TV News Broadcast Accidentally Activates Alexa, Initiates Orders (cw6sandiego.com) 254
ShaunC writes: In San Diego, TV news anchor Jim Patton was covering a separate story about a child who accidentally ordered a doll house using her family's Echo. Commenting on the story, Patton said "I love the little girl, saying 'Alexa ordered me a dollhouse.'" Viewers across San Diego reported that in response to the news anchor's spoken words, their own Echo devices activated and tried to order doll houses from Amazon. Amazon says that anyone whose Echo inadvertently ordered a physical item can return it at no charge.
Meanwhile, Engadget reports that a team of Twitch streamers has convinced one Google Home device to answer questions from another, and they're livestreaming the surreal conversation.
Meanwhile, Engadget reports that a team of Twitch streamers has convinced one Google Home device to answer questions from another, and they're livestreaming the surreal conversation.
Dilbert predicted this (Score:5, Informative)
Much as I think Scott Adams has turned batsh!t crazy recently, he did predict this way back in 1994
http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-04-24
Re:Dilbert predicted this (Score:5, Funny)
He set it up, and then from the crowd, someone said "Format C: Enter", followed by another voice "Yes".
Sure enough, it formatted the entire drive, and the rep had a much shorter presentation than he was expecting, but even he had to admit, the demonstration, though short, was very effective.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No such event ever occurred.
Re:Dilbert predicted this (Score:4, Funny)
It did too. I was there, and the rep's name was Craig Shergold.
Re:What a coincidence (Score:5, Funny)
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We found it. The voice of god. The omnipotent one. The one who has been everywhere in history at the same time and has seen everything.
Not really surprised they are an anonymous coward, but we'll take what we're given.
All hail the mighty AC.
Covox Speech Hardware/Software in the later 1980s (Score:2)
Off-topic, we used it to read endless directory listings in a monotonous robotic voice. Those long winter evenings just flew by.
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This demo is usually attributed to Microsoft, which is how I know it's fake. There's no way Microsoft software would convert "see colon enter" into "C: " correctly :-)
There was another one from years back which might actually be true. Screen reader software being demonstrated, with the vendor claiming that it could optionally filter bad words. Of course, they opened the filter configuration window to enable it, and it promptly read out a catalogue of foul language before they could tick the enable box.
How has he turned crazy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Much as I think Scott Adams has turned batsh!t crazy recently
Scott Adams correctly predicted Trump would become president. Perhaps you should be a little less dismissive of someone who got something right that so many people predicted would turn out the other way...
Then of course there's the whole grew his own comic empire angle, but a bunch of stacked successes cant mean anything, right?
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Scott Adams predicted Trump would win in a landslide.
I realize nuance isn't important to people like you, but it is an important distinction since it implies less a careful analysis of the situation and more a wild-ass guess. But, hey, lets just start following anyone that happened to be (kind of) right that one time, even if they just got lucky. That's the true path to success.
Re: Trump didn't win, landslide or otherwise (Score:2, Informative)
In California, where the Democrat candidate got those 3,000,000 extra votes, anybody can get a driver's license, legal US citizen or not. Anybody in California can show up at the polls with a drivers license and vote.
There are considerably more than 3,000,000 illegal aliens in California.
Yet people act like the Republicans 'gamed the system.'
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Sorry, but no.
You're entitled to your opinion, but not your own set of facts.
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As a former border patrol officer said in an interview a few weeks ago 1 in 10 illegals he took into custody had a voter ID card on him/her. Considering the low percentage of voters who carry their ID cards with them it would seem a huge percentage of illegals vote.
Unless the border guard can point to recorded statistics, it's purely an opinion. In general, most people suck at keeping accurate track of numbers and statistics in their head so they will say something that "sounds right", based on memory, but are usually way off base.
He may have believed what he was saying, but that doesn't make it true...
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The States elect the President of the United States, not the people. Certainly not a landslide, but Trump did win around 60% of the States.
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...but a bunch of stacked successes cant mean anything, right?
Could mean someone is in the market for "Elbonian Success Buttresses"!
Is your success stacked to unbelievable heights?
Get yourself some "Elbonian Success Buttresses"
A Fine Product from Path-E-Tech**
**(We keep saying that so that if it actually happens it will look planned)
Re: How has he turned crazy? (Score:3)
Hey I just correctly predicted the outcome of this coin toss I just made. I must be a super genius!
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Hey I just correctly predicted the outcome of this coin toss I just made.
From what all of the polls and many media people were saying, the equivalent was tossing a two-headed coin, the guy next to you calling "edge" before it landed and him being right.
