Wal-Mart To Enter Voice-Shopping Market Via Google Platform (reuters.com) 33
Wal-Mart Stores is teaming up with Google to enter the nascent voice-shopping market, currently dominated by Amazon.com, adding another front to Wal-Mart's battle with the online megastore. From a report: Google, which makes the Android software used to run most of the world's smartphones, will offer hundreds of thousands of Walmart items on its voice-controlled Google Assistant platform from late September, Walmart's head of e-commerce, Marc Lore, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. Lore, who joined the world's largest retailer after it bought his e-commerce company Jet.com, said Wal-Mart would offer a wider selection than any retailer on the platform. Amazon, whose voice-controlled aide Alexa allows users to shop from the retailer, has the lion's share of the U.S. voice-controlled device industry, with its Echo devices accounting for 72.2 percent of the market in 2016, far ahead of the Google Home gadget's 22 percent, according to research firm eMarketer.
Alexa order 4 shotguns 10 Gross of shells a 12 pac (Score:3)
Alexa order 4 shotguns 10 Gross of shells a 12 pack of sam adams.
What will happen with that?
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Oblig: https://xkcd.com/1807/
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What was $10 last week could easily be $60 this week. I don't expect the verbal version to work any better.
Well, it COULD give better information on price.
It COULD give reviews. It COULD give any information that an online purchase would do. The problem is, to do any of that it would be slower and more inconvenient than going online.
If you're going to do any sort of shopping around- voice shopping seems a much less convenient way of shopping.
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I say (or more shout from the bathroom as I put the last roll of toilet paper into service) "alexa order more toilet paper" it reads off the brand I've recently purchased, gives me a price, and asks for confirmation, I say "yes" it asks for a pin number I have setup, I say a few numbers and 2 days later a fresh pack of toilet paper is on my front door.
I do similar for the few food items that are cheaper through amazon (usually things that are hard to find in grocery stores locally).
I'm not sure I've ever us
Who is getting these devices? (Score:2)
But this class of gizmos really confuses me: which consumers are really tying their credit cards to a microphone that can start buying random items based on the words that fall out of people's mouths (or the TV/radio shows they listen to loudly)? And what con
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>I still haven't tied a credit card to any of my mobile phones or accounts
Until it's a LOT safer to do so, I never will. One wrong click and you've agreed to pay for something. But without a credit card on record, I can never ever make that mistake nor be subject to all sorts of potential risk from the vendor (or my phone or tablet) getting hacked.
And that's without even considering how much easier it makes it for companies like Facebook and Google to collect data on you. Convenience in return for all
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This sort of thing is where prepaid credit cards really shine. Use them, and only load them with the amount of money needed for the purchase. Worst case, your losses would be limited to just that amount.
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This sort of thing is where prepaid credit cards really shine. Use them, and only load them with the amount of money needed for the purchase. Worst case, your losses would be limited to just that amount.
Bingo. That's what prepaid cards are for.
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This sort of thing is where prepaid credit cards really shine. Use them, and only load them with the amount of money needed for the purchase. Worst case, your losses would be limited to just that amount.
Even better, use a real credit card and your losses are limited to $0. Okay, technically, $50 is what the law says, but the credit card issuance industry is extremely competitive and I haven't heard of any issuer that holds their customers liable for the legally-allowed $50 in decades.
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This is true, but then you also have to deal with the problem of replacing your credit card once it has been abused. With prepaid, that's not really an issue.
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I still haven't tied a credit card to any of my mobile phones or accounts (mainly because there hasn't been a mobile app released yet that's worth paying for), but I get that there's a market out there, especially among the less tech-savvy out there. But this class of gizmos really confuses me: which consumers are really tying their credit cards to a microphone that can start buying random items based on the words that fall out of people's mouths (or the TV/radio shows they listen to loudly)? And what confuses me more is that they aren't free - people actually part with their money to buy them - why?
You don't tie these devices to a credit card. You tie them to a service you already have a subscription for. So rather than going to a browser to play Rhapsody songs or order a frequent item off Amazon Prime (or say, buying diapers with Amazon Dash), or to order pizza off Dominoes as one would do it via Dominoe's web site) you simply tell it.
