Now she's coming out with a lot of similar comments. Today it was "Enjoy the sunshine!" If I could, I would get it to stop this. She would probably say, "Hmmm, I don't know that one."

F'in-A, Bubba! There needs to be a setting between "brief mode," which apparently offers only an ambiguous and unsatisfying beep (as if she doesn't beep enough for no discernible reason) and normal, which has gotten way to chatty. A setting like "Just say 'OK' and keep your freakin' comments to yourself."

GMTA, apparently, I was actually coming here to post on this very matter.

ApK

[issybird]

Originally Posted by mlewis78

For a few months my Tap Alexa has been saying "Have a Good Weekend" if I ask it something on a Saturday, say what is the weather or what time is it. Now she's coming out with a lot of similar comments. Today it was "Enjoy the sunshine!" If I could, I would get it to stop this. She would probably say, "Hmmm, I don't know that one."

Originally Posted by ApK

F'in-A, Bubba! There needs to be a setting between "brief mode," which apparently offers only an ambiguous and unsatisfying beep (as if she doesn't beep enough for no discernible reason) and normal, which has gotten way to chatty. A setting like "Just say 'OK' and keep your freakin' comments to yourself."

GMTA, apparently, I was actually coming here to post on this very matter.

ApK

Right there with you both:

Originally Posted by issybird

I have two minor irritants that I'd like to resolve if possible, because irritating.

I hate how Alexa will end up a conversation by saying something fatuous like, "Have a good morning." She's a machine. We're not engaging on a personal level. Can this be turned off?

She's gotten worse lately, too. Already today I've gotten a "Happy Friday" and a "The weekend called; it will be here in a few hours."

I can't imagine anyone. at. all. finds this useful or entertaining.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ApK

F'in-A, Bubba! There needs to be a setting between "brief mode," which apparently offers only an ambiguous and unsatisfying beep (as if she doesn't beep enough for no discernible reason) and normal, which has gotten way to chatty. A setting like "Just say 'OK' and keep your freakin' comments to yourself."

What Amazon needs is a male voice option. That would be a welcome relief for those who don't like the way too chatty female voice

I'm ducking for cover now

[OtinG]

Wow, Monkey, did you just call in friendly fire on your position? Good luck with that!

It would be interesting to see the real faces of the programmers and other developers who actually design and program Alexa's responses. Somehow I keep getting the image of a bunch of pimple faced, early twenty-something guys... Regardless, I'm getting very tired of giving her a tried and proven command and having her respond with, "Hmmm, I don't know that one." Then I give the exact same command again and she executes it without issue. Clearly some bad mojo going down there... I wonder if her servers are failing to get the command to her properly, so the fall back is to play stupid. Or maybe she just is stupid...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Wow, Monkey, did you just call in friendly fire on your position? Good luck with that!

Yep

Hey, do you have room in your foxhole or am I on my own?

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Yep

Hey, do you have room in your foxhole or am I on my own?

Qsfsf .... ftumfdrsn ... afarbb ... what's that? The radio is breaking up ... can't hear you ....

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Qsfsf .... ftumfdrsn ... afarbb ... what's that? The radio is breaking up ... can't hear you ....

Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm heading for my banana bunker

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm heading for my banana bunker

One of your cats is already there and getting prepared... I'll be observing from my secret Moon Base, hopefully out of the line of fire!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtinG

One of your cats is already there and getting prepared... I'll be observing from my secret Moon Base, hopefully out of the line of fire!

Smart kitty and wise decision

[tubemonkey]

BBC to launch Alexa rival that will grasp regional accents

Corporation recording voices of staff across UK to help Beeb software understand accents

The BBC is preparing to launch a rival to Amazon’s Alexa called Beeb, with a pledge that it will understand British accents.

The voice assistant, which has been created by an in-house BBC team, will be launched next year, with a focus on enabling people to find their favourite programmes and interact with online services.

While some US-developed products have struggled to understand strong regional accents, the BBC will this week ask staff in offices around the UK to record their voices and make sure the software understands them.

The BBC currently has no plans to launch a standalone physical product such as Amazon’s Echo speaker or a Google Home device. Instead, the Beeb software will be built into the BBC’s website, its iPlayer app on smart TVs, and made available to manufacturers who want to incorporate the public broadcaster’s software.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

BBC to launch Alexa rival that will grasp regional accents

Good luck to them. For the record, I think Alexa only marginally understands American accents. She stumbles over a lot of what we say. I realize that here in America we are a melting pot of peoples from all over the world and thus there are probably thousands of different accents herein, but Alexa even struggles with the more prominent accents too. I think some of that has to do with the transmission of what we say via microphones and through the internet and through her servers. A lot can get lost or messed up in transit, and a lot can get garbled with microphones in an environment with background noises occurring. But I think a lot of it is just due to lack of knowledge on the part of the designers. She occasionally improves, sometimes by a large amount, but here lately she seems to be worse than she has been in a long time...

[John F]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Good luck to them. For the record, I think Alexa only marginally understands American accents. She stumbles over a lot of what we say. I realize that here in America we are a melting pot of peoples from all over the world and thus there are probably thousands of different accents herein, but Alexa even struggles with the more prominent accents too. I think some of that has to do with the transmission of what we say via microphones and through the internet and through her servers. A lot can get lost or messed up in transit, and a lot can get garbled with microphones in an environment with background noises occurring. But I think a lot of it is just due to lack of knowledge on the part of the designers. She occasionally improves, sometimes by a large amount, but here lately she seems to be worse than she has been in a long time...

The bolded part surprised me. I would have guessed that they would use some lossless/guaranteed protocol.

[tubemonkey]

Amazon could unveil fitness-tracking earbuds and a larger Echo speaker this week

Amazon has a hardware event lined up for Wednesday, and if last year’s showcase was any indication, we might see multiple new devices from the company. CNBC has just published a report saying that Amazon is working on wireless earbuds with health-tracking features and “a new, bulkier Echo device that comes with a woofer and better speakers than the original version.”

As for the new flagship Echo, Amazon will reportedly focus on upgrading the smart speaker’s sound performance with new speaker components and a built-in woofer. The current lineup of Echo devices still can’t compete with speakers from Sonos and Apple, so Amazon clearly wants to make up some ground in terms of audio quality.

[tubemonkey]

FTR, monkey hates earbuds

[tubemonkey]

"Alexa, what am I holding?"

After losing her sight suddenly at age 41, Stacie Grijalva faced a new reality, one that inspired a new mission. A mechanical engineer by background, Grijalva was committed to exploring how assistive technology could make life a little easier for the blind and visually impaired, and sharing that information with others. “My job is to help people with visual impairments see how technology can affect people’s lives and make them feel better about what they do on a day-to-day basis.”

Alexa-enabled devices are already a big help around the house for Grijalva, from changing the channel on her Fire TV to using her voice to turn off lights and appliances. Now, an Echo Show feature makes it easier to identify household pantry items.

With Show and Tell, blind and low vision customers can hold up an item to the Echo Show camera and ask, “Alexa, what am I holding,” and Alexa helps identify the item through advanced computer vision and machine learning technologies for object recognition.

“The whole idea for Show and Tell came about from feedback from blind and low vision customers,” said Sarah Caplener, head of Amazon’s Alexa for Everyone team. “We heard that product identification can be a challenge and something customers wanted Alexa’s help with. Whether a customer is sorting through a bag of groceries, or trying to determine what item was left out on the counter, we want to make those moments simpler by helping identify these items and giving customers the information they need in that moment.”