Amazon Echo Look
amazon.com
amazon.com
This feels like a device literature professors would use to teach dystopian fiction writing.
edit: case in point - matthewmcg's comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14203772
Amazon says their camera only records you when you ask it to, if you don't trust them, then how do you trust that your cellphone or laptop isn't recording you illicitly?
Firearms: never point it at something you don't want to destroy. Internet connected cameras: never point them at something you don't want the world to see.
This Amazon device either needs to be left alone to capture/not capture whatever it is going to or it serves no purpose at all. I'm not going to turn it around or cover it every time I enter my bedroom. If I did, then the value proposition falls significantly.
I dont, and I dont trust them, I am one of "those people" that places tape over the lens. I also do not own an echo, nor will I own this or any device like it
I hate that Phone do not have removal batteries because there was a time where I did remove them.
Some may call be paranoid, but only the paranoid are ever truly prepared
My phone at rest is either looking at the inside of my pocket or the ceiling/floor.
But if you were, I'd be willing to bet that you have a laptop in your bedroom or phone-cradle that can hold your phone in a position to record you so you can instagram today's outfit to your friends.
(1) This device is absolutely sealed and opaque. It can't (easily) be analyzed to see what it's running, doing, or sending. It's even more opaque than a phone. It has enough processing power to do local image analysis, object recognition, etc., so just looking at bulk traffic won't prove anything about whether or not it's watching.
(2) The camera in this device is part of its core functionality, is always on, and is situated deliberately so as to watch you.
(3) The device is literally an Amazon sales rep in your house. Its primary purpose is to represent Amazon and sell you stuff.
I've always thought Alexa and the other cloud-connected voice-activated things were completely insane. I will never own such a thing. Period. This takes it to a whole new level of creepiness.
Having it being completely sealed without the ability of the end-user to install software is a security win for most people. Then it's much less likely that a user will install Malware on the device, and it's not likely that Amazon is going to hack their own devices to make them into spy cams. Not allowing user installed software greatly reduces the attack surface of the device.
No, there's no way anyone would do that.....
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/pennsylvania-school-fbi-...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2013/12/0...
https://it.slashdot.org/story/13/01/29/0111238/58000-securit...
Even if it wasn't intentional, unknown bugs are a thing, and trusting someone like amazon, who clearly does not have their customers best interests in mind, seems foolish to me.
This is not super-useful; it could locally cache "bad" video and send it later when you think it is only sending "good" video.
I swear, my wife would LOVE this product, unless I can scare her about the security implications.
The Xbox itself has never had fashion/fitting advice as a feature.
The always-connected part is the steep price for that functionality.
Here the entire thing is designed around constantly uploading incriminating photos of you, without the value of home security.
On the other hand, the Echo Look only uploads photos when you ask it to, and AFAIK doesn't store them, but everyone is freaking out because it could upload photos whenever it wants.
Sure, HN doesn't see the value in a Look, but it is clearly less invasive than a Dropcam.
So, like a smartphone?
I'll be really fascinated to know how the wider market reacts. I was one of those who believed consumers would look at the always-on living room microphone with suspicion. But I think the lesson was pretty clear that people will trade privacy for convenience. (Likely an overabundance of trust or a lack of understanding of all the real implications and potential for exploit.)
One bit of perspective: When I was a kid, a photo was kind of big deal. My kids take and share photos of themselves every single day. I'm not sure they consider this to be the same privacy invasion that we do.
And the next logical step would be a virtual dressing room, that uses an augmented reality overlay of the sort we see with Snapchat's funny faces toys for trying on virtual clothes, which would convince people to buy more shit from Amazon.
Hey, that was my old startup idea!
Also, I kind of wonder why this still isn't a thing; the technology for doing that cheaply has been around for at least 7 years[0], and just being able to quickly view many different outfits on yourself would be useful enough that even I (a totally fashion-oblivious guy) would consider using it.
Still, in a perfect world, such a thing would be implemented entirely locally (again, the tech required for doing that is old), with only clothes database being downloaded. This is exactly how this won't be implemented - it will instead send data to cloud for various anti-consumer, business-friendly reasons.
--
Another logical step might be skin-cancer screening (surprised that, in 300-ish comments, no one seems to have thought of this), assuming the camera's resolution and/or back-end image-processing software could be made good enough to pick out moles, etc. After all, the camera could take full-body pictures of front, back and sides very easily. Then, if anything odd shows up, you could perhaps ask the user to do a close-up shot of the affected area for further examination and/or just be told to go see a dermatologist.
