Amazon May Give Developers Your Private Alexa Transcripts (engadget.com) 166
According to The Information, Amazon may give developers access to your private Alexa audio recordings. Until now, Amazon has not given third-party developers access to what you say to the voice assistant, while Google has with its Google Home speaker. Engadget reports: So far, Alexa developers can only see non-identifying information, like the number of times you use a specific skill, how many times you talk to your Echo device and your location data. The Information reports that some developers have heard from Amazon representatives about more access to actual transcripts, though how and how much wasn't discovered. If developers knew what exactly is being said to their skills, they could make adjustments based on specific information.
So here's a question: (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So here's a question: (Score:5, Insightful)
It requires people to just give up any notion of being a private person, and just becoming a sheep. It would also require trust - trust of corporations, and trust of government.
Also, Star Trek is fiction.
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Also, Star Trek is purely socialist. They skipped the whole UBI thing and went straight to having no money.
Being able to replicate anything you want at any time you want makes money irrelevant, which also means that concepts like socialism and communism don't apply either. In Star Trek Voyager where resources were scarce, they had money in the form of replicator rations. If the entire economy was truly automated like that, you'd end up with no need for money and there would never be a need for UBI at any point along the path. UBI is trying to solve a problem that probably won't ever exist, and it certainly can't
Re:So here's a question: (Score:4, Insightful)
Being able to replicate anything you want at any time you want makes money irrelevant
Except that you can't replicate everything. Star Trek never addressed the ownership of real estate in the Federation beyond saying "well, there are lots of planets to colonize and lots of places to live". Picard's brother lived in a vineyard. Why did he live there and not someone else? How do you transact the ownership of real estate outside of war and inheritance in the Star Trek universe? Other Star Trek empires still used money for these problems.
Replicators are a nice idea but they don't solve the whole economic problem.
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Power corrupts. Warp power corrupts and...um, warps?
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Re:So here's a question: (Score:5, Insightful)
"When people speak in Star Trek, the computer is always listening. What changed in that hypothetical future's past that needs to change in our present to make wholesale gathering of our voice comms acceptable?"
Its an interesting question.
The capabilities of the star trek technology means that within a few seconds of Picard/Riker or Kirk/Spock/Scotty/etc decided to breach protocol or violate an order and discussing it anywhere on the ship... his superior officer would show up on the view screen and relieve him of duty; and teleport him to the ships brig.
Real-time spying of everyone on the ship at all times... would turn into a dystopia pretty quick.
They'd need a constitution that guaranteed them absolute privacy; and complete immunity from persecution/prosecution from such eavesdropping/electronic monitoring if it were to take place. And a system of checks and balances that had the people's faith that the audio wasn't being archived, reviewed, and misused.
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Its an interesting question.
The capabilities of the star trek technology means that within a few seconds of Picard/Riker or Kirk/Spock/Scotty/etc decided to breach protocol or violate an order and discussing it anywhere on the ship... his superior officer would show up on the view screen and relieve him of duty; and teleport him to the ships brig.
Yes, and that's exactly what happened when McCoy and Scott conspired to mutiny against Janice Lester who was impersonating Kirk at the time.
The only way Picard or Kirk get away with disobeying orders is by virtue of being at the top of the chain of command and out of radio range of their superiors.
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Yes, and that's exactly what happened when McCoy and Scott conspired to mutiny against Janice Lester who was impersonating Kirk at the time.
Yeah. One time. Once. On one episode. That's the flaw of star trek as a work of fiction. It would have been always happening, every episode.
The only way Picard or Kirk get away with disobeying orders is by virtue of being at the top of the chain of command and out of radio range of their superiors.
Really? How many episodes did they conspire against a superior officer on their OWN SHIP? Why didn't the ship rat them out?
And how many episodes did little Wesley or Worf or some red-shirt of the week break the rules and not get snitched on by the computer immediately?
How many times did someone go missing or rebel or whatever, without the first command being... hey comp
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Standard procedure when an officer went missing was to ask the computer to locate them, and when it couldn't, dump the officer's personal logs for clues about where they had run off. It did happen all the time, crew were always asking the computer when and how other crewmembers left the ship.
