Gadgetory

and good morning on Thursday October 12th it's episode 298 of the 359 podcast you know me on BVG and in the house today we've got Alfred and Ben Fox Reuben good coal Michael Brown hey I'm Ben Fox Reuben everybody how's it going is that that that's easily the best Ben Fox Reuben impression I've ever seen in my entire life you know wait well were you read me I mean who is this imposter this is me and my identical twin over here show so today as noted by the headline we're gonna be talking all about smart speakers there's not like some big announcement that happened recently just a handful of different things that really show how much the smart speaker market is heating up with Amazon echo and Google home really going tit-for-tat against each other for different features partnerships and we'll probably expect a lot more of that going into the holiday season I guess that's it as far as the intro so maybe we'll get started with the show very candid today Thursday intro begin podcast podcast begin in three two welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Riven I'm Alfred Inge so there's a bunch of recent news coming out about smart speaker it's showing that the Google home in the Amazon echo fight is heating up first off the bad news Google turned off the touch functions on the new Google how many after reports that some of those devices were recording audio at random times and sending the files to Google servers so Alfred there are a lot of people that are already pretty skeptical about smart speakers that can't be this is really bad for them I mean so the reason why I was like recording and why they had to turn off the TUC touch function was that it was getting like phantom touches just from like I guess like dust or like kind of air going over where they thought that people were pressing it to you know say to activate it yeah and then it started like just sending a bunch of recordings no reason that's like that's like the primary reason why a lot of people complain and are concerned about having sparked speakers in their house is that they're really worried about you know Google or Amazon or some other tech company just listening in it's a big game it's a serious hit for them right and this is a brand new device - this was really supposed to be their head against the echo dot which is Amazon's best-selling smarts yeah and and if you noticed I believe on the dot I mean I only have a dot there's no like touch to like activate bond on the top right I just like their eyes it's like to record um yeah you can you can ping it I don't usually do it that way yeah there is there is like the mute button and then I think there's another but I thought there was the mute button the action button and the volume control yeah yeah the action button that's like to get Alexa I've only pret never pressed that to like set up my Wi-Fi on it hmm interesting but either way what was the point about that um I was gonna say like if it were true that there's no record button on that then you know essentially that makes a lot of sense why they wouldn't have something like that yeah for it to be accidentally activated so also this is some some like less horrible news about smart speakers Amazon's Alexa can now recognize different voices in the home allowing more personalized experiences this feature was available for a while on Google home and Google really promoted this for a long time saying like hey we can do this on Amazon echo can't so you know this is this is a way for Amazon to catch up to Google in this specific area yeah I think when Google had it as you know to set her up with oh if you want me to play this we'll play like your playlist on YouTube like specifically tailored to your voice I'm not sure if the Lexus able to do that yet with like different Spotify accounts are different like yeah it'll chomping like I said this was just announced yesterday I would imagine that if you can't do that today they're gonna keep trying to find ways to keep catching up to Google to do that the other thing that Google mentioned was that like a view if you say call mom and I don't know you're like significant other said call mom it'll call like that those specific people's yeah others so still the wrong line so it seems like those are all like Amazon services right now where they of different voices mm-hmm so there's the one for you know shopping lists and things like that like it'll it'll charge my card as opposed to my significant others card or anything like that but I don't know if they have that yet for like third-party services like if I say callin uber like what I use my account or someone else's account it's an interesting point last and this was just announced earlier this morning you can now shop for Target stuff using Google home that comes after Walmart brought its inventory to Google home earlier this month do you think that these team ups that Google is doing with these major big-box companies is actually gonna help them catch up to Amazon I don't get it why doesn't why don't I just shop on amazon from google home yeah you might be able to I think you can actually still shop for Whole Foods on Google home which is kind of funny and also through yeah Google it definitely helps Google because they actually need a Marketplace on that and you know if they can't get Amazon the biggest retailer online you know why not go after these old stores that don't have that infrastructure set up right exactly and also those guys wouldn't work together anyway because you know they're they're quickly becoming bigger and bigger rivals either way if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Hank thanks for listening I feel I could be in Google homes interests the air touch air touch since that's the concern now mm-hmm that they should spin that and make a sneaker line what do you think Alfred it could be like a forced touch kind of thing like they could do a promotional partnership with