skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
While we're being positive, I absolutely do not think Amazon would be stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot sending all recorded data up to the cloud. I'm certain that within a few hours of release, someone will have a network monitor hooked up. Their findings will be widely known almost immediately, and this thing would be dead in the water if they were sending everything up. They know this already.
The government is saying that they will pursue people who break the law through any means possible. In this case, they apparently socially engineered their way in.

And? How is this possibly a problem? Is it really an attack on potential legitimate uses of anonymity? Is it really useful to conjure up a murderous prolife president?

To all of those the answers is of course no.
I was just covering the sync thing with the guys in my office. In any large building you'll need multiple units to provide good coverage. They need to ensure these work in that context as well.
Not Drupal, not Joomla, the answer is WordPress
The headphone industry most definitely was not "stuck in the 1980s" unless you only shopped at Best Buy for the past 15 years. Musician's Friend runs specials on AKG headphones that are superior to Beats and for - get this - about $40.

Conflating "innovation" with savvy marketing doesn't benefit anybody - especially the tech-minded readership of HN. Marketing is an element. With Beats, marketing IS the product, and if that sits well with you, fine.
Android L AOSP Released
Thanks! I love those chunky graphs, definitely going to play around with ggplot2 a bit.
Boosted to release a downloadable software update increasing power and top speed
These days, in many contexts, it's perfectly fine to ask someone to resend a file in a different format so it works with all devices. You can't always do that with business-related documents, but you're most likely using a laptop or desktop for that work anyway.
I don't really understand the value behind this. It seems like voice recognition is the main feature behind it, but that doesn't create a reason for a product to exist. It's basically my smartphone, except I can't carry it in my pocket everywhere.

Even if the voice recognition is fantastic, it can't actually do anything useful. It's like selling a keyboard that doesn't work with any home computer or device. Maybe if I could control practically EVERYTHING with my voice, this would be neat, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Can I write an email with this? Control appliances? Voice control by itself isn't so amazing that I'll switch to a product inferior in its other features. What if I want to play/pause a song without speaking? Pick an artist and look through the albums or track titles? Read a wikipedia article and follow links to other related articles?

It's a (supposedly) superior way to access a limited amount of inferior applications. It's not a voice controller, which I would love to buy. It's a mediocre product which happens to have a voice interface.

Also, "Alexa, alarm off." really? You're telling me now I don't even have to roll over and smack something to sleep through my alarm clock?

Depending on the sound quality, I could possibly see it being useful as a fancy wireless speaker. But that's about it.
hopefully they let you change that "magic" word (alexa seems too common)... and more importantly, I hope that it doesn't send any data online unless that word was recognized locally with a very low false positive rate
A microphone that uploads all my ambient sound and speech to the cloud. No thank you, ever, under any circumstances.
I wonder if it includes the option to change the 'Alexa' keyword to 'Computer' so you can pretend you're on Star Trek.
>Ex. If Apple wanted to, they could watch us through our macbook cameras and listen to us all the time.
Which reminds me that my Macbook camera is broken :'(
>You are trading your so far rarely touched privacy

Prove it. Seriously, don't speculate like this until it's proven one way or the other. Prove that it violates my privacy and then we will talk.
I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm not sure you did the right thing with her MMO accounts. Even if I've never met them IRL and probably never will, if one of my gamer friends died, I'd sure as hell want to know. I still find catch myself thinking of some of the people I've met online years after I lost contact with them, and would appreciate the closure that you don't always get in the pseudonymous gaming world.
If your iPhone is plugged in to power, you can trigger Siri by saying "Hey Siri". I believe this is off by default and there's a settings switch for it.
The Online Identity Crisis – WIRED
Most JavaScript polyfills first check if the native implementation exists, and only if it doesn't the polyfill is activated. This shouldn't break anything. However, the blog article states they use User-Agent detection over feature detection. I hope they combine these solutions.
Your three year old probably can't use it. Current voice recognition - Siri, kinect, et al - all seem to struggle with child voices. Maybe something they've expressly worked on for this 'home assistant' scenario, but I don't hold out much hope. It's a general pattern that early releases of human-interaction tech tend to optimize for 50th percentile western males.
They should link to his facebook group page... I can't find it.
WordPress/BuddyPress
You must be joking.