Yes, you remember when it happened. You don't remember when it didn't. it certainly did happen when it furthered the plot. But watch through again, and see how often they *didn't* use the computer's universal monitoring when they could have.
Geordi spent an entire episode listening to the personal logs of an officer who went AWOL. Barclay was constantly getting in trouble for abusing the holodeck and his superiors would pull up the log of every program he had used.
I don't deny it happened when it happened. I'm just saying there were a multitude of times where it DIDN'T happen where it should have. just look at episode 2 of stng season one (that's as far as I had to go to find a crazy good example)... all kinds of places where a co
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Arguing over the inanities of writers' drama seems like someone ordered a 55 gallon drum of nits from Costco.
I specifically said that it didn't bother me. I completely agree its a TV show.
The fact remains, the ability to auto magically dig through personal logs whenever a writer needs to existed, and more importantly, was used.
But the implications of that capability were never fully explored and integrated. It was a conceit of the setting that they had that this computer capability while somehow it didn't get abused; just like it was a conceit that an individual could own a spaceship that could roll around at the speed of light and they didn't have problems with people suiciding them into inhabited space stations and planets whenever they got depressed
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Well, arguably Star Trek did not make "wholesale gathering of our voice comms acceptable." At least in The Original Series, you usually had to flip a switch to talk to the computer.
That said, it seems like everything was recorded [youtube.com]...
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What changed in that hypothetical future's past that needs to change in our present to make wholesale gathering of our voice comms acceptable?
We're no longer being ruled by the Ferengi.
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When people speak in Star Trek, the computer is always listening. What changed in that hypothetical future's past that needs to change in our present to make wholesale gathering of our voice comms acceptable?
In Star Trek the eavesdropping computers weren't owned by private corporations looking to turn the users into products by selling and/or otherwise monetizing every scrap of data they could collect. The computers were there to serve the greater good, not the shareholders' good.
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Your comparing make believe to real life? Uhhhh... what?!!
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Your comparing make believe to real life? Uhhhh... what?!!
You're right. Make-believe is generally very much better.
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Re:So here's a question: (Score:5, Insightful)
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They seem to have rules enforcing privacy in Star Trek. For example, when they ask the computer where someone is, it actually tells them where their comm badge is. If they take the badge off, they computer appears unable to locate them, even though the ship's sensors can apparently detect individuals on a planet full of other living creatures from orbit. There must be some kind of hard lock-out in place as they never even think to try to override it.
Presumably the computer would be programmed to ignore and
It's not the recording, but what happens to it (Score:3)
That, and all the damn analytics, is enough to keep me away. I don't mind
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You make it law that anything spoken cannot be used to prosecute you.
Let them gather whatever evidence/information they want, but they cannot prosecute you unless an action is made.
Is this perfect? No. But without it they'll throw us in jail just for saying you want to "Kill X for doing Y" out of shear anger, as most of us have done at some point in our lives but don't actually mean to do. And this is one of the more obvious cases I can think of. God knows how far it would span if we were stripped of our ri
No, they won't (Score:2)
I don't own any Amazon devices, and that is not going to change.
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Even if one doesn't have an account, many of their friends, family, etc likely do and hence personal information can leak. Pictures taken by others, details mentioned by family (ie. listing names of their kids, grand-kids, where they live, work, etc), and general traffic analysis (who interacts with who; fake account info does little to protect against this).
You are absolutely right. I would mod you up if I could.
If you want to avoid the fucking panopticon, you get forced into a smaller and smaller little box all the time. It is fast reaching the point where you must either give up socializing iwth other human beings, or accept that THEY will turn your private data (conversations between you and your friends, your photograph, etc) over to social media companies and internet ad agencies and data brokers.
Summary doesn't make sense (Score:2)
Is this supposed to make sense?
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"If developers knew what exactly is being said to their skills, they could make adjustments based on specific information."
Is this supposed to make sense?