like Star Wars yeah like now you can turn on with a bottle now to be fair to Google it was mentioned that they said that they did an update like a software update to fix the problem but because they already had egg on their face they decided to just completely turn off that functionality to make people less concerned about privacy issues so technically at least according to Google they did fix this problem but honestly in that alert people are so concerned about functionality should not be on a smart speaker anyway like way to be able to activate like your voice assistant so hopefully what's the point it's a voice assistant I think with things like mute and volume makeup well that makes sense but to activate it to listen to you I'm not no okay I like the volume controls and I think the problem for me is that it makes the Google home any a less desirable product that you don't have volume controls like actual physical volume control I used the volume control and I use the mute on my my ink dot but like I would never press it to activate that's silly mm-hmm it kind of defeats the purpose yeah yeah that's why the Amazon tap doesn't really sell well so like big picture here though with Walmart Target and Google all teaming up ahead of the holiday season to go up against Amazon I mean like Amazon in many ways has been running away with things in the e-commerce world mobile commerce voice commerce every commerce you could think of do you converse all-stars commerce commerce um do you think that they could like the this team up like this like ragtag group no actually it's like it's gonna if it does happen it could take a really long time that and like you like can you compare prices like if would I rather buy from Walmart or Target though is the thing and it's like what if one's cheaper than the other at least with like Amazon I like everything is there and I can ask fit to buy like the cheapest one out there mmm I think that price comparisons on a Google home might actually eventually be better because they have a diversity yeah retailers I guess I'm saying for now though it's a it's a big ol not for me no you know a lot of people if they have smart speakers in their home they have an Amazon product so this is this is Google is gonna keep trying to catch up and it makes sense for the big-box retailers that you don't have smart speakers to team up with Google yeah which doesn't have big warehouses full of stuff but at the same time I agree that it's it's still gonna be really hard for it's basically like what is Walmart and you know Target offering that I can't get from Amazon already I also is there like a weird beaver about my mic yeah I'm working on that it makes you sound kind of cool in like a robot so it's working on my specific vodka I'm trapped in another dimension alright ready for take some questions yeah alright the - in the chat what's up - is Siri getting left behind in a battle absolutely absolutely so there's there's nothing called her cuz there's a thing called Sirikit which nobody talks so there's this thing called Siri that nobody talks about right I mean Siri can provides a very limited set of api's alright Ben just straight Oliver with it and there's like an actress named sirikit right that's how important Sirikit but it's Siri like Apple being Apple really limits the amount that you could actually use Siri for third party functions so while Amazon and Google are now really trying to like run away with creating different commands and functions and partnerships and now you can talk to Alexa in your car Siri is like way behind on this the home pod still isn't even out yet and when it does come out it's gonna be mostly like music related like it's supposed to be like home theater kind of stuff yeah I mean those have its appeal there are certain to be fair though I don't even think it's gonna have shopping on it yeah I'm wrong about to be fair I don't think Apple's trying to sell like services through Syria I think they're like literally created sir just to make things easier for you to like control your home listen to music pull up a map or anything not like hey there's something you can buy also like I I mean I think there's a reason why they're not harvesting user data with Siri yeah I mean in a a certain extent that does help them differentiate in the marketplace that like they're not getting legged oh it's an assistant not a salesperson well I mean Amazon was a store first yes that's gonna be part of their mo yeah I think they're handing a big chunk of the market to both Amazon and Google and maybe eventually they're gonna figure it out that the this is this is like a much bigger market than they're giving it credit for I mean like and they were early with Siri Siri came out well before Alexa or Google and they just kind of like let it die on the vine so another comment from - he's farming out to the chat to see if people are actually buying things with their voice is it something major like an audio version of the - buttons I mean do you guys use no I actually turned off that feature because you know they want to do by accident I mean I don't think I would do backs and I think my friends are jerks and would come over and do it on purpose would they buy free just by like house yeah yes yeah let's let's take a back seat here yeah what could be far worse it was you know they like the story about the little girl that like apparently Bo yeah yeah which actually proved to like Snopes prove that it was actually like not true it was like a made-up story it's plausible and kinda mean is it is plausible and it's kind of cute and whatever but yeah I almost never used voice shopping I did during prime day this past year because they had specific voice shopping like like deals and some of them were like yeah it's interesting like no brainers Amazon Amazon like put out there you know oh we've got like all these like deals and here's like how many people have done voice