There are obvious security issues to be concerned with, but there is nothing as flagrant as storing a credit card in the open. Besides, devices such as Alexa do a lo
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Dude, nobody gives the slightest shit that you have a taste for sushi flavored Pringles.
There are obviously people who want to know that sort of thing quite badly. Why else is so much time, effort, and money spent to gather this sort of data?
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In fairness to Google, they're not really the worst company in terms of user privacy. I can think of others that score lower. AT&T, for instance.
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Google, probably the worst company in terms of user privacy
Cite?
Seriously, can you cite some examples of Google leaking private information, or someone being damaged by information stolen from Google?
The only one I know of was that Google carelessly opted Buzz users in to sharing the names of their email contacts, in 2010.
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Seriously, can you cite some examples of Google leaking private information, or someone being damaged by information stolen from Google?
Easy - here's [therecorder.com] one that got settled only yesterday. And here's [epic.org] EPIC's take on it (PDF), where they criticize Google for pushing for a settlement that doesn't block them from continuing their practices, as long as they dump a few extra lines in the privacy policy - which Google knows full well nobody reads.
I understand from another post that you work for Google, so I can see why you're motivated to spin things to make the company look better. However, your post is quite dishonest. The GP criticizes Google as
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Seriously, can you cite some examples of Google leaking private information, or someone being damaged by information stolen from Google?
Easy - here's [therecorder.com] one that got settled only yesterday. And here's [epic.org] EPIC's take on it (PDF)
Neither of those links tells me what it's actually about. I did some searching and it appears that the complaint is that web browsers send a the Referer header to sites when users click links. So, when a user searches for terms on Google and clicks a result link, the operator of the linked site gets the Referer containing the search terms.
I understand from another post that you work for Google, so I can see why you're motivated to spin things to make the company look better.
I do work for Google, but I have no interest in spinning anything.
However, your post is quite dishonest. The GP criticizes Google as an invader of everybody's privacy. Your reply tries to re-frame the question, by making it whether Google unintentionally gives the data they gather to others.
Intentionally or unintentionally, either way. I did reframe the question, not in terms of intentionality,
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I did reframe the question, not in terms of intentionality, but in terms of harm. So let me be clearer: Can you give me any examples of users being harmed? I can give you extensive examples of users being helped.
See, you're doing it again - spinning and trying to deflect the issue. This is bad form, even if your paycheck comes from Google.
Invading somebody's privacy is bad in itself, period. Whether some demonstrable harm results is irrelevant. Would you be comfortable if your nosy neighbor drilled holes in your walls to spy on you, installed radio bugs on your car to find out where you're going at all times, followed you to the grocery store to ask the sales guy what you bought and dug through your garbage to read
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See, you're doing it again - spinning and trying to deflect the issue.
No, I'm trying to get at the core issue, trying to get you to think about what actually matters, and why.
Invading somebody's privacy is bad in itself, period.
And now you're using loaded language to try to shape the discussion. There's no "invasion" here. You interact voluntarily with Google's services, and in exchange you get targeted ads.
To begin with, your blanket assertion that no users were harmed is contradicted by the links I posted, which show Google settling class actions brought by users who felt they were harmed.
You didn't read the links, and didn't read my response to them. That lawsuit is ridiculous, it has nothing to do with Google, it's just how the web works. Google isn't even the one getting the allegedly "private" information
Executive function (Score:2)
Lesser evils (Score:2)
I feel dirty when I buy stuff from Amazon, but buying from Wal-Mart? Even I can't sink that low.
Hullo? Wal-Mart? (Score:1)
Spam-mart (Score:2)
Oh, that is going to be "fun". Wal-Mart is one of the few "serious" businesses which sends me spam. Pure, unfalsified spam, not some newsletter they pretend you signed up for by not checking a box somewhere. At first I thought it must be someone doing it to sully their name, or maybe it redirected to a phishing site or something... nope. It's actually them.
Never mind that I live in the wrong freaking hemisphere for Wal-Mart, they're SURE I would like some offers anyway!