Alexa wrote the summary
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Hold on, I think there are four norsemen with paperclips at my door ...
hey y'all, watch this! (Score:2)
I don't see the problem (Score:1)
Re: I don't see the problem (Score:1)
Re:Just fuckin' perfect. (Score:4, Informative)
I went ahead and bought a Dot on Prime Day because they were dirt cheap. Now I see what the larger plan was. FUCK. Sending it back.
The problem isn't having a device that can listen in on you.
The problem is that there is no regulation of privacy. The company gets to set the rule. It's one thing while devices like DOT are novelties. You as an individual buy them and bring them into your own home.
10 years from now, almost every room you step in, and almost every new car you buy, and almost street you walk down is going to have internet connected devices. Many of which will be recording you or one or more aspect about you. These aren't going to be devices you buy specifically in many cases. Shopkeepers will be recording you as you walk past their shops. When you fill up your car- BP will be scanning your license plate. The government will be tracking you as you drive down the street. In your car your insurance company will have a required mic and video.
In your own home you may not be able to buy a toaster without internet requirements and your mandatory cable box or internet modem
Everyone is going to be spying on you. It won't just be your Dot. You're not going to have a choice.
What needs to be done is privacy regulations put in place BEFORE this happens, not afterwards. No company should be able to share any data about you without your expressed permission. Nor can a company offer any sort of carrot or stick incentives for sharing data. A company should not be allowed to discriminate in any way between users who chose to share data and those who don't/
Use mycroft.ai (Score:5, Interesting)
Previously mentioned [slashdot.org] on Slashdot, Mycroft.ai [mycroft.ai] can be built on a Raspberry Pi and perhaps other clones, and voice processing can be done locally. If I wanted something like this I'd probably use that.
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I wouldn't get much out of any of these things honestly so comparing them is kinda moot, I qualified it by saying "if I wanted something like this"
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I had ASR that worked perfectly on a desktop a decade ago. The new Pis have that much power, so they should be able to handle it locally.
Re:Use mycroft.ai (Score:4, Informative)
That's why you can use a local server [github.com] to host the speech processing parts.
Dont buy (Score:5, Insightful)
Devices with microphones that connect to networks and want recordings.
IoT from
Re: Dont buy (Score:1)
Re:Dont buy (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm typing this on a laptop with a microphone and internet access. I also have a phone by my desk with a microphone and internet access. My TV, with a microphone and internet access, is downstairs. I guess there's also my wife's tablet, with a microphone and internet access, downstairs. Does an XBox One have a mic in it?
Give over it bub. We're in the 21st century, there's stuff with microphones has internet access. In another decade or two the list will probably be ten times as long. Throwing our electronics in the fire is a futile Luddite approach to the issue of potential police over-surveillance.
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Software can be added to show or block mic or cam access.
That returns total control back to the user who owns the hardware.
In the 21st century some great software can be installed that can show OS and software access to hardware like a mic or cam in real time.
An informed user can then select to allow or find out more information on why an app needs the mic on all the time.
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Give over it bub
Yeah. Don't have standards and principles. That's not cool in our time and age.
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Nonsense.
- The microphones in your laptop and tablets are not always listening. That's different. And on a laptop you can check this using software like Oversight. But most importantly: it's a social norm.
- Scale matters. As a society there is no need to accept that internet connected devices with always listening microphones become a new norm. We have a say in this.
The argument that it's all "not really new, so accept it" is used a lot in tech circles. But that relies on a 1.0 understanding of privacy, whe
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You should run metasploit on a dummy computer and test your "mic isn't always listening" hypothesis. Metasploit isn't even sophisticated. You see the tools that have been getting leaked from the three letter agencies by WikiLeaks and ShadowBrokers lately? Weeping Angel, which turns on different devices' cameras and mics (even non-computer IOT devices) and Cherry Blossom, which turns your router into a port sniffer (Feeds every packet sent across the router to a central server). Plus, there are the NSA t
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I'm typing this on a laptop with a microphone and internet access. I also have a phone by my desk with a microphone and internet access. My TV, with a microphone and internet access, is downstairs. I guess there's also my wife's tablet, with a microphone and internet access, downstairs. Does an XBox One have a mic in it?