purchases like in the last year since it's become available it was like well within like the five figures right or I don't remember off the top of my head you know but like I I don't typically trust like Amazon stats that they send out because sometimes it's like grand total since launch which like tends to inflate the numbers they don't do like year-over-year or different things like that so yeah I I just remember reading their those numbers though being surprised at how many people are actually shopping over their voices yeah I haven't done it I think it's I I'm like cuz cuz I I can't I can't compare prices when I do that and I can't read reviews like right and that's exactly that's exactly what - is saying it's like I'm still stuck in the past and want to see product information and reviews there's a smart consumer right but I mean there's things it's like reorder tide you know you neither do you really need to go into details on that one those like the - buttons are kind of Handy but I wonder if they'd start to incorporate that into like the echo show where you could use your voice to investigate a product and they would bring up like a video review or something like that yeah the partnership with Cena oh yeah I don't know you know like show me salaryman cellar command would be just fine with me yeah I'm okay but yeah I I agree with everything you just said and also anytime I do try to do voice shopping I usually get frustrated and tell Alexa to stop after like I get to the third option like if the first two or three options like aren't what I actually wanted wait is that how it works it just keeps offering you like a chore yeah and I'm kind of like well it stops after a while but it's still like not the most efficient way to do stuff reordering is usually a lot easier than to like actually be like I need to buy a new pair of jeans then you're the Amazon expert do you think they're gonna go that route where you can get product information from a speaker and/or screen speaker things vary I think on a screen like an echo show is probably a lot easier the problem with voice shopping is is that it's very new consumers don't really know what they want or need out of it Amazon and Google obviously are still trying to figure it out sure and we don't really know how big this market is gonna be so like like product information or product reviews or star ratings some of that stuff would be pretty easy to integrate in it's just the question of like what do you grab off of the webpage that's as ever has that ever like misinterpreted to you when you try to voice ordering like if you wanted to buy like a pianist like photo book mm-hmm like what it give you like something else by accident or no I don't think I mean like look Alexa misunderstands me like a good chunk of the time but I don't think that just like your wife honey I hope you're not watching but I don't I don't think that specifically happened for voice shopping it's more that like I'm like get more glad bags and it gives me like a bunch of options and I'm like how much did it cost last time but I mean it wasn't that always kind of the intent of the voice shopping not to actually go into detail like you're not buying a frigging car on the thing now you're restocking household goods for the most part yeah yeah bye bye bye and buy me a shirt I'm not going to do that I mean you know I need a new TV it's like from Amazon's perspective like voice shopping may just be like a bridge to like ambient shopping sure basically you just buy stuff when things run out you don't like the - buttons and the - replenishment system service is like it's already there where your printer yeah I own cars I'm still like easing into that because now I have to buy like cat litter and food but before like if I ran out of like toilet paper or whatever I just go to the corner store and buy it yeah but like maybe in the future Amazon will like build a toilet and we'll know and when it's time to order right yeah the echo Bowl record and then it'll talk to you while you're there you know be nice to have some company I want to talk a little bit about this voice recognition thing you say that's good news but I find it kind of creepy that's where I'd rather remain a number and unidentifiable to these robots in my home where it's just recognizing simple speech patterns I don't want it to know me the problem a complicated person sure sure I think the problem is is that all a lot of experts that I talk to say that to really unlock a lot of the value of voice assistants and smart speakers comes when it actually recognizes the person talking to it and that's where you got a lot more personalization and customization without that it's it's not as it's not as significant so yeah a lot of people are still kind of like hesitant and uncomfortable with the idea of smart speakers in general and they're probably not good customers to buy smart speakers and put them in their homes for folks that already have smart speakers are interested in smart speakers having something like personalization where it actually makes for a better experience is probably a good thing for them yeah I don't know I feel like my experience is exactly the same even without personalization that's why we'd like the whole CRE kit stuff like I'd be perfectly fine with that because literally it just plain music set a timer set an alarm yeah I play all those people names people use their smart speakers and if I get like a smart light bulb or any kind of smart home stuff then I'll do that I'd like I I don't really need it to be personalized for that hmm yeah I I kind of looking at this a couple years down the road I think the concepts of personalization really expand the potential for these things and Amazon I don't even like I just I recently wrote about this Amazon is already developing chat BOTS or social BOTS depending on what you want to call them that like Tay yeah I mean like but not racist you know like