Did you seriously think before the election day it was a 50/50 shot? Even a 80/20 shot? Almost no-one was giving Trump odds above 10%, and that was just them being charitable, many were saying it was 99% sure that Hillary was going to win.
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Perhaps you should be a little less dismissive of someone who got something right that so many people predicted would turn out the other way.
Being right and being batshit crazy aren't mutually exclusive.
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cott Adams correctly predicted Trump would become president
Which proves he is about as accurate as a coin flip.
The reason people think he has gone crazy is stuff like this [dilbert.com]:
"Let me say this again, so you know Iâ(TM)m not kidding. Based on what I know about the human body, and the way our thoughts regulate our hormones, the Democratic National Convention is probably lowering testosterone levels all over the country."
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Predicting Trump would be elected was a stroke of genius, but not because he could foresee the future.
It was more like a stab in the dark - people already thought he was kind of out there, so if he predicts trump and he's wrong, so what?
But if he's right, he's a genius!
And so is Michael Moore? (didn't he predict a trump win too?)
(Actually, they both are arguably geniuses even if I may not like them.)
There was a good chance that Hillary could have won and if she had we'd be calling Scott Adams an idiot. (r
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Now we have these devices (Alexa, Siri, Google's forgettably named thing #6), that can listen in on everyone at home, and Trump (the product of election hacking by Putin) soon to control the agencies that can hack those devices.
And Trump is the crazy one.... Riiiiiiight
Not that they cannot and will not hack those devices. It's just that they will use that ability in a targeted manner, not to actually spy on everyone all the time.
Do you think Trump would have any issue with NSA (or Russian FSB for that matt
Re: How has he turned crazy? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that one of the problems were that Trump and Hillary both were too similar and nobody really wanted any of them.
Re:No (Score:2)
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I'm not so sure about that. I think it's more that his beliefs aren't from sound core principles, so are not well formed and therefore are subject to change. Well, that and the words come out faster than he can think about anything but himself.
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Re:Dilbert predicted this (Score:5, Informative)
Dilbert has made him rich - so the correct term is "batshit eccentric".
Re: Dilbert predicted this (Score:2)
I'm curious...please elaborate on how he is crazy and why you think this happened recently?
* he has ascribed to his outlook on life and ideology since before creating Dilbert...when he learned hypnosis techniques in his early 20s.
* though he never endorsed any candidate, he correctly observed Trump knew what he was doing and that he would become president...and it isn't the only correct call he has made
* in all his writings and interviews I've almost never seen a more reasoned, dispassionate insightful comm
Re: Dilbert predicted this (Score:5, Funny)
Hi Scott.
Conclusive evidence, one way or the other (Score:2)
People can judge for themselves with this playlist of Scott Adam's Periscope sessions.
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"Much as I think Scott Adams has turned batsh!t crazy recently,"
Or maybe he's just smarter than you.
No, he's gone batshit crazy. I love the comic strip but he's gone full-blown cranktard in the last few years.
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Why would you even think that a person's sanity is in anyway related to their intelligence?
Jail / prison will have better care and that may b (Score:2)
Jail / prison will have better care and that may be better then Bankruptcies.
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Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce The clear intent of the Founders was that individual states should be prevented by Congress from taxing and otherwise hampering interstate trade. Allowing the sale of insurance across state lines is clearly within the Constitutional powers of Congress, and it is beneficial for everyone concerned.
You, however, are claiming the right to prevent me from buying insurance wherever I want to,
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Somebody supporting racist, sexist, bullying fuckwads DOES deserve derision
Nice non-sequitur. Would you like to respond to my actual comment too?
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And yet, he leaves office with the highest approval rating of any post-war president.
I think Scott Adams would call this "cognitive dissonance".
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> post-war president.
Odd statement considering that every day of both of his terms, the US has been, and is still, at war. He's not a "post-war" president. Worst Nobel Peace Prize winner evah, save for Henry Kissinger.
Re:Dilbert predicted this (Score:5, Informative)
Problem is too many people just believe the made up stuff from Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and the like, and will believe the most bizarre rumors about Obama. As in that he's actively working to remove borders between the US, Canada, and Mexico, or that there was literally zero immigration between the 30s and the 50s. They don't have the evidence to back this up but they do believe whatever these people say on the air. So it's no wonder that people think Obama was raised by communists, is a muslim, was born in Kenya, etc, because American no longer bother to use their brains, it is a vestigial organ. Obama has deported more people than any other president and yet so many are firmly convinced that he's trying to get illegal immigration to increase. What's even more bizarre is that someone who's solidly right wing conservative can deny these conspiracy theories and then get shouted down for being a liberal who's trying to steal their guns, they're stuck to a viewpoint that you must be 100% in agreement with them or else you are an enemy. And they'll defend all this by saying "all mass media lies" which is their way of saying that all evidence must be ignored and rely only on your gut instincts. I've never seen America so weird before, and I lived in the 60s.
