5 Reasons Smart Speakers are better than phone assistants - DTNS WEEKLY TECH UPDATE 05/11/2017

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We talked a bit about smart speakers on the show this week, so I've broken down five reasons I prefer smart speakers over phone voice assistants. It's a personal preference, but read on and see how it compares to yours.

CLOSER LOOK - Patrick Beja is still a skeptic but part of that reason is that he's just skeptical about voice assistants in general , including Siri.

That got me thinking. My feelings about Siri (and Google Assistant) are similar to Patrick's. I don't think they work great. I don't like using them when other people are around. And frankly I just don't end up thinking to make use of them.

But I love my Amazon Echo. I use it a lot. So what's the difference? What got me to make the jump to a conversational interface with a speaker sitting in my kitchen when I wouldn't with the much more powerful and mobile device in my pocket?

Here are my reasons:

It's a speaker - Yes, my phone can play music on its tiny little speaker which sounds great for its size. And yes the Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers are no challenge to serious HiFi models. But in the end it's much more pleasurable to listen to music and news on the plenty loud Echo speaker than it is on that little phone speaker that becomes hard to hear if a car drives by.

It's hands free - Every single answer a smart speaker gives me I can consume without using my hands. Smart assistants, because they have a screen, mean I have to pick up the phone and look. I'm actually curious if the new Amazon Echo Show with its built-in screen ends up being more problematic for me because of this. 

I don't need to pull it out of my pocket - Related to needing to see the screen, is the need to pull a phone out of my pocket or bag. Even if I'm asking a question that won't require me to look at the screen, if it's tucked away too far it may not hear me and I won't hear it very well. With a smart speaker, as long as I'm in the room, I can use it.

It's honest about what it knows - A smart speaker doesn't roll over to a Web search when it can't find the answer. Theoretically this should prove more useful by giving me some information rather than none. But it teaches me that asking questions can lead to frustration when that Web search is nowhere near the info I needed. Whereas "I'm sorry, I can't answer that." doesn't waste my time.

No battery - Well I'm leaving out the Amazon Tap here, but the smart speakers are plugged in. I don't have to think about charging them or whether my use of them is going to deplete the battery when I'm near the end of the day. It's just once less thing to think about. 

Granted some of you will find things I note as disadvantages to be the opposite. We all use gadgets differently. So let me know what you like or dislike about smart speakers or phone assistants in the comments for this post on Patreon.

NEWS RECAP

Amazon put the Amazon Echo Show up for pre-order Tuesday. The Show has the usual Echo features like Amazon Voice Services but also has a seven-inch screen and dolby speakers. It can play video flash briefings, YouTube videos, photos, show security cameras and make video calls to anyone with the Amazon Alexa app. It comes in black or white for $230, shipping in the US June 28. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-unveils-the-230-echo-show-with-a-screen-for-calls-shipping-june-28/ 

Google announced it’s acquiring Owlchemy Labs the VR game company behind Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality. Owlchemy will keep releasing VR games for multiple platforms and says that full-motion hand tracking is a “key factor” in their game design. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15614274/google-daydream-vr-owlchemy-labs-acquisition-job-simulator 

Lighthouse, a company from Android co-founder Andy Rubin’s accelerator, announced an indoor 1080p smart camera with night vision. Lighthouse uses deep learning and 3D-sensing to determine who is in the house and whether its normal and alert by app if it thinks something is amiss. It can also determine if the dog has been walked and alert parents when kids are home. The app has voice recognition so you can ask it questions too. Preorders start today at $399 with a year of service, $499 for 3 years and $599 for 5 years, shipping in September. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/11/15615994/lighthouse-home-security-camera-3d-sensing 

Technical analyses published Friday by Tenable Network Security and Embedi have found that the vulnerability in Intel’s Active Management Technology includes a way to bypass authentication allowing attackers to gain admin control without entering a password.The vulnerability affects vPro chips in enterprise computers. PC makers are expected to issue patches this week and Intel has issued a mitigation guide in the meantime.   https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/05/the-hijacking-flaw-that-lurked-in-intel-chips-is-worse-than-anyone-thought/ 