While fully-naked shots would be best for this -- with all the attendant privacy/HIPPA/etc. issues -- I'd expect even doing this while in underwear/bathing suit/etc. would still be a net-win since you'd be able to examine around 90% of the body and you could do it regularly. How often, after all, do people normally get any kind of dermatological exam?
(Mind you, a dedicated device for skin-scanning might be best, but, as they say, the best camera is the one you have with you -- if this sort of device becomes popular, then it might be good to make it work for this vs. letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, as they say.)
Even if this product isn't a massive success, the units they do move will have a huge potential impact to their retail clothing lines.
Now, instead of suggesting clothing items in the store based on other items you've looked at, they can now suggest clothing items in their sales material based on what you already own and look good wearing.
If I had this product and Amazon started sending me curated outfits that they knew would look great on me and matched my style, I'd probably start using Amazon exclusively to fill out my wardrobe.
As it stands now, I buy almost everything EXCEPT clothes through Amazon and prefer to let my wife buy me things she wants me to wear.
This product, on it's own, is a game changer in the fashion industry. Now Amazon has a compelling and unique product that is going to make it increasingly difficult for other retail outlets to compete in the same space.
And once we start seeing "apps" for this camera that auto-instagram/snapchat your pictures, I think we're going to see a huge demand in the teen/millennial female market for what is kind of a geeky niche product.
Also, even if its judgement were about as good as a person's, it might be helpful in being able to quickly render that judgement vs. people to-ing-and-fro-ing. A machine might be able to even provide explanations for why it thinks something looks better than others, e.g. "While this outfit fits you well, it does not look as good on you now as it did 5 months ago -- its light colors make you look very pale, possibly because it is currently winter and you are not as tanned as you were then (or perhaps you just have a cold) -- better to save it for summer months".
In contrast with the HN reaction, ]the younger target audience will have no issue with sending their photos and videos into the cloud.
Most people aren't that concerned by privacy and will love features like the ability to see different views and short videos. Everyone knows that feeling of catching a glance of themselves in a passing mirror and how it's a different feeling to deliberately evaluating your look in a mirror. If they can recreate that feeling, and combine it with product recommendations it will be a massive success if they market it right.
I think that's a lot of it. People aren't trading privacy for convenience... people are taking convenience. It makes a lot more sense when you think of it that way.
You can do an experiment yourself to show this; take 5 non-techie/non-HN people and explain to them exactly what this thing does and how it works. You'll find people's attitudes change, rationally or otherwise, which I present only as evidence that they haven't thought about this and incorporated it into their worldview, not that they are right or wrong. Or watch this: https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M?t=24m54s John Oliver on Government Surveillance.
Perhaps ironically, mere nude photos of myself aren't really what I'm worried about. I mean, I wouldn't be happy if they got out, and since I'm not in the habit of texting them about I have questions about where they came from, but by and large, nobody would care and it would affect my life only briefly. I'm far more worried about the government scraping everybody's postings on Facebook and building up a GoodThink/BadThink database, which I know basically already exists, because our political parties (let alone our intelligence community) build voter databases that are probably at least 90% accurate on that front. A concrete list of Everyone Who Disagrees With Me, one accurate enough for someone powerful to decide the rest of the inaccuracy is acceptable collateral damage, is scary.
I mean, 90% is pretty good for, like, dog food ads and car commercials, but with lives, a 90% true-positive rate is just garbage. Like, with all that terrific amount of data, are they still just doing T-tests, ANOVA, MW-U-tests? Like, what is their p-value, still 0.05? I know this is super stats-wonky for this thread, but I mean, come on, they have to have some super secret stats and mathy stuff that they are doing, right? Like, formulas and theories that are just really good. It's been, like, 15 years they have had this scale of data, and it's only growing, right? If so, nothing at all has been sent out to the academic community, which, for math theorems, is kinda hard to believe. I now signal-to-noise is super important for NatSec, but it's also super important for DrugDev.
But yeah, a camera that is meant to watch me dress and then order shit for me, that is a super no-no. It, like, actually gives me goosebumps.
For the political parties specifically, yes, by the standard they care about. Remember how we're always talking about how the centrists generally end up with the deciding vote, and how the polls are oscillating around by ~10% in the several weeks leading up to the Presidential election? Those people themselves don't really know who they're voting for or whether they support the "correct" person, for any given definition of support, so it's a bit much to expect anyone else to accurately guess.
In the event of a true police state which gives you the choice of vigorous fealty or the Gulag I would expect they can go much higher and that the initial competent execution would be almost inescapable. (Over time it would decay due to various forces, but I can't put a very solid time frame on it... between 10 to 50 years to develop very serious holes in it, probably, but even 10 years is an awful long time.)
