Alexa V Google speaker
- Thread starter ronk
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Anonymous
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As a software engineer of 18 years I wouldn't personally introduce any of these products into my house. The privacy issues as horrendous. This also applies to anything like "Ring", which has had some terrible press recently from an ex employee.
That said, the Amazon products are great hardware.
That said, the Amazon products are great hardware.
Depends what you want to use it for... in my experience Google is slightly better with speech recognition and search returns, but both are limited unless you subscribe to a music service such as spotify. If you intend to use any of the video enabled products, Google also own YouTube, so this is better integrated into Google Assistant based products. Amazon and Alexa have more market share though, so there's possibly more choice of Alexa based devices.
I am happy with my Amazon Alexa stuff. I aint got no google to compare though. Depends what you want it for though. For me it is a bit of a hobby. I use it to contol lights and and turn stuff on and off. The tin foil hatters will be along soom enough to warn you against buying either products. 
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Anonymous
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ronk said:
if you're an android user you can log in to your google account and listen to every recording they've secretly made of you.
First time I did this I found short recordings of business meetings and me reading my kids a bedtime story.
f**k THAT. This is the reason I would not use any of these devices. If your phone does it when you don't explicitly allow it to, then imagine what devices designed to listen to you are recording.
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Anonymous
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To be fair, while these companies CAN access recordings, the chances of anything of yours falling on human ears are miniscule
z4pilot said:
I'm more amused at the willingness of the unenlightened, unaware and uninformed masses to introduce the risk of theft of personal information, banking details, contact info etc. for the sake of convenience.
Get up out of your chair and use a finger to turn the telly off ffs!
:headbang:
I don't quite get that as an argument?Stevo1987 said:
Using the internet (safely) to run my business as well as everything else that the internet is genuinely useful for on one hand and introducing a risk-filled sh!tty so-called labour-saving device are two entirely separate entities.
:?
oke:
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Anonymous
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ronk said:
Yep, if it's voice activated, it's listening
Better go and find a cave to move into now then - it's only going to get worse when the internet of things really takes off. If you're worried about surveillance and data mining, that horse bolted years ago.Chris_D said:I don't quite get that as an argument?Stevo1987 said:
Using the internet (safely) to run my business as well as everything else that the internet is genuinely useful for on one hand and introducing a risk-filled sh!tty so-called labour-saving device are two entirely separate entities.
:?
I'm not worried about surveillance and privacy. I signed that away to the Dutch AIVD when I went working for the Nuclear Research Group not long ago.z4pilot said:Better go and find a cave to move into now then - it's only going to get worse when the internet of things really takes off. If you're worried about surveillance and data mining, that horse bolted years ago.Chris_D said:I don't quite get that as an argument?Stevo1987 said:
Using the internet (safely) to run my business as well as everything else that the internet is genuinely useful for on one hand and introducing a risk-filled sh!tty so-called labour-saving device are two entirely separate entities.
:?
I am worried but dilligent when it comes to introducing unecessary risk into my electronic environment and it's not impossible to employ a bit of common sense and insight when it comes to considering completely unecessary gadgets and gizmos.
I think everyone who doesn't know how to properly appraise the difference between a risk entity and a safe entity are highly susceptible to being hacked, infiltrated and robbed.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...privacy-the-dark-side-of-our-voice-assistants
Chris_D said:I'm not worried about surveillance and privacy. I signed that away to the Dutch AIVD when I went working for the Nuclear Research Group not long ago.z4pilot said:Better go and find a cave to move into now then - it's only going to get worse when the internet of things really takes off. If you're worried about surveillance and data mining, that horse bolted years ago.Chris_D said:I don't quite get that as an argument?
Using the internet (safely) to run my business as well as everything else that the internet is genuinely useful for on one hand and introducing a risk-filled sh!tty so-called labour-saving device are two entirely separate entities.
:?
I am worried but dilligent when it comes to introducing unecessary risk into my electronic environment and it's not impossible to employ a bit of common sense and insight when it comes to considering completely unecessary gadgets and gizmos.
I think everyone who doesn't know how to properly appraise the difference between a risk entity and a safe entity are highly susceptible to being hacked, infiltrated and robbed.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...privacy-the-dark-side-of-our-voice-assistants
You make a good point. Like everything in life, it's a question of risk vs reward. For you, home automation is puerile - if you're sat in a wheelchair however, I'd argue it's a gamechanger and worth the risk.
Pretty soon everything you plug in will have an IP address, so what do you do then?
I'd still say the greater risk is not with 2 of the most publicly scrutinised companies in history (wouldn't every tin foil hatter love to prove they were nefarious or catastrophically careless with data?), it's with the digital trail you leave everytime you post personal information quite freely everytime you visit sites like this. I reckon any competent spook or investigator could be sat outside your front door in a day given all of the info about yourself you've posted on here alone, without going to all the usual social media sites.