My laptop runs an OS that gives me control of when the mic is on or off. Ditto my phone. I choose not to have a tv with a microphone, nor does it get internet access. No xbox, and if I did have one, it'd be unplugged when not in use. Your choice of wife is your own.
Give over it bub
YOU get over it, bubba, or corporate shill, whichever you are. Your logic is equivalent to saying "We're all going to be taking a dirtnap some day, so just kill yourself now." If you really believe what you're saying, you are a sad example
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You mean don't buy a laptop or smartphone?
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Sure. But Alexa isn't that. You can turn the mic off any time you want, there's a button for that.
And Amazon has committed publicly and legally to not sharing your audio with third party developers. That isn't going to change.
This story is completely false. Somebody misunderstood something they read or just wrote it as pure clickbait to rile up the privacy crowd.
Location data (Score:1)
It is laughable that in the same sentence that they claim to have only provided de-identified they include LOCATION data on that list.
Unbelievable.
Yes, and? (Score:2)
This is fullly expected from an always on mic. Just wait and see what developers get from the model with the camera...
From a technical sense it's pretty understandable as context around what people are saying actually is pretty useful. I personally do not. Ind Amazon distributing other people's data for the greater good.
A fool and his privacy are soon pantsed. (Score:1)
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My friend has one of these... (Score:2)
I can't take a fart without the Amazon Dot [amzn.to] chirping in response. Pretty annoying.
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Interesting. I'm an experienced farter, but I've never managed to make my farts sound like "Alexa".
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That's the new Fart language pack (EN-FRT).
It's listening to your digestive communications, which until recently were like dolphin speak, unknown to us.
But Amazon figured it out.
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Maybe if you'd stop gorging yourself multiple times a day at all-you-can-eat buffets you wouldn't be farting so much.
I typically don't go to buffets. Skinny people don't like being skinny shamed when I'm nibbling on my only plate and they're on their third or fourth plate.
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I've seen your lardass gorging on buffets many times, tubby. You have a reputation for closing down restaurants because your gorge so much.
That's kind of hard to do on a 1,500-calorie per day diet. :P
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That doesn't even make sense. It shows that the skinny person has a better metabolism than you so is still skinny.... YOU should be ashamed!
Who is the glutton: the fat person with a single plate or a skinny person with three or four plates?
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creimer's "single plate"
That's digusting!
Skinny persons three plates
That looks good.
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And yet you're a tub of lard.
I was when I was teenager. After 20 years of bike riding and 10+ years of the gym, I'm not a butterball anymore.
No one believes you eat only 1500 calories.
My diet isn't dependent on what other people believe.
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That is not something to be ashamed of.
You don't think gorging yourself in public isn't something to be shamed of?
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creimer's 'single' plate.
That's disgusting!
skinny person's 'gorging' plate.
I eat a bit less than that.
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Then why do you eat it then, lardy?
I don't, asshole.
Paying for the Privilege of Being Bugged (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not letting a corporation install bugging devices in my home, and I am sure as hell not going to pay for the privilege.
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What are you talking about you already have. Or did you type this post on a graphics calculator?
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I'm actually surprised that Amazon doesn't give away their hardware... Maybe they are happy with a slower roll out and some extra profit.
Eventually I expect they will be free, because they make so much money for Amazon. Not just extra purchases, but they also get to direct your purchases and control who else gets to make sales. If you say "order some AA batteries", they get to decide which brand of battery and how many and who from.
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I am not letting a corporation install bugging devices in my home, and I am sure as hell not going to pay for the privilege.
A good point that has, of course, been brought up many times. Given what we know from Snowden, there can be no question that the Three Letter Agencies are all over this.
Is this legal in "All - Party Consent" states? (Score:1)
I live in Maryland, USA former home of Linda Tripp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Tripp#Indictment_by_the_state_of_Maryland/ [wikipedia.org]. Since it is likely that not all people (friends, guests, etc.) in a given room even know the mic is present, how are these devices or this behavior legal in "All - Party Consent" states https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/LAWS-ON-RECORDING-CONVERSATIONS-CHART.pdf/ [mwl-law.com]?