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Obama has killed more children with drones than all other Nobel peace prize winners combined.
Obama brought so much hope back to America that America voted for a Republican outsider to undo everything he did.
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Approval ratings are a snapshot measure of what peope believe to be true right now, without the benefit of historical reflection.
So are elections. Something tells me a lot of Trump voters are in for a very disappointing 4 years.
Re:Dilbert predicted this (Score:4, Insightful)
Another problem with American voters is that so many only bother to vote for the president. So in midterm elections they stay home and then are baffled the the opposition inevitably wins big in the house. Doesn't matter if the president is Democrat or Republican, midterms very often go the opposite direction. Congress has much more power than the president and yet the same fools get reelected over and over.
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And yet, even a fucktard like yourself admits he was a SUCCESSFUL President.
"Not as bad as Jimmy Carter" is not how I define a successful President.
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What does "bizzarely attractive" mean?
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I don't think it applies in the linked pictures, but I've heard the term used to describe women who aren't conventionally attractive and may actually have one or more features which are somewhat unattractive. Yet somehow the whole ends up being greater than the sum of its parts and they end up being attractive.
I often it boils down to the face/body duality. The girl with an unattractive face but great body, the girl with the so-so body but spellbinding face.
The actress Molly Parker is best example I can t
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Re: Dilbert predicted this (Score:2)
To be fair, I gave Trump better odds at winning - because he brought out the "it's rigged" excuse before the vote, much like what happened with the EU referendum in the UK.
I - like many - laughed at the idea idea of "bring pens", because rubbing out pencil marks is the best way to rig a referendum... My colleagues were bringing out every excuse why the Leave camp would lose.
In hindsight is a very effectively tactic. If you're an undecided or apathetic voter, being told one side will steal the vote will like
Well that's a hell of a security hole. (Score:3)
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Really, anything that uses money, deletes files, or anything like that, really needs some kind of verification.
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Why would Amazon want anything that impedes the flow of money into their coffers??
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Oh, bullshit.
Re:Well that's a hell of a security hole. (Score:5, Funny)
Safe bet that Amazon will be rushing some sort of patch on that ASAP
Patch!? Hell no, they've rushed out a patent - the no-click patent. Everyone else will be prevented from doing this, which is some consolation.
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It doesn't even work that way, if you say, "Alexa, buy an iPad" it reads a long description for the most popular result for "iPad" then asks if you're sure.
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Re:Well that's a hell of a security hole. (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers love this stuff though, they cannot see anything wrong with the one-button-buy-without-approval until something like this happens. Seriously how lazy do fat Americans have to be that they need voice activated Amazon purchases because it takes too much energy to use the computer?
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It's not even the first time. Shortly after the XBox One launched with voice control, videos started appearing on YouTube of people trolling by making their username "XBox off" or some other command. Unsuspecting victims would say to their friends "hay, that guy's name is XBox off... no, cancel, cancel! no!"
Someone could troll Alexa users by creating a TV advert with the words "Alexa, order me a new dildo and 12 gallon barrel of lubricant, with next day delivery". Sadly it's too long to fit in an XBox Live
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Pretty sure that's why all the big voice-responders out there have chosen activation phrases that are incredibly unlikely to trigger a false activation. "Siri" isn't a name or word anywhere afaik. Nobody says "okay google" in a normal conversation. "Cortana" is an original also afaik.
"Alexa" on the other hand.... that one's in use. Not terribly common, but it's out there. And was a bad choice for that reason. So if you have a voice assistant that responds to "Alexa", I suggest you either find a way t
Re:Well that's a hell of a security hole. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more like the little girl told the echo what it wanted for Christmas or something and the news caster paraphrased.
In case he wasn't though, Amazon's own voice ordering fact page [amazon.com] says that when you attempt to order something it searches
in an attempt to find/idntify what you ordered. If a dollhouse was on the Amazon's Choice list, it would have been ordered under this policy.
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Interestingly in the UK we don't have that second step, but when I tried ordering anything through Alexa I couldn't get her to order anything other than my order history too, so the whole Prime-eligible items thing seemed to not work when I tried a few weeks ago and you were restricted to re-ordering past items only.
