Warning, bit of a long post.
Ok, so, I've made the title a little controversial to make a point here
If we think about how us humans interact with each other, how easy or hard it can be also.
So let me make this BOLD statement right now and get it out the way:
Alexa (or any similar device) Needs a camera, ideally that it can move around/motorised to really advance.
If we think about Alexa in the same way we would think of a human assistant or family member.
We have someone/something that's going to try and make our lives easier.
This person/thing is totally blind, so they cannot see if there is anyone around them, or who it is. You, your wife, your child, a relative, a total stranger.
Not only are the blind, sitting there in the dark they also are deaf and cannot hear anything other than 1 magical word, which upon hearing that magical word, they suddenly have the ability to hear a 'voice in the room' then they go totally deaf again.
Let's be honest with ourselves. If you wished to create the most useful device, that would not be the way to do it.
If the real world, you walk into the room/office. People hear you, turn their heads, identify it's you, perhaps wait till you get close if you are a long way away, then they will speak to you. "Good Morning, don't forget you have a meeting with Mary today at 10am"
Or perhaps it's now 9:45 and the person can see you are still sitting at your desk, perhaps otherwise involved, and can say "Hey, remember you are supposed to be seeing Mary in 15 minutes"
Perhaps you have asked to be reminded about something at 3am, but you need the toilet, or to go outside to deal with something" 3am passes, but human people won't just shout out load into an empty room, they will wait until they see you come back in THEN remind you.
At home, you have family members you can ask questions, and set reminders and save calendar events. If your assistant can see you, they will know exactly how to interact and what information to use, and what to say back depending on who they see you are.
Perhaps you are a stranger who has broken in, and it won't say anything to the stranger, just like a human would not read out your details to a passing stranger that asked as you don't recognise them.
I'm just giving these example, and they will be many many more the illustrate the fact that until an Echo, or other device is allowed to "SEE" that it's always going to have major functionality problems, in the same way, a human would be who was disabled.
One could say the Echo and other devices are disabled in how we define normal full abilities.
The thing is, which is a shame, it's not THAT hard to do it right now.
Without doubt we have all the tech right now, at a very low price to do exactly as I'm saying.
Motorised camera, just one eye, that can tilt/pivot to see like a human can, and facial recognition software to identify who someone is.
Both have been done as minimal costs.
One the unit/system knows there is someone nearby, and identifies them, THEN with freshly adapted software such devices like the Echo can overnight become vastly better and more advanced/helpful products.
Before anyone says it. I know exactly what some will say:
"I don't want this device watching me all day long, recording my every movements, spying on me, allowing others to see what I'm doing in my own home"
Of course, this needs to be addressed, perhaps by proving this is only local to the unit in your home?
We will never ever get far with this attitude.
Imagine Commander Data from Star Trek. Would you be totally paranoid to be hear him. He's a computer, who can hear you, see you and connect to other computers to spy on you.
Just like a human can spy on you, watch you, take photo's of you, tell other people what you are doing.
But we accept that, it's life, and its what makes us able to function with others.
As long as I could be assured that, the visual aspect of a device that can see what local to the unit and not sent out as un-encoded data onto the internet, I would not mind my own single device having eyes/camera.
What do you think?
I feel we must allow this to advance.
As I said, it can be build right now, easy and cheap, way less than adding say $50 onto a current device for the hardware.
Your Thoughts?
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