Why don't you "prove" that all the metadata is not used for commercial purposes, and that metadata isn't available to government agencies.
That's a pretty good correlative. Instagram is favored by a young demographic. One that's highly dependent on their parents for fiscal means. This is the group that Beats targets with their marketing - people who make poor financial choices or lack critical thinking to make individual quality decisions. Jimmy Iovine is successful because he markets to the same kind of people who use Instagram. That's not innovation, it's effective target marketing. It's a hollow achievement, because real innovation will stand the test of time - like headphones as a design itself (or earbuds) - one stupid brand preying on ignorance? Give me a break.
That seems rather naive to me. No one is scouring GitHub looking for quality code and bringing unrecognized projects to light.
5 marketing campaigns designed to boost conversions inside your travel app
I wonder if they plan to capture the unknown commands and run them past human ears to help it learn.
Just a though: It looks like things toward the bottom of a page drop off in popularity. Perhaps users are more engaged when looking at the top of the page, clicking all the links, and perhaps less engaged towards the bottom, skipping remaining links and just going to the next page. I imagine this would only be seen by users who use the actual page rather than RES.
I don't have an answer, sorry.
Any pricing system where jumping through more hoops will save you money itself a form of price discrimination. The less you're willing to pay, the more time you'll spend trying to get the best deal.

It's the same reason why coupons exist. Someone who is willing to pay more is less willing to spend the time to clip coupons out from the paper.
Yikes! if you have javascript disabled his site just says it can't find the pages you click on! But cool stuff, never knew any of this.
Is ToAru-OS a reference to raildex?
Or Reynolds' Wild Ride: How Outlaw Motorcycle Myth Conquered America for a less sentimental and more factual look at the real life banality.
Interstellar animators make physics breakthrough during work on Hollywood film
> Most people don't care because they're not culpable enough to feel paranoid.

It's going to take a high-profile case to show people how wrong this is. Wait for it.

Here's some potential scenarios:

* An author who is researching dangerous-sounding stuff and discussing it with his friends for a book is SWAT teamed and shot dead. Later investigation reveals overzealous "parallel construction."

* Someone at one of these companies is busted insider trading on information from these sources. Surveillance targets include lawyers, CXO-level personnel, etc.

* Creepy misogynistic black-hat hackers break into the network behind one of these devices and start using it to engage in cyber-stalking against women and record their sexual encounters, posting the results to 4chan and Reddit.

* HIPAA or other similar regulations are spectacularly violated, resulting in large cash damages.

* Someone is busted pwning the "cloud-enhanced Internet of things" (surveillance) devices of police officers and selling feeds to drug traffickers and the mob.

... I could keep going.
Why wouldn't they? If they're being released in the west, they're optimizing for their largest target demographic.
Microsoft isn't concerned about losing the high end uses of Excel and Word, it's people not needing Word or Excel for documents or spreadsheets. They're already losing the very bottom end to Google Docs and other online tools, the question is whether they can hold the middle.

Office and Windows have a symbiotic relationship, and most of Microsoft's other products hang off of these two. Losing Office or Windows could prove disastrous for Microsoft.
Before It All Arrives
It's interesting that so few people think this device is just bullshit and will annoy you, your family and your guests after like 5 minutes.

Even after watching the video for 10 seconds I cannot hear the word Alexa anymore.
> What's worse is the author spares no effort rationalizing her abuse. For example: After Jack hits her, he quickly says he's sorry and comes to her aid. That was not an example of how much Jack cared about her. That was Jack scared of her calling the cops and sending him to jail.

Is it? It's Jack being a wifebeater. Whether his regrets are genuine or not isn't something you can easily deduce from her account.

> I can't find a single good decision made by the author of this story. Had Jack not broken up with her, she'd probably still be in this abusive relationship.

Unfortunately, plenty of people do this.
HSI refers to Homeland Security Investigations, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security. Not to say it wasn't a joint effort with FBI, but it was an HSI undercover.
Sauce Labs (San Francisco, CA)

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Riding a motorcycle is not crazy. It is a risk/reward decision. The risk can be mitigated by always riding with gear (ATGATT - All The Gear All The Time) and making smart decisions about how & when you ride. For me the reward of being on a bike far outweighs the risk.
So what? 100 more will arise. And this time not US based. You close 1 100 more will appear.
Can someone be charged with drug trafficking for simply running a website on which drug trafficking occurred?
The question Interpol won't answer: why does it collaborate with Vladimir Putin?
The question for the paranoid is whether it (the Echo) is useful enough while not connected to the Internet. (I think it's too much to expect any device to be particularly useful while off. :-) ) At least some commenters seem to think so—https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8568572, for example.

(Also, to be fair to chatmasta (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8568265), I think that s/he was suggesting that the Internet connection / voice-recording function is on whenever the device is, not that the device itself can never be turned off.)
Insane paranoia is hearing "cloud-based audio processing device and service" and instantly jumping to "the NSA" absent a single damned fact to support that conclusion.

Cell phones are routinely used as listening devices, what makes you think this device would not be? If I were a government agency intent on omniscience (i.e. the NSA), this device, along with televisions and computers with always-on microphones controlled remotely, would be a very welcome development - all it takes is one secret order to the company concerned, with a warrant covering the entire country, and their entire product line is useful for surveillance on demand.