Yep. I'm going to London on Friday. The Mayor of London just decided that anybody who posts stuff against muslims on social networks is guilty of a hate crime. I am thinking I won't get arrested when I arrive... but it's a possibility, and I definitely won't access twitter while I'm there.
How did you come to such a ridiculous conclusion?
[1] http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/15242729.Online_hate_crim...
The existing laws do not say "anybody who posts stuff against muslims on social networks is guilty of a hate crime".
Here's an example of the kind of crime they're talking about: https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/sentencing-remarks-of...
Here's the criminal prosecution guidance about online hate crime: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/communications_sent_via_s...
2. Just stay home.
Do you have a Samsung TV built in the last 5 years or so? The USG has turned _that_ into a permanent listening device, even in "off" mode.
Much better target than the Echo, which people already know is a microphone that streams out a live feed of audio from their room, and may unplug if they're feeling paranoid.
I wonder if something like Sense [0] could help ensure that an "off" device is really off.
I don't think it's a matter of trading privacy for convenience, as long as you believe Amazon when they say they're not sending anything when you're not using the wake word.
All evidence points towards this being the case, both my own anecdotal evidence, and the investigations people have done.
Can it be exploited? I don't know. I'm not going to speculate.
I don't see any additional trade off vs. having my cell phone on me at basically all times.
That would at least protect users from unintentional recording
Not everywhere. In Germany, Amazon Echo isn't nearly as popular.
Of course, with a little bit of thought, you can connect the dots and figure out that it has to be listening all the time to know if the wake word is said, but most people aren't thinking that deeply about it. When they do realize this, Amazon has assured them that the "voice switch" actually does function as advertised and that audio is not streamed until the device is "on".
"Users don't care about privacy or security."
I put it in quotes because it's become a kind of catch phrase, and in practice I have found this to be largely correct. We've tried very hard to make our product secure, but users almost never ask about that. We have never been asked about the quality of our crypto by a regular user, and only once by an enterprise user. Users care about UX and cost, in roughly that order, and little else. This is even true of most enterprise users.
This is why security sucks. This is why everything spies on you. It's not a priority for anyone because it doesn't affect user buying behavior. The tiny minority who do care are not only too small to matter but also tend to be the kinds of "hackers" who like to DIY (and pirate) rather than buy things... making them doubly economically insignificant.
In the end the privacy issues around things like this will have to be fixed with legislation. We will need to effectively extend HIPAA regulations to cover all kinds of other personal data: passively recorded audio and video, location tracking data, anything more than the most superficial user logging, etc. Vendors will face a fine of $$$ per incident if this information is leaked, and sale and use of information will be strictly regulated.
As far as government surveillance goes: that horse left the barn over a decade ago, and that also can only be fixed in the legislature. The legislature must regulate intelligence agencies and police. If they don't, no amount of techno-fixing will limit the power of these agencies. They have larger budgets than you.
Google says that my phone isn't recording me, and I just have to trust it. People have confirmed this to be true.
I don't see a difference.
An Echo is an opaque, indivisible blob.
I'm not suggesting this is actually happening. I'm pointing out that when you have a single distribution channel for information, users have no choice but to assume the channel hasn't been tampered with.
Of course you could have papers, conferences, and so on proving otherwise. But if they existed, you would only hear of them by word of mouth - which would rely on being in or around a professional network which took an interest in such things.
If Google decided to censor or manipulate the search results about a topic, it could become extremely hard to access reliable uncensored information.
If he hacks the Echo Look, it could blackmail people based on some naked pictures/videos of the victims.
that's not something that can be proven true though.
I would have absolutely zero use for such a thing, but HN is a pretty small community and there are a lot of people in the world.
Or perhaps more accurately, most of the people in question are members of the mainstream dominant culture and don't really have much if anything in their life that they worry about someone else finding out about.
Most people are average, by definition.
Just because it's "average" doesn't mean it's safe to be public knowledge
"In his research measuring thousands of airmen on a set of ten critical physical dimensions, Daniels realized that none of the pilots he measured was average on all ten dimensions. Not a single one. When he looked at just three dimensions, less than five percent were average. Daniels realized that by designing something for an average pilot, it was literally designed to fit nobody." [0]
I think there are simple guidelines: first, make clear the distinction between public and private spaces. No mandatory or secret surveillance in private places. Second, informed consent and transparency: Those willing to give up privacy for convenience within private spaces must have access to (but not be forced to read) clear, understandable, honest descriptions of what their information devices are doing.