but that you're like but could it be if you wanted to I'm not gonna go there everything's possible when you get here so like if you're I don't know like want to just socialize with something and don't have any friends around or you're cooking in the kitchen you could just kind of talk to your echo and it'll have a conversation with you I mean like there are a lot of people that I I think if you guys think that's weird I think you're you're discounting the fact that a lot of people would probably want that true hey so we we joke a lot about the silliness of the home assists it and how valuable it truly is but there's some really great conversation going on in the chat right now about certain things to consider about how it can be applied for example Brooks major says do you think voice shopping would be helpful for people with disabilities definitely most definitely if somebody is relatively immobile for whatever circumstance a reason that could be a huge huge help on their lifestyle I like recently talked to like an Alexa skills developer mentioned that he developed like a game on Alexa and one of the people that was like super involved in the game was blind and was like thrilled to have this experience because in that world for voice doesn't matter if you're blind or not there doesn't have to be a workaround for people with disabilities exactly going going to something like voice shopping or gaming it does really open up certain worlds to people with disabilities that maybe it was much more limiting for them so we saw some of that and I I saw some of that in New York Comic Con I think Roger and I brushed on it the other day but there was a an escape room game app thing built into the echo set up they had there and it was all voice I thought it was kind of awesome like there was a lion out the door you could not get in but I better get out right there couldn't get out but I mean yeah things like that could vastly change somebody's entire outlook on life but yeah going back to what we were talking about with voice shopping it's hard to say really what the market is going to look like so is it going to be more you know like senior citizens or more people with disabilities or is it going to be just generally the mainstream where you just say like Alexa buy more paper towels sorry if I accidentally just like drive everybody's that go buy a bicycle from Walmart not Target like or some I don't know like with with like them partnering up with all these shops like these so after Walmart after Target woody things like next word for Google like I guess what would be like a good partnership that would actually knock off like Amazon from from like buying online Walmart Walmart and Target are two of the biggest big-box stores you would expect maybe Best Buy to show yeah at some point they've already got Costco in there but maybe they can continue to expand yet I would yeah I was basically thinking like what's something that you know Amazon doesn't have / can't get right because that's like a lot of bulk order I'm not saying you can't do that with Amazon but that's not really there yeah not as thoroughly not suppose like pretty like Caqueta I'm Joe Best Buy is also probably like because a lot of people go on Amazon for electronics the problem is is that like I'm not buying a laptop with voice shop like that's just not gonna happen like a pharmaceutical thing for Google home like if I could order like more aspirin or like allergy medicine you might get as your prescriptions refilled yeah on the spot if it already knows you and recognizes you anyways if I could have that as a record reserved kind of secure type transaction I wonder if that would be easy like if you were really in a pinch get it sent delivery I don't know that that seems like there's probably a lot of legal hoops to jump through to actually settle in the first place since it really doesn't pre-exists to this the the other potential partner would probably be Barnes & Noble I mean when we're when you're looking at like the broad retail ecosystem right now all the traditional retailers are really scared about what Amazon is doing in that area and so jumping to the Google Express platform is a way for them to hopefully get a lot of these benefits of being online and having voice shopping and hopefully survive in the new Amazon world boy there's some really great comments and discussion going on in the chat today and we're gonna try to get to as much as we can but we are running low on time or in fact almost over as it is so let's let's just blast through a couple thoughts here and see if we can kind of rapidly yeah speed round Bob bridges what are your thoughts on the rumored release of a Microsoft Cortana smart speaker ah that's my review I'd be surprised if there wasn't already one being developed like I feel like Harmon or somebody or you know what I already got to that Microsoft speakers slash Cortana now work with Alexa so right it's by the Cortana speaker in Cortana please tell Alexa to do like actual things so yes that that's one thing and the other issue is like Cortana was also new to the voice market and just like Siri it's kind of left behind at this point I will say I also tested it out on my laptop like when it was first released maybe it's gotten much better since then but like it did not work that well for me yeah Microsoft is not really focusing that much in court time but just partly why they teamed up with it less yeah first I will say if you if you're like locked in on Microsoft's like ecosystem though where like you use outlook and use their calendar and things like that and it's probably very useful all right lightning round continues lost legacy do you see Google opening a physical store good question I think like after like two three more years sure like because they're they're building up their hardware but would it be legit or gimmicky I mean they do pop up shops they do pop ups which granted are gonna