Is There an Echo in Here
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| Is There an Echo in Here | |
| Number | 2703 |
| Broadcast Date | MARCH 3, 2016 |
| Episode Length | 45:30 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt |
| Guests | Justin Robert Young |
Amazon adds two new devices to its Alexa-powered voice-recognition devices. Tom Merritt and Justin Young discuss whether Amazon is slowly, quietly, taking over the smart home.
Guest
Headlines
- Amazon started taking pre-orders for two new Alexa devices. The Echo Dot has an always-on mic, WiFi and Bluetooth but no speaker. The Amazon Tap is a battery-powered portable device with Dolby speakers built in. It has bluetooth and Wifi and 9-hour battery life for playback, 3 weeks in standby. The Echo Dot is $90 but can only be ordered through an Amazon Echo or Fire TV. The Amazon Tap is $130. Both ship March 31st.
- Submitted by stevei0
- Samsung announced Thursday it is shipping the industry’s largest solid state drive, the 15.36 Terabyte "PM1633a”. The new new Samsung drive is based on a 12 Gigabit per second Serial Attached Scuzzy interface. This is the one that uses 480 to 500 of the new 256 Gigabit NAND flash die. Samsung says it offers "random read and write speeds of up to 200,000 and 32,000 IOPS respectively, and … sequential read and write speeds of up to 1,200 Megabytes per second.
- Submitted by KAPT_Kipper
- Recode reports around 40 companies and organizations are expected to file amicus briefs supporting Apple in its case with the FBI. Among those filing are the ACLU, Twitter and security experts Dino Dai Zovi, Dan Boneh, Charlie Miller, Hovav Shacham, Bruce Schneier, Dan S. Wallach and Jonathan Zdziarski. Their filing emphasizes the dangers of the proposed software to unlock an iPhone 5C falling into the wrong hands. All briefs must be filed by 5PM Pacific time today. a hearing is scheduled for March 22.
- Apple has started a Twitter account for customer service. The @AppleSupport account went live at 8AM Eastern Time. The account will “provide tips, tricks, and helpful information” as well as answering customer questions. Apple already has Twitter accounts for existing services like Beats 1, Apple Music, App Store Games and iTunes, but no core account.
- LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner will donate his $14 million stock bonus to employees to make up for a 40% drop in the company’s share price. Re/Code was told by a LinkedIn spokesperson that Weiner “… asked the Compensation Committee to take back the stock package he would have received and put it back in the pool for employees”. LinkedIn’s latest quarterly results, released early Feb, revealed the company’s yearly guidance was lower than analysts expected causing a drop in stock prices according to Fortune.
- Submitted by motang
- No Man’s Sky has been highly anticipated since 2013. It promises an open-world space exploration game with 18 quintillion unique worlds. And now Hello Games promises to come out June 21st for PC and PS4 for $60.
- The Wall Street Journal reports sources say Intel is working on a reference design for an augmented reality headset. It would use Intel’s RealSense depth-sensing technology. Fortune points out Daqri announced a smart helmet for factory workers at CES this year using RealSense.
- Motherboard reports Amazon has deprecated device encryption on Fire OS version 5 which runs on Fire HD and Fire HDX 8.9. Users can either decline to update to the latest version of the OS or give up Amazon’s encryption. The Amazon Echo devices still support strong encryption.
- Submitted by GreggN
- Tech In Asia reports the latest IDC numbers for smartphone sales in India show Apple has passed Xiaomi for 6th place in the market. Samsung still leads followed by Micromax, Lenovo, Lava and Intex. This despite an increase in the average selling price for iPhones.
- North American theme park operator Six Flags will provide Samsung Gear VR headsets to riders of some of its roller coasters at nine parks starting this month. Six parks get New Revolution VR coasters where riders are co-pilots in a fighter jet combating invading aliens. Three parks will get a Superman-themed experience.
- Also Google is creating a volunteer team to map data in an open source project to combat the Zika Virus.
Discussion
- Amazon adds the $130 Tap and the $90 Dot to the Echo family
- Amazon's Alexa will be able to control Nest and Honeywell thermostats this month
Pick of the Day
- This week seems to have become the “wifi router week” and I would love to participate! I would like to recommend an access point I have bought after seeing it in action at various conferences. It is NOT a router but replaces your router’s lousy wi-fi capabilities for good. The greatest part is that you can plug in as many as you want of these babies, everywhere around your house and all play well together, allowing roaming of devices from one access-point to the other. The speed is fantastic, even in crowded areas and it uses both bands: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The device I am talking about is the “Ubiquiti UniFi AC LR” and it costs around $109 in the US:
Of course it is also available in Europe.
Keep up the good work! - Submitted by Sebastian
- This week seems to have become the “wifi router week” and I would love to participate! I would like to recommend an access point I have bought after seeing it in action at various conferences. It is NOT a router but replaces your router’s lousy wi-fi capabilities for good. The greatest part is that you can plug in as many as you want of these babies, everywhere around your house and all play well together, allowing roaming of devices from one access-point to the other. The speed is fantastic, even in crowded areas and it uses both bands: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The device I am talking about is the “Ubiquiti UniFi AC LR” and it costs around $109 in the US:
Messages
- Call from Gardner about Apple Developers
- Sent by Gardner
- The problem I think VR will face is that its visual immersion raises the expectations of the experience for the other senses in a way that can't be addressed presently. There will certainly be equally immersive audio, but especially for something like the Vive which focuses on hyper accurate body tracking, the complete numbness of the experience may become an issue. It also limits very basic interaction with the virtual environments, even with the seemingly great hand tracking on the Vive, without proper resistance to virtual objects, the immersive illusion will be shattered (or at least be a kind of VR uncanny valley). This is why I'm bullish on AR, while you have the same issues of interacting with virtual objects, having them built on top of the physical world allows a little bit more of a 4th wall buy in.
Ultimately I agree with Tom that these will be complementary technologies, and it makes sense for Microsoft to look to AR first as its much easier to see the productivity uses for it (it could essentially replace anything with a screen). I'll be interested to see how the Vive and the Rift address these issues and how they expand VR beyond gaming. - Sent by Rich from Lovely Cleveland
- The problem I think VR will face is that its visual immersion raises the expectations of the experience for the other senses in a way that can't be addressed presently. There will certainly be equally immersive audio, but especially for something like the Vive which focuses on hyper accurate body tracking, the complete numbness of the experience may become an issue. It also limits very basic interaction with the virtual environments, even with the seemingly great hand tracking on the Vive, without proper resistance to virtual objects, the immersive illusion will be shattered (or at least be a kind of VR uncanny valley). This is why I'm bullish on AR, while you have the same issues of interacting with virtual objects, having them built on top of the physical world allows a little bit more of a 4th wall buy in.
- I have to listen to the show, daily, as it keeps my mind occupied, to be less frustrated with other drivers - thank you very much!
But it begs the question, will I be that one driver yelling and berating my poor little self-driving AI in my car, threatning to take it out and put it down the garbage disposal when I get home?
When you get to sign THAT form, indicating what you want your new self-driving car to do in the "Trolley accident scenario" can there also be some other options?, i.e:
1. I am a grandmother, so always drive very slow,
2. I am a Mother, late, often, with children, so drive faster, but safer, or
3. "Get off the road, you idiot!" setting(for myself, of course).
Hmmm........ - Sent by Frans in Warm and Sunny Pretoria, South Africa
- I have to listen to the show, daily, as it keeps my mind occupied, to be less frustrated with other drivers - thank you very much!
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| Preceded by: "Everything's Coming Up Augmented" |
Is There an Echo in Here |
Followed by: "FBI’s Image Issues" |