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Are you certain you didn't click through user agreements that waive those rights? The fine print is so small and changes so frequently I doubt anyone here could even answer if the agreements from Amazon cover this.
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You have clicked through the user agreement. Your guests have not. The law reads clear to me: someone is in violation of the recording law. According to how the fine print was written, the guilty party is either Amazon or you.
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What if it is my responsibility to inform my guests?
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Phew! As long as the Amazon Corporation is safe.
PS - I'm willing to settle the damages for $1.
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Did you force your guests to visit?
Let me guess. You're not a lawyer?
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You have clicked through the user agreement. Your guests have not.
Did you force your guests to visit?
No, but they have the right to assume their rights won't be violated. Likewise, if there's a concealed spiked pit trapdoor behind your entrance, you have a duty to inform your guests.
The law reads clear to me
Let me guess. You're not a lawyer?
While we keep saying how evil lawyers are and how badly they twist the wording, I don't suspect a judge to be likely to have a different interpretation of a law written in such an obvious way. You need to have consent of every visitor -- usually, merely informing them is enough but you need to at least do that. This is not a
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You realize this is an international site? There's a multitude of applicable laws.
Any case law to back up the notion that it's reasonable to have an expectation of privacy in someone else's house?
Expectation of privacy, at least in the US, usually refers to fourth amendment rights against police search. If you visit a friend and
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You realize this is an international site? There's a multitude of applicable laws.
This thread (started here [slashdot.org]) is specifically about Maryland, a state that requires consent of all parties.
If you want to go international, here's the law of Poland, the country I live in: a private person may record a conversation he's a participant of (ie, "one-party consent", Kodeks Karny art 267.3). The recording itself, though, may not be used or distributed freely (Kodeks Cywilny art 23) -- using it in a court case is okay, so is using it privately, but you may not distribute. A company, on the other
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OK. I'm not a Maryland lawyer. I cannot and don't pretend to give legal advice.
Here's some thoughts. The Maryland statute Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. 10-402 prohibits some forms of 'willful' recording. That might prohibit continuous recording, however that's not what Google/Amazon/Apple do - they record after hearing a wake word. If they mishear a wake word, is that still willful one party recording? Unless the state supreme court has ruled, I'd think there's ambiguity there.
From a quick Google s
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The same as a security system with audio. If you're in someone else's house, you have no expectation of privacy. At most, they might have to put a sticker by the front door telling you about the recording devices.
How it affects the homeowner's rights, however, is another question. I suspect the contract you agree to when you activate the device covers it, though.
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They definitely don't need a sticker. Think about the dozens of child & elderly abuse cases you've seen where people take footage of a caretaker straight to the media.
That they don't get blowback from it doesn't mean it's legal. Most state are single party consent, so it doesn't matter. Even when it's not, many states have "justification laws" that say you can do something illegal to prevent or stop something more illegal. It's OK to commit a civil offense (recording without permission) to catch a criminal. And in all cases, the criminal won't get any sympathy.
The homeowner who bought such a device with an understanding the recordings won't be sold is a very different si
Translation (Score:3)
"Amazon May Give Developers Your Private Alexa Transcripts"
Translation: "Amazon Has Already Given Developers Your Private Alexa Transcripts"
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Translation: "Amazon Has Already Given Developers Your Private Alexa Transcripts"
Considering the huge amount of data, to be humanly processed by people in order to improve programs, I'd be less worried than automatically processed data by Amazon AI itself.
No duh (Score:1)
Who didn't see THAT coming (Score:2)
That's why these devices are 100% unacceptable (Score:2)
They're unacceptable at first blush because the companies that produce them get audio recordings. Those companies aren't nearly trustworthy enough for that level of access.
That developers can access the recordings as well makes it a million times worse. As untrustworthy as the companies are, random app developers are even less so.
As long as this data is being sent somewhere else, these devices will not have a place in my home.
Simple solution to this. (Score:2)
Vote with your feet.
Is Alexa really that necessary given that so many people are never--never--without their smart phone that they could use to do the majority of things that Alexa does? Ditto for Apple's product and Samsung's (if they can ever work out the bugs).
Another summary fail. (Score:2)
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Tomayto, tomahto