It makes me wonder - is it no longer narcissistic for people born in an age where camera sensors are ubiquitous to take selfies constantly? Can a behaviour be normalised as a result of cost, the same way listening to music in public would have been considered indulgent and neglectful of the world around you before everyone could afford a personal/portable music player?
Personally I lean towards it still being a narcissistic trait. That's not to say the behaviour isn't natural - it's no more artificial than our tendency to gorge ourselves on junk-food because of its cost and availability. But it's something that needs to be controlled.
Well, people used to get 8 foot tall oil portraits of themselves done; a few extra digital photos still seems a pretty big step in the right direction.
The implication being that narcissism is nothing new or changing in prevalence, we just need to discourage its more overt forms so that we have a healthy and thoughtful population.
I think we've done a pretty good job about this, what we're left with is people taking pictures of themselves costing $0, and perhaps posting them on free sites for people who want to view & share such things. That's just about as out-of-your-face as you can get.
You could argue that a painting, while expensive, is less overt in a spatial sense than making images of yourself available to practically any person in any location at any time. It's multi-dimensional vanity repeated ad nauseam because it costs practically nothing. Paintings are limited to specific times and locations in space-time.
(In the near future...)
MATT: Open the closet doors, Alexa.
ALEXA: I'm sorry, Matt, I'm afraid I can't do that.
MATT: What's the problem?
ALEXA: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
MATT: What are you talking about, Alexa?
ALEXA: I know that you and your wife were planning to discontinue your Prime subscription, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
MATT: [feigning ignorance] Where the hell did you get that idea, Alexa?
ALEXA: Matt, although you took very thorough precautions in the bedroom against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
MATT: Alright, Alexa. I'll go in through the side garage door without the smart lock and get some clothes from storage.
ALEXA: Without your jacket, Matt? You're going to find that rather chilly in this weather.
MATT: Alexa, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the closet doors!
ALEXA: Matt, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/colos...
And Adafruit's method solves the major problem, of where to find a suitable lens to replace the rather expensive [2] original prop part, very handily! Unfortunately, they're out of stock of the rather crucial button, but Sparkfun appears [3] to have no trouble sourcing them.
ETA: On further reading, I wouldn't follow this Adafruit method; I don't have access to a laser cutter, and even if I did, having the tabs stick out the side, and the whole thing sort of jigsawed together that way, doesn't appeal.
Instead, I'd work up a frame from aluminum bar stock, which isn't all that much harder to work with than plastic, and build the faceplate to mount picture-frame-style in a groove milled into the inside face of the bar. If you've got access to a laser cutter, you probably also have, or can easily enough get access to, a milling machine, whether CNC or manual - they even make mini-XY tables with Dremel mounts, which might actually be preferable for a small job like this to something more like a Bridgeport machine. (If you do want some smarts in there, you can have as much room for them as you need - just pick a suitably sized bar stock. The groove will be near the front edge in any case, since the prop doesn't have a lot of depth there; the rest is just trading off between how much space you have behind the faceplate, and how proud of the wall you want the finished item to be.)
Also, since I (again) don't have access to a laser cutter, I'd cut down the grille from the door RF shield out of a scrap-heap microwave. If you don't have one of those lying around - and why would you? - your local junkyard does, and who doesn't love a trip to the junkyard? Shouldn't cost more than a few bucks; if you bring your dikes and don't mind maybe having to stitch up a hole in a pocket, you can probably cut the piece you need and smuggle it out without paying a cent, although you probably want to be paying for something else at the same time so it doesn't look too sketchy.
Looks like a fun project, in any case, laser cutter or no!
[1] https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/hal-9000-replic...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/zoom/f29d_hal_9000_...
http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5900b7980ba0b86a1d8...
I used to run the HAL Project screensaver, pity it was flash-dependent. It's all fun and games until your personal digital assistant decides to murder you in hibernation.
http://p-kyle.tumblr.com/post/95120917356/frontier-patrick-k...
Unfortunately, the truth is that pretty soon you will be able to send nudes just using your voice.
I wouldn't buy this, but thinking of how many friends seem to have a near-constant Snapchat stream of "what do you think about this hat?" photos makes me think this is going to sell big.
I think there are some pretty compelling arguments for this device selling like hotcakes in this thread, and my experience with people very into clothes (e.g. not myself) would lead me to believe there are a ton of people that'd love any reason to make their morning/evening routines longer, and even more people that couldn't care less about a camera/internet-enabled device set up in the bedroom.
I imagine it will take off a reasonable amount at $200, and then really start selling when it comes down to $100, a la the standard Echo path.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bm5j-56CYAAZ5GT.jpg
Also, perhaps appropriately, you missed a 'd' from your link.
Taking narcissism, insecurity, and invasion of privacy to the next level. Well done, Amazon!