mean would you just be more that look I mean Microsoft built some stores Apple obviously like that's a huge part of their business I I wouldn't I I would not discount that possibility that Google would yeah has anything needed to amass like more of its Hardware first which they're doing a good job of already mm-hmm I think they they could also potentially just like sell their stuff through Best Buy and some other yeah which is what they're now yeah from Michael Brown like a brown would you shop food electronics etc via Target Walmart BestBuy etc by way of Google home or Google Express if the shipping was as fast as Amazon I think in many ways the shipping is yeah it's a competition is competition right I mean honestly like I live like to train stuff when we target I still don't go there which is like there's nothing in their service that like makes me want to shop from Target it's and and that's fair I think if people are used to shopping on Amazon then what is really gonna get them to transition over I think Google Express is doing a much better job of getting its name out there what happened well to be fair we both pay for Amazon Prime though is is the Google Express is that's not extra it's free yeah yeah like with certain like shipping limitation I feel like I'd rather do that then like if I if you don't have to pay for Prime I feel like that is actually a better deal could be I think I just sold him on Google Express damn it Danny Green let's all run down to the gateway store and see what they have now out out okay a couple more in the lightning round what about authentication and security touch ID and face ID is one thing but voice ID voice biometrics is actually a thing that people have been testing out it's hasn't been used yet for phones or anything like that or any kind of smart speaker I presume because of the same issue with what's it called the thing that we were just talking about this morning with the the the mini stuff where is like just activating on its own like if I'm if my phone is like activated off of like biometrics and like voice like voice ID right which isn't a thing yet but like if it's if it's just activated off that what's the to stop it from like me just going around like talking regularly and then you know it activates it like on its own like how many times does your Alexa like just been triggered just by you like talking around sometimes it gets triggered when it's completely silent exactly guys so that that's like a big reason why I like like voice idea isn't really like to have that much of a push as whereas with like face ID or or like with your thumbprint you know that's like that's purposeful you can't like accidentally turn on your phone by like oh oops I fell on my thumb fella you know we also talked about this too is like how easy is it to like spoof spoof right like with recordings or like a picture of someone's face so yeah yeah I think you know with all the impression artists out there who voiced the puppet and not the puppet the parrot in Aladdin Gilbert Godfried yeah that dude yeah that dude would never have voice you know lightning round all right one more to end out the day on Michael Brown do you think we'll see voice assistance inside stores elevators or other ambient locations they aren't having in hotel rooms yeah yeah that's not ambient though you see in public space Oh granted that word that's not dissimilar but I think he's talking more I'd be more interesting to think like are you gonna stop by on the street corner and you know activate crosswalk I don't know in an elevator I feel like that'd be terrible like just everybody a shouting match between children that's why I think that in the movie her which I know Michael Brown is a big fan of you know having like Alexa in your ear that you would be able to ping either by like clicking a button or through your smartphone is much more likely that's how you would have your smart assistant with you everywhere but not have the public be able to access it directly unless I come in and shout in your ear bright that is that's always surpassed by a dollhouse alright actually I lied we got one more quick question Carlos in the chat asks hey I'm blind I have a question does Alexa or Cortana work without connection of internet for the voice commands I don't think so no they all exists in the cloud any time I've tried it just kind of blanks out if my internet status even if they don't exist in the cloud like Siri doesn't work without the internet connection either mmm true yeah so but I'm Carlos I know we're running out of time but I am curious to hear why you would be interested in that particular feature so if you can tell us a little bit more information on how you use voice assistant or what you would be interested in certainly be curious to hear what sorry just trying to keep everything under the hood like he just wants to run his speakers or the lights in the home and doesn't necessarily need to do any shopping what's the in box that we have set up for our listeners tell us the 359 at that's at Sienna calm or what's an email well we have the Twitter which is the 359 podcast at yeah 359 podcaster and our email is the what do we the three five nine that's at Cena calm I believe I don't remember I don't use it enough right yeah we do have we do have an re-plugging stuff no I'm saying like if Carl let's reach out or if anybody ever wants to touch base with us directly on the Twitter or in email yeah three five nine that's three five nine at Cena calm right you know feel free to book us anytime definitely give us ratings on iTunes yes I'm being Thursday yeah deal with it and on that note been one to bring us down for the week okay 3:59 is available on itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner Google Play Music and of course no come on cnn.com all right thanks everyone for fantastic discussion today for a fantastic week of shows and we'll see you on Monday definitely you