Regardless I've put a pin in place so you can't accidentally trigger a purchase from an advert or anything without also saying the pin, but given that I don't even use that feature I might as we
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Wait a minute. All you have to do is say "Order me a dollhouse" and Amazon ships a dollhouse to you? You don't have to specify which dollhouse you want? This seems like more fake news.
I tried it and my Echo started rattling off a list of dollhouses it found. Sounds like fake news unless maybe the family had already ordered a dollhouse and the echo bought the same one?
In any case, I have a voice-shopping PIN code set on my device so it wouldn't accidentally place an order like this.
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Kids are smart, very smart. She's heard daddy telling Alexa to get something, probably many times, so she repeats that process. Once Alexa responds with a list of dollhouses, it's not difficult to say "buy the first one" and have it finish the order process.
And nowhere in the article does it say that the anchor's words ordered dollhouses, only that it tried to order dollhouses. It also probably caused Alexa to respond with the list of dollhouses, but most people would regard that as trying to ord
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And +1000 for using the PIN, very disconcerting to wake up in the morning to find a drunk forum post, how much more so if you find a drunk order for 2000 inflatable Heidi Klum dolls.
You really should use Ali Baba for a purchase that large, since you could probably get a bulk discount straight from the manufacturer. Plus you can use the money you saved on more alcohol!
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I believe the existence of and apparent broad expansion of Amazon's Dot device says otherwise. It's core purpose is reorder a specific consumable item with one touch.
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I believe the existence of and apparent broad expansion of Amazon's Dot device says otherwise. It's core purpose is reorder a specific consumable item with one touch.
I think you mean the Amazon Dash Button [amazon.com] . The Amazon Dot [amazon.com] is a less capable Amazon Echo device.
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There is a response and confirmation. I'm guessing the news reporter went on to describe that Alexa asked for confirmation and that the original little girl said yes, which all the Alexas listening took as confirmation of the order.
There's also an optional PIN requirement that should really be mandatory.
Well bugger me! (Score:5, Funny)
Well bugger me! ... No! No! Cancel! ...
Alexa 7.0 robotic assistant will need a safe word.
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Alexa, Stop!
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Well bugger me! ... No! No! Cancel! ...
Alexa 7.0 robotic assistant will need a safe word.
My safe word is, "OUCH! TAKE IT OUT!"
Same problem as with one-click ordering (Score:2)
I got tired of playing whack-a-mole with Amazon's settings trying to disable one-click ordering (there isn't one universal setting to turn it off - the different stores have their own independent settings). I ended up just creating a dummy Amazon account with no credit card info attached, and linked my phone and tablet apps which require an Amazon login to that account instead of my regular Amazon account. Sounds like that may be the best way to dea
puzzled (Score:5, Insightful)
What gives me pause - is it really such an inconvenience to open a browser and, like, click a single button? I'm no technophobe, but I am against the misapplication of technology. I guess Alexia and Siri and the like are OK if one is a paraplegic or otherwise unable to use their hands.
Other than my grand nieces shouting cute things at Siri to see what happens... it simply strikes me as flash and little substance.
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These online companies love this because they get more impulse buys. If you have to pull out the credit card to buy then it gives the dumb consumers chance to rethink their order. If someone complains they will refund for one order, or one customer, etc, but they will not change their minds on the technology that makes them tons of money taking advantage of customers.
(Amazon even tries to mislead people into signing up for Prime where the one-touch buy works best, by saying "click here for free shipping!"
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These online companies love this because they get more impulse buys. If you have to pull out the credit card to buy then it gives the dumb consumers chance to rethink their order. If someone complains they will refund for one order, or one customer, etc, but they will not change their minds on the technology that makes them tons of money taking advantage of customers.
(Amazon even tries to mislead people into signing up for Prime where the one-touch buy works best, by saying "click here for free shipping!" Had to clean this up from my mother after noticing she was into a Prime first month free trial with automatic charging of the credit card at the end of the month, and she had no idea what Prime even was and only purchases one or two things a year from them. This seems very deliberate and not just a misunderstanding as you can see the lack of safeguards or explanations of what you're signing up for.)
^^^ This.
I also had to do this for my mother, after she had ordered something a bit closer to Christmas than she wanted to, and of course she clicked on the enticingly blinky "Free 2 day shipping!!!" button, with the eensy teensy fine print on the bottom about something-something Prime. Who doesn't want to be Prime? Sure! It's free, after all, the button says it is! Of course she knows what she's doing, she's ordered from Amazon at least two or three time in the last couple of years...she's an old hand
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is it really such an inconvenience
Everything is an inconvenience if it can be done quicker faster and easier using some other way. It's why we invented the TV remote control. We didn't even want to get off the couch much less go to a computer, browse some website, find something and order it. It's why we have repeat periodic ordering, it's why some people outsource their dinner arrangements.