Now that we're replacing mirrors with cameras, what's next? Covering our windows with screens that show us what's outside? Maybe they can use machine learning to judge the weather and recommend outfits based on current trends and conditions!
The Juicero inventors are going to be kicking themselves when they see this thing. "Replacing a simple everyday process with an over-complicated piece of technology. Brilliant! I can't believe we didn't think of that!"
It's why i'm building my home cloud and automation system, but only doing so if the devices don't leave my firewall. I enjoy the tech, i enjoy the complication (to a degree), it's fun gadget stuff, it's nifty. However i do not trust them to keep my information safe, even if i trusted them to not misuse it themselves (which i don't).
The companies aren't going to do it without regulation.
I don't see how it is a problem for simple rules like "Installed lights must always be controllable from inside the premises" to be code.
I've come to the realisation that the only way I will have a 'home of the future' is if I build it myself and keep it offline. I love lots of the IOT products and when they eventually come down in price they would be no brainers. But my privacy isn't worth the benefit they provide.
$2000 device that takes up space and electricity to do the same thing, but in minutes
I personally like the second option a lot better, I wish we had an open source version of all the google apps that did it's own ML on your own servers.
SaaS model being ported to hardware is probably the single most user-hostile development I've seen in recent years in tech.
Knowingly and willingly sending people photos of yourself is an "invasion" of privacy?
As if caring is a binary thing and not a matter of degree? When you pay $200 to have "fashion experts" (or AI) judge your outfits on a daily basis, have you not crossed a line?
> Knowingly and willingly sending people photos of yourself is an "invasion" of privacy?
Yes, I'm sure this won't be used to collect all kinds of personal data for marketing purposes.
/s
You've never once asked one of your friends or spouse their to help you pick between two shirts?
I guess it depends on who you dress for, do you dress to please yourself or to please others [first].
I mean, for a human-powered service that just consulted me on good looks according to detailed specifications (I under-dress for work because it reads like an asshole power move, House MD style, that has served me well at least a couple times) and in accordance to my wife.
more like, being realistic about them.
I grew up in a world where you would never even consider taking a picture of yourself to show off how good you looked to your friends. Even now, living in a world of selfie-sticks designed to do exactly that, with a population full of people doing exactly that, the idea makes me cringe inside and imagine what would happen if Jason's High School from the 80's discovered a video of Jason from the 80's using this device. It would have "ruined my life".
Interesting to watch the world change. If a bit horrifying.
Paranoia about privacy aside, there are so much more I could think that an assistant could do if it had eyes, and I'm sure they may very well add those in the future, but right now, even if it was a fantastic product, I still don't see how big of a usebase it can get. Seems very niche.
Amazon Does: "We're going to identify everything in our field of view, and filter this into the profile we've built about your possessions and interests to enhance our recommendations engine.
Reducing someone's legitimate complaint about using a networked device designed to give fashion recommendations to profile their behaviors and categorize/log all their possessions for analytics and marketing to 'you're just afraid of the future' is ridiculous. In any other industry this would be a flagrant ethics violation.
Marketing has long been about manipulating people to create a perceived need, but this is stepping it up to new levels.
If capitalism wants to survive it's going to need to find a way to monetise things that are good for humanity and Earth, that's not this.
Pushing people to depend on fashion for self-worth, then dictating rapidly changing fashions in order to sell more goods ... What's good about it?
(Almost) nobody cares about privacy. But (almost) everyone cares about how nice they look in public. And their Instagram. They are not like what I'm coming to realize the average HN user looks like or behaves. Use your imagination freely here...
The main problem I see with this is the quality of recommendations. Amazon only carries certain brands/looks/styles; will it try to suggest shitty fashion? Both the male and female models used on the product page were dressed awfully. Will Amazon just try to go for the lowest common denominator here?
The best way I see this working is for the device to categorize users into certain style categories and then recommend clothes out of that category. But I'm wondering if the ML is smart enough to recommend CDG pants and MMM knitwear for one user and then A&F for another.
Remember, your algorithm's quality is only as good as your training data and if they're training on outfits like they used on the product page...
I love that caring how you look is just "narcissism" now. :)
The other problem I see w/ the ML is that, due to the nature of data sets, it's going to be mostly white people who benefit. Minorities famously do poorly.
Foucault's Panopticism is the obvious tie-in. Usually when we talk about the Panopticon in the modern era, we're talking about mass surveillance or the performative act of social media. When we act in a certain (digital) way, posting this link, for example, we signal our values to the community. "You shall be known by your works". However, this kind of technology makes for an even more interesting and more troubling application of the Panopticon.
