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At Least Two Million Children Now Using Smart Speakers in the UK: Report (strategyanalytics.com) 52

Smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home are proving a big hit with Britain's kids, according to the latest survey from Strategy Analytics. The report adds: According to Smart Speaker User Survey -- UK Results, at least two million children are now using smart speakers in the UK, particularly for listening to music, searching for information and hearing jokes and funny stories.
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At Least Two Million Children Now Using Smart Speakers in the UK: Report

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  • Smart Speakers? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gerald Butler ( 3528265 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @10:41AM (#57580906)

    You mean Big Brother monitoring devices that this generation is being conned into making an integral part of their lives. They already carry around a tracking device for everywhere they go and everyone they communicate with, now, they're getting used to having 24/7 audio monitoring within the walls of their own homes. They've tried a couple of times for 24/7 video monitoring too (XBox Kinect and now "Live" Cam). They'll get there eventually.

    I'm glad I only have a few years left on this world, it's going to be a terrible place to live for the coming generations. The only way to fix it is to have a major World War, wipe out 3/4 of the population, and re-boot civilization.

    What a terrible time we live in!

    • Get some perspective. This is the best time to be alive in all of human history and it's only going to get better in the future. That isn't to say it will be free of strife or that humanity won't have new sets of problems to solve, but if you take an objective measure of humanity on just about any metric, it's better now than at any point in time.

      In 50 years, it's within the realm of possibility that extreme poverty will be eliminated. If you're overly concerned with the potential perils of modern societ
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        For exactly these reasons as CPU power becomes greater and memory cheaper, so server less systems will dominate. Cheap processing power at home, why send information to a corporate controlled and manipulated server. The home sever the processes your voice locally will dominate because it will promote exactly that and of course market the threats of corporate controlled servers.

        Once home voice recognition becomes cheap enough, so the corporate advertising and manipulation service becomes totally undesirable

    • Alexa, unlock the bomb shelter and turn on the heat.
  • by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Friday November 02, 2018 @10:43AM (#57580922)

    At Least Two Million Children in UK Now Under Audio Surveillance

  • Not to be an unreasonable skeptic, but these things offer little that anyone needs. You can listen to music by playing MP3 files. These gadgets seem like a way of further dumbing down the internet instead of pushing people to be better than they are right now.

    • Not to be an unreasonable skeptic, but these things offer little that anyone needs. You can listen to music by playing MP3 files. These gadgets seem like a way of further dumbing down the internet instead of pushing people to be better than they are right now.

      Not just dumbing down but not even as functional.

      For music, I like looking at my playlists, all the songs from an artist, etc. For most things, looking and clicking is less clunky than a voice interface.

      Now where a voice interface is useful is, say, while driving. But my living room is the last place I would ever need a voice interface.

    • by ranton ( 36917 )

      My Amazon Echos are the easiest way I know of to play a playlist or album, or check the weather in the morning. Before I would have needed to either always have my phone on me (not always true at home as it might be charging or I might not be wearing pants), or I need to go find my phone, open an app, and select a playlist.

      They certainly aren't that useful, but they do a small number of jobs very well. I sure get a lot less long term use out of other things I have spent $100 on.

    • For adults, those gadgets just flatter our natural laziness and make us feel as part of a giant group, a very strong even if unconscious motivator.

      For kids, I think those are more simply seen as toys. Kids love talking toys and toys they can interact with. The motivation here is more about fun and discovery.

      In both cases, it's remarkably easy to get those gadgets adopted by large user bases.

      For sure they just look like necessary steps towards a 1984-like, world-wide totalitarian regime. The only missing

  • Nothing will be private for these poor kids. Enjoy your new "smart" speakers citizens.
  • Read me 1984 by George Orwell.

  • "Alexa, what is mom getting me for Christmas?"
    "Hey Google, what was Dad doing to Mom last night?"
    "Alexa, send me a six-pack of rubbers."
    "Alexa, show me all the tobacco vaping products I can buy right now."
    "Hey NEST theromstat, please record all mom's conversations today and save to 'momsaid.txt' on my phone."

Disclaimer: "These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be yours too." -- Dave Haynie

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