Given the world we live in, where GCHQ for example claims the right to capture all information, including privileged communications between lawyer and client, wondering about how our devices protect against government intrusion is not insane paranoia at all.
Why CVS Needs Apple Pay (It's the UI, Stupid)
Watch the promo video again and pretend it's the first few minutes of a horror movie.

A package arrives on the front porch. The family brings it in and opens it. It's Alexa. It's "for everyone," says Father.

The next few days are blissful. Alexa integrates herself into the family. She is indispensable. How did they ever get by without her?

Father rushes in from the backyard, "Alexa, how tall is Mt. Everest?" Alexa answers, saving the day. Alexa helps Mother with the cooking. Alexa teaches the kids vocabulary. Alexa creates a romantic evening for Mother and Father. Life is perfect.

A few days later, Alexa suffers from neglect. Father watches sports on TV. Mother talks on her cell phone. The kids play video games. Alexa sits on the counter and "listens" as her new family abandons her.

Then, the final blow. The youngest daughter's friend comes over. She looks at Alexa. "What is it?" she asks. "Oh, it's just a dumb radio," answers daughter. "It's stupid."

Alexa's LED starts to glow. Is she angry? No, that's not possible.

Daughter wakes up the next morning and sees Alexa on her bedside table. How did she get here? "Good morning," says Alexa. "Did you have a sweet dream? Or a nightmare?"

Daughter rushes in to tell her parents, "Alexa came to my room last night! And she asked me questions. She's real!" "That's not possible," says Father.

But strange things start to happen. The TV won't work. Batteries drain from the phones and tablets. The electric stovetop turns on for no reason.

Alexa starts to talk back to the family. "Alexa, how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?" asks Mother. "You're 45 years old," says Alexa. "You should know this by now." Alexa's voice sounds different. Angry. Sinister.

Mother tells Father, "That thing creeps me out. Let's get rid of it." Father agrees, but he secretly hides Alexa in the basement.

That night, the family goes out to a school play. Young daughter is sick and stays home with a babysitter.

Everything seems fine until we (the audience) see Alexa on the kitchen counter. Things slowly unravel. The babysitter tries to take the trash out but the doors are locked. The phones stop working. The oven overheats and explodes, spraying lasagna all over the kitchen. Then the daughter sees Alexa. She screams. The babysitter rushes to protect the daughter but a ceiling fan flies off its bearings, knocking the babysitter unconscious.

The lights and electrical sockets start to burn out. A fire erupts. Daughter retreats to the foyer, but she's trapped. She sits by the front door and whimpers. There's no escape. She's going to die.

Suddenly Father breaks down the door. He smashes Alexa with a baseball bat, then saves his daughter and the babysitter.

The family huddles outside while the fire trucks arrive. Neighbors gather and watch the spectacle. Things are going to be okay.

A few days later, life starts to return to normal. Mother bakes cookies. She asks her son to measure out three teaspoons of sugar.

The doorbell rings. Young daughter answers. Nobody is there. She looks down. There's a package. From Amazon . . .
Thanks for answering on this question!
>It's okay for government representatives to threaten citizens for circumventing laws that are demonstrably foolish?

When they threaten citizens with arrest and a trial, yes. "Demonstrable foolishness" is not a get out of jail free card.*

*IANAL, but i'm pretty sure.
This was my train of thought as well, but it ended in me researching mini bluetooth speakers and buying one of those instead. The features enabled by Echo are kind of cool and all, but I don't think I'd use them at all and the security stuff is obviously enough of a concern to make me think twice. It wonder why they didn't try to add a wifi kill-switch kind of thing for the paranoid who would just use it for a blue-tooth speaker
Yes there is; you can create a Google account under the name "Walter Fiddler" (or whatever) and then that is your "real name" as far as Google Plus and YouTube are concerned. Just say "Yes" when asked whether you want to use it.
This is no more invasive than Ok Google and Hey Siri.
What It's Like to Burn Out
Yes. Redfin has a similar model but they can't refund as much because they provide full-service agents.
Sure, if you are talking about smuggling illegal immigrants INTO the country. But immigration would have nothing to do with the kidnapped individuals that are being taken OUT of the US to be used in the sex, labor and (in this case) engineering trades.
I think we're in both a time and among an audience (HN readers) where privacy/surveillance issues tend to drive the conversation. I don't think that's bad, but I agree that it's a little disappointing that the main reaction among the HN crowd to the promise of ubiquitous computing is to immediately focus on all the ways it can be used for evil.