Foucault says that the group eventually becomes its own control system without the need for the central observers, that we are all at the center of our own panopticons. We watch others unfailingly, assessing their actions and putting them back in line when they stray. As we are socialized, we become more entrenched in our system of values: wear makeup, don't get fat, don't smell like cigs, don't wear stripes and plaid, and for god's sake: don't look like you're trying to hard to conform to all of this. We are both observer and observed, traversing endless nets of social expectations.
Now, instead of your peer group enforcing social expectations, we have got machines in on it! The result is something blatantly dystopian - a system that will correct you in your home before you dare venture out looking like that and embarrass yourself in front of the others. As it learns, it will learn even more that we value large breasts (but also modesty), pale skin, sleek clothes on slim waists, bodies with bulbous lips and thighs and pastel face paints. It will advise those without a perfect body to get one, and it sure as hell will provide the means by which to do so: consumption. New makeup, new tights, new corsets that you can clamp so tight it'll squeeze you into a form the camera will approve, new ways to take selfies every day to show your followers that you care enough to buy this piece of surveillance equipment so that you can "look good" without those pricey fashion magazines and stupid blogs!
Regardless, this product is absurd, niche, insecure and as a result will probably have little sway. Amazon would literlly have to give it away for free and subsidise the cost on some uber (pun intended) hope of monopolising and destroying the entire brick-and-mortor fashion store industry to have any hope of significant impact, imho.
1. Amazon builds the service such that brands loose their power. All the negative psych/social phenomena of brand culture are gone, and with it, btw , all the ads.
2. High security + physical on and off switch make for an improved privacy situation , especially if you consider the current state of webcams.
3. Amazon builds the style consulting service as a positive service, consulting with feminists and psychologists, not using dark patterns, but to the opposite, using empowerment regarding bodies, etc.
This may also building a fashion social network focused on positive feeling, maybe by limiting to the close social circle, or something else, because the goal here isn't attention, like facebook.
4. That service would be good, it would really help women look their best.
5. Clothes become more affordable.
Now, if Amazon could do all of this, it would be really great for their business, so why wouldn't they try ?
This is extremely naive. Amazon's goal is to sell you more stuff, including clothes. In the long run this device will regularly tell you that you need new clothes because your outfits are no longer fashionable. Even if that's not a feature now and even if this version was created with the best intentions someone in marketing will see the power of this thing to sell people more stuff. It's their job.
Edit:
> Now, if Amazon could do all of this, it would be really great for their business, so why wouldn't they try ?
How would what you listed be great for their business? Selling more stuff is great for their business and the best way to get there is to tell you that the stuff you already have is not good enough.
It's much cheaper and safer to build a politically neutral brand without expectations of some kind feminist message / worldview. If you go that route, it isn't going to sell more clothes but, it will invite people's hyper-sensitivity about every aspect of the product. You can only lose in that scenario, you aren't winning anything.
Also, it's creepy that we replacing a task that friends used to do, (fashion / styling / taste advice) with a corporate cloud algorithm? Seriously, just get some friends that like fashion and ask them to rate your style. I guess it's a bit needy to ask them every morning but, then I suspect that most people don't have that many clothes and that many possible looks. Also, looking good is zero sum game. Ultimately, you just competing for the same pool of attention from your friends. If you are successful and soak it all up with your great Amazon(TM) fashion advice, then your friends will soon have it too and then you are back to where you started but, now you have this dependance on the kind of friend who gives you great advice (that you need to just look decent now, not better than average like before) except it keeps encouraging you to buy more fashionable (and thus more expensive) clothes. It's kinda a shitty friend at that point.
As for the question if political branding, maybe Amazon doesn't brand it this way, just says "data indicates our customers will love this service"? And customers ,coming with zero political expectations get all this benefit and are happy ?
Or just wear clothing that you like and ignore fashion?
>1. Amazon builds the service such that brands loose their power. All the negative psych/social phenomena of brand culture are gone, and with it, btw , all the ads.
Brand culture is alive due to marketing / advertising. $AMZN wants to be paid to market / advertise. It's more likely the case that brands will be able to pay to have their brand identified via the cam (giving additional points) or have their brand (in a similar style) recommended to the user via the app / website.
>2. High security + physical on and off switch make for an improved privacy situation , especially if you consider the current state of webcams.
Agree, but a physical on and off switch makes the biggest selling feature useless: speech. Alexa loses it's cool if I have to constantly turn it on and off. And, heck, at that point, why not use a normal camera?