Reuters reports sources tell it the US Department of Justice has begun a criminal investigation into Uber’s use of its Greyball software to evade regulators. Uber says Greyball was meant to be used to deliver bogus information to accounts suspected of fraud. Uber used it in Portland to avoid Bureau of Transportation regulators, and after the fact became public in a New York Times article, Uber prohibited Greyabll’s use for that purpose. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-crime-exclusive-idUSKBN1802U1 

Snap Inc announced it lost $2.31 per share in Q1 with revenue of $149.6 million. Analysts had expected an adjusted loss per share of $0.20 and revenue of $158 million. The company had 166 million daily active users on the Snapchat app, up 44 million on the year. Average revenue per user was up on the year to $0.90, but was down from last quarters high of $1.05. Snap showed a $2.2 billion loss on the quarter, of which $1.9 billion was in stock-based compensations. On the earnings call, this was explained as largely tied to a bonus for CEO Evan Spiegel taking the company public. https://www.wired.com/2017/05/snap-blows-first-earnings-thats-not-whole-story/ 

Samsung has opened US preorders for the unlocked versions of the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus phones for shipping May 31. Preorders can be made at Best Buy or Samsung.com starting at $725 for the 64GB S8 and $825 for the 64 GB S8 Plus. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15586970/samsung-galaxy-s8-plus-unlocked-preorders-live 

Facebook took out full-page ads in several UK newspapers Monday giving readers advice on how to spot false news stories in the Facebook News Feed. The UK will hold a general election June 8th. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/8/15577174/facebook-fake-news-ad-warning-uk-papers 

Google has an open-source operating system called Fuchsia based on its own Magenta microkernel, not Linux. The OS arrived in August last year but was command line only. Now a graphical UI,called Armadillo, that’s card-based is out. Google hasn’t said a word about the OS. The Magenta documentation says it targets "modern phones and modern personal computers with fast processors, non-trivial amounts of RAM with arbitrary peripherals doing open-ended computation." https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/googles-fuchsia-smartphone-os-dumps-linux-has-a-wild-new-ui/ 

Jason Rubin, Facebook's VP of content, announced the shutdown of the Oculus' Story Studio, its VR movie production unit. Facebook will instead dedicate $50 million to directly fund non-gaming experimental VR content. The Story Studio was launched in January 2015 at Sundance, and won an Emmy for the VR short film "Henry"

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-facebooks-virtual-reality-unit-oculus-shutters-film-studio-2017-5 

FROM MICROSOFT BUILD

Microsoft announced Windows 10 has passed 500 million monthly active users making it the fastest growing version of Windows of all time. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/windows-10-hits-500-million-devices-growing-by-two-thirds-in-a-year/ 

Visual Studio 2017 for Mac is now available to all and use the integrated development environment across Windows and Mac. https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/10/microsoft-launches-visual-studio-2017-for-mac-out-of-preview/ 

Microsoft launched its Azure Batch AI Training in private preview for training deep neural networks on the Azure cloud platform. The platform promises to let developers focus on training the AI models without worrying about the infrastructure. Microsoft also announced Azure Cosmos DB, a globally distributed schema-free database service with five consistency choices. Azure IoT Edge also arrived in preview with support for Windows and Linux to extend cloud computing to edge devices. Among the many other Azure announcements, Azure Cloud Shell gives an authenticated browser shell experience, Azure SQL Database got general availability https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/10/microsoft-launches-a-new-service-for-training-deep-neural-networks-on-azure/ 

Microsoft launched image and video recognition products. Video Indexer can identify faces, voices and emotions. Custom Vision Search lets developers recognize images. The tools could be used to identify images in videos that advertisers do not want to be associated with. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-artificial-intelligence-idUSKBN186229 

Microsoft launched a new set of skills for Cortana. Users can now ask Cortana for a weather forecast from Dark Sky. You can also link a Domino’s Pizza account and order food. Other new skills include iHeartRadio, TuneIn, OpenTable, and Cat Facts. Microsoft also announced HP and Intel are building Cortana-powered devices. The Cortana Skills Kit is now live in public preview in the US. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15610576/microsoft-cortana-skills-preview-dark-sky-dominos 

