Amazon Will Let Companies Build Voice Assistants on Alexa (bloomberg.com) 25
Amazon.com is offering other companies the ability to use the building blocks of the Alexa digital assistant for their own automated versions, the latest effort to embed the company's voice software into other devices. From a report: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV will be the first to use Alexa Custom Assistant, relying on Amazon-built speech recognition and other software to power the automaker's in-car tools, Amazon said Friday in a statement. The retail and technology giant also invited other companies to customize the underlying Alexa system with their own wake word, voice and unique capabilities. Alexa is most closely associated with Echo smart speakers, but Amazon has been working to extend the software's reach, and fend off rivals like Apple and Alphabet's Google, by adding utility for tasks like home automation and the potentially lucrative and fiercely contested market for in-car software. Amazon, which lacks the massive base of captive smartphone users of its main rivals, has suggested voice assistants should be able to talk to one another. The company, like competitors, already offers for rent elements of the technology that powers its digital assistant, but Alexa Custom Assistant represents a more complete set of tools, Amazon said.
Amazon services (Score:3, Insightful)
After what Amazon did to Parler, why would any sane company build upon Amazon services ?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Because it shows that Amazon has some patriotic DNA in its business. Is willing to get rid of customers who are supporting Terrorism, who hate America and what it stands for.
and....you've completely missed the point (Score:3)
set aside your politics, dump the emotions, and look objectively at what has happened here (the AWS vs customer situation, not the DC incident).
A company depended upon Amazon Web Services. Something happened in society that cause a backlash. Amazon employees got in a snit and demanded their company drop the company which was an AWS customer and which did not themselves do anything unusual (remember: Twitter and other platforms have hosted far more calls to political violence over the past year than upstart
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No you missed the point.
Say you are a land lord, and one of your tenants is selling drugs out of your property.
You now found out that they are doing this...
Do you keep your tenant, because they are paying rent, they get caught. Do you think you as the Land Lord who knowing allowed this to happen in your property will go off free. Or will you have some degree of Criminal liability because you owned the property, and you knew about it. Ok say you plead ignorant and don't get punished... Then it happens aga
So... you're just willfully blind to the argument (Score:2)
Are you saying parler did not pay its bills? Of course any company that does not pay its bills gets booted; it's standard business and nobody would be alarmed.
Are you saying parler committed a crime? Name the specific crime and cite the relative US code and the specifics of the violation. If the company itself did something criminal I doubt anybody would be concerned that it got the chop.
Are you saying the Owners/Operators of parler committed a crime? Name the specific crime and cite the relative US code a
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What everyone is forgetting is that Parler isn't the first Amazon customer to get booted, it just happens to be the only darling of the right wing media that did. No one cried when they kicked off various jihadist groups, or Mexican and Indonesia drug cartels.
If customers are removed from the platform for promoting illegal activity I in no way see that as a bad thing. Why do you? Or do you think that AWS should be hosting the web site and personnel info for ISIS?
Re: Amazon services (Score:2)
The cat's out of the bag, and don't think Apple, *Google, etc.. won't do the same thing.
The consumers ceded control over to those companies a long time ago, and developers were forced to follow suit. They put the power of the many into the hands of the few and now we are witnessing the consequences of a walled garden/prison.
*Yes, you can still sideload apps on Android, but I'll be real surprised if this is any longer an option in 5 years.
Sane companies are amoral like capitalism itself. (Score:2)
If you're in business to make money freedom of speech on private platforms is not important, making money is important. Unless one is right wing what happens to those humans doesn't matter, and if one is left of center any damage is good news.
Politics is cultural war which erases all moral obligation to opponents. Only legal obligations remain. Right and Left understand this as they understand water is wet. Business is amoral and successful businesses are often unimpeded by ideology which is mostly a mean
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Does your company make pipe bombs, write ransomeware, or refine heroin? No? Then you probably don't have to worry. Those are the type of customers that AWS would prefer to do without. One would hope you understand why, although some conservatives don't seem to for some reason. "They were paying their bills, you have no reason to shut down their cocaine importation business!" Sorry, but you're wrong.
Re: Amazon services (Score:2)
Business is risk. Where can you go that has zero risk that your business partner/service provider won't want to stop doing business with you?
What percentage of Amazon customers do you think have gotten booted over the years? My guess is between 0.001% and 0.0001%. Good luck finding a business with a lower kick/ban rate than Amazon.
Well of course (Score:1)
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Basically, yes. Remember that Amazon wants to be a platform monopoly, not a product monopoly. Alexa devices are products, the Alexa system is a platform.
echo, play... (Score:4, Funny)
given its poor ability to play the music I want to hear I don't think I'd want to control a car with it.
I'm sorry I can't find "turn on lights", here's some wild accelleration you might like..."
Let's Go Trey and Matt! (Score:2)
Cartman was years ahead on this one. This is the only thing that comes to mind when I read this -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
--
You loved me and your love made me--human. - Isaac Asimov
Well, they certianly haven't been able to do so. (Score:1)
open source? (Score:1)
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Yes, there are, like https://mycroft.ai/ [mycroft.ai]. The parts you basically need are wake word detection, speech-to-text/text-to-speech, and intent parsing/classification. There are plenty of open source solutions for each of these. Wake word detection ends up being pretty specific, so this is definitely one area where having tie-in with existing solutions can save you some hassle. Google App Actions, for example, allows you to chain intents off of the Google Assistant and use deep links to call back into different p
Star Trek? (Score:2)
Do you mean to tell me that this is how the starship enterprise voice control systems were started?
It's all fine and dandy.. (Score:2)
until they find out that you have you have a different political view and then they disable your ability to use your own car.
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Well, if you intend to blow it up in the middle of a crowd then I have no problem with them disabling it. Sorry.
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If your company is trying to overthrow the government of the United States then I will applaud when your company crashes at the bottom.
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Its user certainly were, and there is no possible way that management didn't know about it. That they refused to address it in any way shows that they supported the idea. I don't feel sorry for them at all, they can go ask Tencent or Ali Baba to host them, at least those companies are openly anti-US.