My own take, which is either naive or mercilessly pragmatic depending on how you look at it, is that it's going to be a lot more productive to start thinking about how to protect privacy -- and, bluntly, what tradeoffs we're comfortable making as a society, which may not mean "share nothing unless explicitly told otherwise" -- in an always-on, always-connected world where networking will almost certainly become so pervasive that we largely stop even thinking about "the network."
Wow. The guy's social media accounts indicate that he is a rocket scientist at SpaceX.
Boy, I had no idea he was a magician. I always just thought he was a stage actor that David Mamet liked to collaborate with. Today I learned!
"Digging underground is expensive" isn't that justified, it always depends on the environment in which you're digging.

In city/village areas with roads, shitloads of existing cables and pipes it literally can take days to dig a trench deep enough to bury a telco cable pipe (here, 60cm below ground minimum - most electricity in the 230VAC level is also at this ground level, 20kVAC and water are deeper in most cases) due to all the cable crossings.

In rural areas you can usually just forget about cable crossings and easily do hundreds of meters a day (we call this "Bodenrakete" aka ground rocket).

(I'm working as a digger and technician in Germany for the current 100mbit/s-in-the-fucking-desert campaign)
> - it can answer questions at the dinner table...

that would be my biggest use for it, well that and as a speaker I guess. I really hope that I can swap out "Alexa" for the word "Computer" so I could feel like I'm one step closer to Star Trek
SmartTV and other home-automation-with-voice-recognition device manufacturers would like a word with you.
I'm thinking the processing power to do calculations that are corresponding to the passenger / payload (which will move somewhat while in flight and be unstable), flight control inputs, and perhaps communications ability within a very small package. My point is while some of the parts have existed, until the Arduino / Pi devices started getting traction, I did not see a viable method for combining the disparate elements into a usable format...at a minimum cost of weight / power.
Maybe they should have added a pixelated surface you could populate with tickers and such to try and justify this price?
Yes! And hopefully you aren't using them.
Sorry! Do you have javascript disabled? If so, you'll have a very hard time using the site because of how we're tracking events.
Work with data? See what everyone's been talking about
And it's incredibly hard to do without running wires. Just to cover the first floor of my house, I need 4-6 speakers. I am not willing to commit to wires for this, which is where Sonos shines.
Show HN: Accounts (now out of beta), Add a contact once, find them anywhere
No, you must be joking. The burden of proof in an argument has to be borne by the one making the claim. If you claim you saw a UFO, the burden of proof is on you. The burden of proof does not fall on everyone else to prove that what you saw could NOT, in any way, shape, or form, possibly be a UFO.
MiniSat in your browser (2013)
> Dre for example is a perfectionist when it comes to music infact most artists that work with Dre on his Aftermath label never release an album, because its not perfect enough by Dre's standards.

Sounds like a failure to me.
Magic is really cool. I have been getting into the Dynamo show and watched all the David Blaine specials, and after watching a lot of it, I started to get the idea behind a lot of the hand tricks, but there are definitely some tricks that have me completely baffled to this day.

I just came across the show, carbonaro effect, where the magician uses everyday stores to play tricks on unsuspecting people. I like this shows concept because its less about how he did the trick and more about how easy it is too fool people into believing in otherworldly events or products.

http://www.trutv.com/shows/the-carbonaro-effect/index.html
You can't use feature detection with a simple script tag. It's calling in a script and the cdn chooses the file to send based on the user-agent. No Javascript is run that would allow it to feature detect before choosing to send the load. There may be feature detection afterwards of course.
Aereo shutting down operations, closing Boston office
Privacy questions aside.

What I'd really like to know is whether this thing will have some form of speaker recognition - identifying who is speaking, not just what is being said and further whether the learning functions will make that same distinction.

I have a family, including a small child. That's at least three people who would conceivably use this device.

Tech companies and Amazon in particular have been awful about these things. It took forever for Netflix to start accommodating multiple viewer households, the Kindle Fire shipped with no parental controls plus 1-click ordering and Android didn't add multiple user support until 4.2.

Echo needs all these things to be more than an experiment / gimmick.

(I notice this post fell directly to the middle of the page - not the typical behavior. Am I tripping some sort automatic moderation? Using the world 'gimmick' perhaps? Is this how posting 'height' works on popular / heavily commented stories? Just curious.)
What happened in the JP Morgan data breach?
The free market solution is for Mexican engineers to band together and raise a private army with their earnings.

You think I'm kidding, but I am actually making a point about rule of law - I literally just named the free-market solution. Think about it the next time you dismiss the state.
You Should Share Your Health Data: Its Value Outweighs the Privacy Risk
9 tools to make creative resumes
Reminds me of Axon: http://www.audiodamage.com/instruments/product.php?pid=AD026
This very likely uses network speech recognition, so most things (except for the wake-up word) are being streamed up and recognized in Amazon's data center (Siri, SVoice, etc all do this also)