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Privacy Technology Hardware

Amazon Will No Longer Support the Echo Look, Encourages Owners To Recycle Theirs (theverge.com) 25

"Amazon is discontinuing its Echo Look camera, a standalone device that gave owners fashion advice using artificial intelligence and machine learning," reports The Verge. The gadget raised eyebrows when it was first announced as it included a virtual assistant with a microphone and a camera specifically designed to go somewhere in your bedroom, bathroom, or wherever the hell you get dressed. From the report: The Look's companion app and the device itself will stop functioning on July 24th. Between now and July 24th, 2021, Look users can back up their images and videos by making a free Amazon Photos account. (People with existing Photos accounts will have their media backed up automatically.) Anyone who wants to delete all their existing photos and videos will have to do so before the July 2020 deadline; otherwise, they'll have to call Amazon's customer service to have them deleted. They can currently delete them through the Look app.

Amazon points out that much of the Echo Look's functionality is now included in the Amazon Shopping app, including Style by Alexa, which involves the AI offering fashion pointers. The company says people should download the app to keep consulting with Amazon, and they should also recycle their Look through Amazon's program.

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Amazon Will No Longer Support the Echo Look, Encourages Owners To Recycle Theirs

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  • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Saturday May 30, 2020 @02:16AM (#60124246)

    I guess Amazon finally figured out where the "oh hell no, that's just creepy" limit is for average consumers. Echo in the living room, fine. Camera and microphone in the bedroom that watches you dress? Uh... no.

  • by Gavino ( 560149 ) on Saturday May 30, 2020 @02:40AM (#60124280)
    "Alexa, check out my meatswing" "Meatswings went out of fashion several years ago, Gavino" "Ah Ok - I'll put some pants on"
  • We're not right (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AndyKron ( 937105 ) on Saturday May 30, 2020 @03:54AM (#60124348)
    Continuing the endless waste stream of obsolete electronic products
  • by ReneR ( 1057034 ) on Saturday May 30, 2020 @04:06AM (#60124388)
    Did the world not spread that this IoT stuff is mostly planned obsolescence, eco system locking and money shredding nonsense?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nonBORG ( 5254161 )
      Just wait till Amazon start selling cars.

      imagine. Your car will stop working on July 20 please make sure you are pulled over to the side prior to this date.
      • by Falos ( 2905315 )

        *hides Start button with UpdateAvailable dialog box*

        authentication error, if this continues contact the network administrator

        Guess you can get home if you rip the wheels out and live downhill.

      • Just wait till Amazon start selling cars.

        imagine. Your car will stop working on July 20 please make sure you are pulled over to the side prior to this date.

        You've figured it out already. Trademark it, quickly! Amazon then sells the data of cars that are going to "stop functioning" to barrel-scrapers who will contact you by mail with official-looking documents, email, text, and any other means that are available at the time, to advertise their "device life extending plan".

        "Your car will now function until October of 2020. We will contact you before that date to sel^H^H^Hlet you know that your car is at the end of its functional life. You can then purchase m

    • An unfortunate number of people have too much money to shred.

      • An unfortunate number of people have too much money to shred.

        Yet they complain about their financial well-being during this economic shutdown... I think some money-shredders just don't like changing their style of buy/ignore/throw away, but are perfectly capable of survival and maintenance of current lifestyle. They just need to make maintenance synonymous with waste.

        Now I'll get attacked because there's probably one (or more) reading this. LOL

  • by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 ) on Saturday May 30, 2020 @04:54AM (#60124484)
    Encourage owners NOT to recycle theirs.
  • That product description lol
  • When will people realize that they are basically paying to beta testers for Amazons bring-in-more-revenue projects?

    • When will people realize that they are basically paying to beta testers for Amazons bring-in-more-revenue projects?

      I think it's more like Alpha-1a(2[b]). Beta survives a little longer before an up-sell comes out. /ducks

  • We are having an increasing number of services of products that we Purchase, that require the cloud for it to function. Once the company decides they don't want to support that cloud feature the device that we have purchased no longer works.

    A lot of these Cloud services are just a means to get around a firewall, so you want to change your device with your phone. So your App will connected to a Site to send its commands, and the IoT device is listening on that server for a response.

    We are sending data thou

    • ...We are sending data thousand of miles for a device that is 20 feet away from you connected to the same Wi-Fi.

      I'm sure that the operators of such companies are completely capable and anxious to (some freaking how; I'll never be able to explain it) sell information from what comes in.

      Perhaps I should start a marketing company where I sell the data that I gather every day by eye and ear, organized in different ways. I'm sure that will help some product hocker the ability to sell effectively to others....???? *scratches head*

  • Echos should listen, not watch.

  • by kriston ( 7886 ) on Saturday May 30, 2020 @12:04PM (#60125550) Homepage Journal

    Why not unlock the firmware?

    Could be a nice and portable videoconferencing device.

    Oh, wait. Nevermind.

    • Why not unlock the firmware?

      Could be a nice and portable videoconferencing device.

      Oh, wait. Nevermind.

      My thoughts exactly. At the very least, push a firmware updater with an unlocked bootloader, SSH, and a TFTP client, and let The Community figure out something to do with these.

      I'd love to see legislation that requires that "cloud connected devices" have to either perform at least 50% of their marketed functions without any cloud connectivity, or guarantee ten years of service from date of last sale (at the inflation-adjusted subscription rate at time of purchase, if a subscription is a part of the function

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