Any little thing is not inconvenient enough to be a problem. All the little inconveniences however do add up.
Would someone go and buy a dedicated device
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It's why we invented the TV remote control.
We've had television remote control for a very long time, and in fact could bring beer and cigarettes as well as change channels.
They were called "children".
Capitalism peaks (Score:2)
Buurrrp
Alexa: "Congratulations! You've just ordered a Burmese rug! It will arrive in about 5 days."
All of this voice stuff gives me the willies. (Score:3, Funny)
Funny Story (Score:2)
TV News Broadcast Accidentally Activates Alexa, Initiates Orders
That headline reminds me of a problem the Jedi had in the Minora system - pretty often Jedi were going there and just not coming back. Well it turned out they had this really popular ice cream chain in the system called "Scoop 2 Order" that had 66 flavors and had just launched a big holovid campaign and... well the results were not pretty (for the Jedi anyway).
Re:Funny Story (Score:4, Funny)
That headline reminds me of a problem the Jedi had in the Minora system
Okay, I like Star Wars but this comment hit my Nerd-O-Meter so hard that the needle broke off, went rocketing into the sky and was last seen punching a hole in one of Saturn's rings.
Ok, I'll bite. (Score:2)
Ok, I'll bite. Explain it to those of us who have only seen 7 Star Wars movies, plea
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Order 66 is the order for the execution of the Jedi, as seen in Episode III
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To be fair, one can be forgiven for not remembering Order 66 since so many Star Wars fans hired Will Smith for a memory wipe after watching the sequels.
I personally did not like the sequels but did like the Order 66 twist quite a bit, I mean how can you watch anything all the Clone Wars material (cartoons and so on) and not constantly think about how they are going to turn on a dime to kill the Jedi? It's just this big looming unexplored plot point that has a lot of potential, none of it explored.
I can see a new game (Score:2)
Alexa... (Score:2)
"Alexa, set fire to my house!"
Ha ha, just kidd- hey, do I smell smoke?
"OK Google" has same problem (Score:2)
More than once, in an advertisement or news story, someone has said "OK Google," usually demonstrating what the command can do. In response, often one of our phones will respond. So far, it has only said "I'm sorry, I didn't get that" or something similar.
A little too simplistic? (Score:3)
How could Alexa make a reasonable dollhouse choice with just the words "Alexa, order a dollhouse"? What kind? How big? How expensive? Seems the intelligence of the shopping aspects of the voice commands is a bit stunted.
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Seems the intelligence of the shopping aspects of the voice commands is a bit stunted.
Actually it goes through a documented search process starting with your own history, brands, prime items, and items in stock and available for immediate delivery. I think you're of low* intelligence.
*You're probably not, but I know nothing about you and I'm not going to bother to look you up so I'm just going to make a random assumption without basis and put it here on the internet hoping for some modpoints.
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Well, perhaps I do have "low" intelligence, but I have written shopping cart features for a major customer-facing Web site, so I do know something about how shopping carts work. Frankly, if I wanted a dollhouse, say, for a family member, I'd have to see quite a few of them myself, before even I knew which one I wanted! Maybe you'd be happy enough just taking whichever one Alexa chose for you, but I don't know many people who wouldn't at least care about the price range.
FALSE NEWS (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone with an Alexa knows when you start an order it lists matching products and asks for verification.
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It is entirely possible for it to take something else said by the reporter as choosing a dollhouse and verifying it. Amazon should really set it up to use a PIN by default.
Siri and news radio in the car... (Score:2)
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She hears "...reports say Syria..." on CNN and then starts listening, I get a whole paragraph of attempted actions.
TV: "Reports say Syrian extremists threaten to bomb the White House"
Siri: "Composing email...sent!"
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The password is Alexa. Its not a common word.
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Unless you know someone named Alex (or even Alexa) and speak rapidly or slur your words...and really, who doesn't slur juuust enough to get the wrongeset word sometimes? Reading my friends' dictated texts is a hilarious enterprise on occasion...
"Alex-and-Jeff-want-to-buy-a-car. A-black-2016-Escalade."
2 weeks later
"Oh no, what have you done!"
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It's available, but it isn't enabled by default.
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It's their policy to offer refunds whenever you don't want what you bought, just like most other stores do, this incident is just a specific application of the policy.
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As if the current POTUS hasn't ordered thousands already.