Things Alexa is working on...

So I have Alexa searching for Sapient Pearwood.

Why?

I'm tired of carry-on luggage and would prefer it simply walk along behind me.Edited by jar, : add link

Excellent. I'm sure there would be other equally brilliant uses for the stuff.But, you have Alexa. Why? Is she really useful?

I have an Alexa also. I will call Alexa "Her" rather than "It" as it feels more comfortable. One of my friends abhors Her, calling her invasive, snoopy, and fodder for use by a future global dictator! Another lifelong friend, an atheist, even calls "that thing" an "evil robot"! Basically, all that I use the smart speaker for is to set kitchen and laundry timers as reminders while I am at my desk, to play songs from My Music and from Amazon Music, and as an occasional source for weather. She will, however, also play podcasts...several of which I listen to when at my desk.

Of course Alexa is useless for looking most anything up and I would rather do it myself anyway. Sapient pearwood, aka magic tree, aka magic robot? Is this where we are heading? I still worry about an electromagnetic pulse wiping out not only my smart speaker but everything technological that I am used to relying on. If the Sun did it, however, who could we declare war on? (Tongue-In-Cheek)Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

Not yet. But she says she is add local knowledge daily.And yes, I do find Alexa useful.

You do realize you have a microphone in your living space, not surreptitiously to the FBI or NSA, but voluntarily to the internet?She hears you when you're peeing.
She knows when you beat off.
She can hear you take that gassy dump,
Or when you toke so hard you cough.And this is on the world wide web where any hacker can listen in on your private life anytime they want.Remember, the internet never forgets.Your most intimate moments are recorded live for everyone to hear for all posterity.Might be more productive to open the doors and sell tickets.

I fear I would lose money if I tried selling tickets. And all my intimate moments were long before there was an Internet, back when all your neighbors knew all your intimate secrets and discussed them with glee but probity.

Probity! I learned a new word today....

Amazon, Google and Facebook by far have the most voracious appetite for private information (if you exclude Chinese products which are slightly worse) but all smart watches, smart t.v.'s, computer monitors, and smart phones are capable of being hacked. We carry little microphones and video recording devices everywhere. We're pretty much fucked at this point... The NSA has been doing this since at least the late 90's. And now even the private sector has figured out a way to monetize it and sell the information for a handsome sum. We only have the illusion of privacy at this point. But I do hear that Alexa is particularly susceptible. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

Slightly anecdotal, since I got it from the source (I would hope; been burned on that before with a "Why does it taste so salty?" story).An acquaintance in the dance community has an iPhone. With the phone turned off (not powered down, of course) inside her purse, she mentioned to someone that she was thinking of going to a particular locale after this. Soon as she got into the car and turned her phone on to check it, Siri was already giving her directions to that locale. That's her story and she's sticking with it.

Pretty testable though... I've heard of some people stating very specific things near their cellphones, like a casual conversation about an obscure product, and within 10 minutes ads magically pop up for that obscure product. If it happened once or twice we'd call it coincidence. If it happens 1 or 2 million times I'd say we have a problem.

One of the reasons I own almost none of these devices. I finally caved in and got a smartphone last year, but I definitely don't carry it everywhere and disable much of the functionality. (Google sends me a notification every twenty minutes that there is a critical error to be addressed. It's not an error that you can't access that data Google).I don't understand why everyone else is so blas about this stuff. I rarely see connectivity in a device as a plus, but do you know how hard it is to find an e-reader without WiFi nowadays? Thank God our car is old enough to be dumb.Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

I have an e-reader that’s a few years old now. The Wi-fi can be switched off and it is most of the time. It is an easy way of downloading books, without using a computer as an intermediary so it is actually useful.But you are right about smart devices - don’t get them unless you really have a use for the smart features. Vote with your wallet or one day you won’t have the choice.