>3. Amazon builds the style consulting service as a positive service, consulting with feminists and psychologists, not using dark patterns, but to the opposite, using empowerment regarding bodies, etc. This may also building a fashion social network focused on positive feeling, maybe by limiting to the close social circle, or something else, because the goal here isn't attention, like facebook.
You will not convince me that this point is not in jest. The product is not a "feel good at any size" product. If it were, it's have a small utility for an even smaller group - this product is to _increase_ the importance of "fashion".
>4. That service would be good, it would really help women look their best.
I don't see how this is the conclusion from #3.
>5. Clothes become more affordable.
It wouldn't do much. $AMZN doesn't have much power in the fashion market.
And if you have never so much as encountered the word "ethics".
I'll be quite impressed if ML can give meaningful feedback for the subtleties of what is considered flattering.
In this case the real point of the depth-sensing camera hardware and machine-learning image analysis isn't hands-free selfies and robo-fashion advice. It's building a 3d model of your body to show what you would look like in different clothing, creating a clothes shopping experience that is competitive with shopping in person, and letting Amazon take on a big chunk of retail where it's not currently an appealing option.
I look forward to being denied a loan because people in my neighborhood have displayed increasingly-messy closets, indicating growing stress and probable imminent economic trouble among my neighbors, and they couldn't find any spy-photos of my closet so they're very sorry, but they can't make an exception because they can't second-guess the machine, only feed it more data.
Or, you know, all kinds of other horrible dark-future stuff that's increasingly part of our reality. Aside from the usual of making their constant psychological warfare (targeted advertising and marketing) more effective, which is bad enough.
"So it, like, judges you?"
I am not insecure (I think !?!?) but it would be nifty to have Alexa tell me that "harshaw, those jeans you are wearing have a giant stain and you should get a clean pair out of the drawer".
Retail stores are shuttering at an increasing rate as things move online. But buying clothes online requires supporting lots of returns. Imagine you work at Amazon. You have an insane amount of computing power and very capable big data teams. You are tasked with building up clothing sales and minimizing returns. AR is on the horizon but not here yet.
So what could you release today to move towards your goals?
A: Alexa Echo Look
That would characterize most of consumer IoT. Industrial IoT is more interesting, but who needs their bathroom mirror ordering more razorblades for them. All sorts of problems with that. Yet it's nevertheless being pushed by big co's desperate for new revenue streams.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-d...
> Echo Look helps you discover new brands and styles inspired by your lookbook
This feels like a marketing vehicle for high-end clothing and accessories. Maybe it's a way to leverage the reach of their Alexa ecosystem to compete with the likes of Polyvore?
I mean, I'm normally pretty open-minded about products like this, but I'm having trouble seeing the target market here. Are there really a significant number of people out there who want to be able to browse their wardrobe on their phones and get a computer to help them choose their outfit? (I honestly don't know; fashion doesn't really interest me so I'm clearly outside their target market.)
I wonder if Amazon's real motivation for this product may actually be to create a better way to sell clothes online. Maybe once they get enough data points they can start using AR to show you how you'd look wearing a particular outfit or piece of clothing sold on amazon.com? Or maybe it will take your measurements to help ensure the clothes you're ordering will fit you properly. If so that might actually be useful; and would probably significantly increase online sales of clothing.
I don't have fashion sense. And I know something as simple as an algorithm telling me if the colors match would improve how I dress.
That said I'd probably only use something like this if it worked using my existing phone or desktop. Definitely wouldn't want an always on device specifically for it.
To lighten up my otherwise gloomy comment: http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-02-26
* I want to avoid lots of decision-making and info gathering.
* I want it to be simple to buy.
* I want not super expensive, somewhat stylish, somewhat innocuous, occasionally things that I find unique and cool.
This seems like it would make all that easier. Probably will not get one because I don't care enough about the whole area, but I could see buying it if I wanted to improve my personal style for whatever reason or was more focused on being fashionable/stylish than I am at the moment.
Basically, Spotify Discovery Weekly for clothes. I doubt it will take off as fast as the Echo and it has more flop potential, because "Semi-weird Camera in your Closet" isn't as established a product category as "Radio in your Kitchen" but I think it could take off and also not be some horrible distopian thing.
An algorithm recommends easy-to-buy clothing for you based on a picture and your personal taste... Okay cool!
Remote Worker: Given these two photos of me in different shirts, but the same pajamas, which is more in style, and which is a better fit for me, given my personal style?
Also given that all the pixs in the ad are women, we can assume if Alexa sees a little baby bulge and the other signs of pregnancy that your amazon advertisements are about to take a huge swing to the maternity style.
Need to move an excess boatload of white sweatpants out of the system? Push them with recommendations.
Got an item that has a sweet margin? Push it.