Microsoft also showed off Presentation Translator, a feature for PowerPoint that can provide real-time translated subtitles and text while preserving the original formatting. The service supports Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.  You can sign up for the closed preview at www.aka.ms/TranslatorPowerPoint https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/10/microsofts-presentation-translator-translates-presentations-in-real-time/ 

Microsoft announced the next update to Windows 10 will be called the Fall Creators Update, though it didn’t give a date for the release. https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/11/microsoft-announced-the-fall-creators-update-the-next-major-update-to-windows-10/?ncid=rss

Microsoft announced a UI refresh for Windows 10 as well. Previously called Project Neon, the official public name is the Microsoft Fluent Design System. It’s intended to be a successor to the Microsoft Metro design and will apply across Windows, iOS and Android. Most of the changes include subtle things like blur effects, and Microsoft says it is focusing on light, depth, motion, material, and scale. A new Inking  demo showed the ability to annotate anywhere in Windows. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/15615812/microsoft-fluent-design-system-project-neon-features 

Microsoft is expanding its Graph service that lets developers get data out of apps and cloud services. Microsoft is adding devices and third-party apps to users and documents. On effect could be users having the ability to start a task on say an Android phone’s app and finish it on a laptop’s version. There’s also a cloud-based clipboard launching with the Fall Creators Update which will integrate with Swiftkey and allow cut and paste across devices. Any device that uses Cortana becomes part of the graph too.   https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/11/the-microsoft-graph-will-soon-cast-a-wider-net/ 

Another Graph element is Windows Timeline. It shows a visual timeline of everything you did on your device and gives you to jump back into a file, app, or website at the point you left off. It lives in the Windows app switcher. It works across platforms too. And if you don’t have the right app installed on say an iPhone, Cortana for iOS can prompt you to install it so you can pick up where you left off. https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/11/windows-10-timeline-app-file-sync-across-devices/ 

There’s a new video and slideshow creation app called Windows Story Remix coming in the Fall Creators Update. It can automatically mix your media into a shareable clip or let you do it yourself. It uses machine learning to help create montages. Choices you make on videos and remixes you choose help the AI learn what style you like. You can also search for people and things like dogs. And it will eventually be able to integrate 3D objects into videos for special effects. Capture apps that work with Story Remix will be available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. http://mashable.com/2017/05/11/microsoft-windows-story-remix-first-look/ 

Also coming the Fall update, Microsoft announced OneDrive Files on Demand that can take data from the cloud version of OneDrive as needed without having to sync all your files to the local drive. Status icons in File Explorer will show you if a files is available locally or in the cloud. Recently opened files will remain available offline. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/15616646/microsoft-onedrive-files-on-demand-feature 

 Microsoft showed off motion controllers for devices that use Microsoft’s mixed reality software. The controllers work with sensors in the headset, no need for external sensors. The controllers have a thumb stick, a touchpad and a wand-like design with a tracking ring on the end. They’ll be sold alongside a variety of Microsoft Mixed Reality headsets coming this holiday. Acer’s version will bundle the controllers with a headset for $399.The controllers will NOT work with the Hololens. https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/microsoft-making-its-own-motion-controllers-with-windows-10-vr-mixed-reality-acer/ 

- Acer’s $299 mixed reality headset dev kit and HP’s $329 headset are up for preorder today shipping this summer from the Microsoft Store. https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/11/microsoft-acer-hp-windows-mixed-reality-headsets-pre-order/ 

- Hololens development hardware will arrive in China by the end of the month https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/5/11/15625018/microsoft-hololens-china-release-date 

- Xamarin Live Player lets you develop iOS apps on Windows, without a Mac just a Live Player app for iOS. There's also LivePlayer for Android. https://www.thurrott.com/dev/115828/microsoft-announces-xamarin-live-player-preview 

- Microsoft has a version of Ubuntu available in the Windows app store and its adding Fedora and SUSE soon. https://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2017/05/11/microsoft-brings-fedora-suse-ubuntu-linux-windows-store/#.tnw_kE7oqNSX 

- A version of iTunes will be coming to the Windows Store. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/11/15616594/apple-itunes-windows-store-app-windows-10