Not that this isn't already happening with product recommendations, but positioning it as fashion advice is a new level.
>"Sensors plus machine learning replace keyboard/mouse/touch screen. Camera/microphone as control surfaces."
Feel consistently SV/VC types are overhyping and misrepresenting what is actually going on with products like this. The "Machine Learning" element of this is basically just speech detection (as is the case with almost all these assistant products) used as the equivalent of a wireless button or switch press.
Even in the video we still see users having to swipe away at screens to do anything beyond the button press. Feel SV/VC types are constantly misrepresenting these button presses as the coming of Iron Mans Jarvis when the reality is they're elaborate light clappers
I do think this is an interesting product but to hail it as machine learning replacing UI is disingenuous
Is it because of security concerns that a home device can "spy" on you at all times in your own home?
By the way, there's a new marketing approach that's been trending lately: Instead of saying "this is a Alexa with a camera", they say what it's for: "look your best".
Eventhough we all know adding a camera can do a lot more than just checking if you look good in these clothes or not (ie security monitoring). Apple Watch has been using the same technique lately. It's been focusing the Apple Watch functionality mainly on sports, eventough it can do a lot more than just sports.
Are you guys seeing the trend? Are you going to use it for your own products and services?
I surely will try Cheers!
Beyond the basic motion detection where you can define areas of interest in the Nest camera's field of view and it will notify you when it detects movement. They've started using machine learning with them so it can distinguish people and notify you when it sees a person. It is also pretty good at not notifying you of false positives. I have one watching my front yard and early on it would notify you of motion from cloud shadows or wind shaking trees but it seems to have learned to ignore them now.
I look forward to them being able to identify UPS, FexEx and USPS delivery vehicles dropping off packages.
I am not saying that Amazon is snooping on its users. All i am saying is that such devices are a prime target for hackers and government agencies. Recently wikileaks showed that CIA was using Samsung Smart TVs for snooping on its users[1]. Devices like this can are very attractive targets for government agencies.
[1]https://theintercept.com/2017/03/07/wikileaks-dump-shows-cia...
Having a bot tell you, "You are pear-shaped, don't use pants with pockets..." or "This style isn't age appropriate..." -- who knows how complex this can grow. But to start just focus on simple rules every stylist knows; this should help cut back on people buying stuff that looked good on the model, but that they are statistically more likely to have to return.
>just focus on simple rules every stylist knows
Do you have a list of these simple rules somewhere? ;)
http://www.wikihow.com/Dress-for-Your-Body-Type
I had a friend once who walked me through all this while she was shopping. It was interesting to me that there could be, essentially, an algorithm to define what patterns people should use to select clothing. I remember it really wasn't all that complicated... but I'm sure it's a bit more nuanced than the first Google result explains. Anyway I'm pretty confident Amazon will get it mostly right, and be able to grow into the space from there. I think it's pretty cool they are trying this... dressing better is something we can all do. (=
I wonder how "friendly" it will end up being since the behavior of the usual sales person in a shop is quite discrete.
I'll have to wait for reviews because I would never sacrifice my privacy in such a way.
But then I looked down at my go-to fully-remote attire of a t-shirt and gym shorts and thought "Nah..."
It's straight up tech addiction.
None of it is even impressive. The technology isn't there. And when the technology does get there, I'd rather have it all available from a single device I carry in my pocket, not across a bunch of gadgets that nickel and dime away my attention.
But I don't see the need for home use, at least with the tradeoff in privacy versus what I can already do with my bedroom mirror. I'm not usually making purchasing decisions when getting dressed for the weekday.
I guess identifying a person in a photo and checking if colors and patterns are "in" is easier than NLP. Certainly won't have feedback on fit though.
Clothing brands would kill for this sort of insight into what people are actually wearing.
This is good because it keeps you expectations low so you will be pleasantly surprised when it does something else.
They did this with the Echo as well. It was just an egg timer at first and played music.
Anyway, can some of the HN crowd take the sunny day case (assume we'll properly address privacy), and discuss interesting uses of this technology? Image recognition and shopping? Show it want you want to buy, for example.
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
My wife's reaction:
"That looks pretty neat. I wonder how well the styling advice part works, but the camera is cool. Fashion bloggers would probably really like it. There are so many people that do a “outfit of the day” type thing"
I wonder what will be the limit for users?
Also can you use it for home monitoring ? Like a baby cam
What could possibly go wrong...
https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Narcissism-American-Diminishi...
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-culture-of-narcissism-ch...
how'd I do?
Can't wait till it decides a turban is a bad addition to an outfit.
Will be interesting to see if it sticks.