Amazon Echo Look – Hands-Free Camera and Style Assistant | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Echo Look – Hands-Free Camera and Style Assistant

amazon.com

19 pointsjeremyrwelch23 comments

By sitting in the alcove, and keeping well back, Winston was able to remain outside the range of the Amazon® Echo Look™, so far as sight went. He could be heard, of course, but so long as he stayed in his present position he could not be seen.

Isn't there a pretty big difference between something installed by your government, that is illegal to disable or shut off, and something that you willingly install and turn on?

Just where I'm sitting right now, there are at least 3 cameras pointed at me. My laptop, my girlfriend's laptop, and the camera on my phone, but they're all (with reasonable probability) turned off right now.

Implying that this is comparable to the videoscreens talked about in 1984, when it really isn't, means that if there ever is something similar to that, people will be a lot less receptive to criticism of it. Boy who cried wolf an all that.

I mean, it's a joke. But to your point, I could imagine a product becoming popular, then ubiquitous, then effectively mandatory and exploited for control. There's Sesame Credit in China which is applying this to social networking (look it up, it's a terrifying idea). State involvement isn't necessary: see Facebook ("Why don't you have a Facebook?" in any social situation, or the reported trend of employers asking to see prospective hires' accounts), or smartphones (loaded with surveillance libraries from adtech companies).

* Also, they weren't "videoscreens" in 1984 but "telescreens", producing audio while recording and transmitting audio and video. That happens to match the Echo Look, form factor excepted.

Last time this was posted, people thought it was a joke, because who would ever want this thing?

My sisters and my mom would absolutely use this thing. I'm sure they would think it was really, really cool.

(Granted, that is only 2 in 5 sisters, I'm sure the other 3 would think it was silly)

Never forget that you live in a bubble. Better yet, try to identify the boundaries of your bubble, and try to move outside of them.

Hey, I keep trying to expand my bubble :)

+1. If this is confusing to you, you haven't spent very long evaluating an entire outfit as an ensemble, in a three foot tall mirror. I'm guessing most of the detractors don't realize _just how many_ people spend on the order of at least a couple hours a week figuring out how they look. This is going to sell like hotcakes.

"I'm sorry Dave, that belt doesn't go with your shirt"

Also posted seven days ago, see here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14203594

It appears the Echo Look is available by invitation only. Has anyone been able to get their hands on one?

After Twitter, emoji, AirBnB, the resurgence of GIFs, and President Trump; I have admitted to myself that I have absolutely no aptitude for predicting success.

That said, this is _surely_ going to flop...

Something tells me it's not going to flop and they'll sell at least a couple 10k devices. They know what they are doing, even if we can't understand it.

I can see what they are trying to do with this but the sort of person who takes outfit photos doesn't just take 1 photo they take 200 (and in different locations) and they certainly wont post it to social media without heavily editing it first.

The only use I can think for it is a convenient way to track which outfits you wear so you can remember what you paired with what but you could just as easily hold your phone in your hand and take a quick photo without the faff of syncing to get the photos on your phone!

I can understand Amazon Echo. I have one, even though I'm aware of the risks and most of the time am really paranoid about such things, I still use it (for playing music and setting timers or getting news/weather).

I can't, however, understand the Echo Look. I know people like to take selfies and have no problem blasting them out into the internet, but I think Amazon is really playing the risk card here. A camera watching you undress.. what could go wrong?!

Does anyone have insight on how or why this product appeals to its target audience? Seems like a selfie app on the phone could achieve just the same?

Selfie app can't take your picture hands free. You cant take a picture of yourself from the back to see how your butt looks in certain outfits.

The same subtle convenience from the old Echo model applies here as well. It's these subtle things that add up to make a huge difference

It's a ploy to get people comfortable with the idea of an internet-connected fixed camera in their bedroom for commercial purposes.

I think it's a pretty good idea. I notice how well people dress all the time, yet I'm terrible at dressing myself.

There's a store near where I live (it's a national chain) where you can set up an appointment to go in, be measured, and try a bunch of stuff on. They check each item to see how well it fits then help you pick things that fit well and look good together. They let me know that I've been buying clothes that were way too big for me.

If I could have a device in my home and get that kind of advice on demand, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

If Amazon can pull this off, it's going to be disruptive to say the least. As I understand it, the back end is a mix of machine learning and human experts/trainers. They are going to get thousands of images from similar cameras, at the same resolution, framed in a similar way. That's machine learning gold. Amazon will see what I have and then be able to make suggestions of more clothes that I should buy. If this takes off, it's going to put a lot of clothing retailers out of business. If I were running Gap, I'd be a little scared because there's no way they can compete. The best they can do is hope Amazon will sell their clothes.

I'm not convinced though, that Amazon can pull it off. Not yet, anyway.

I feel like I'm missing a trick here.

I'm just clearly not the demographic for this, because though the echo is a popular device, damned if I can figure out what the hell its use case is *that the phone in your pocket can't already do.

This adds a camera to the formula and I'm more confused.

So they're building a modern cellular telephone in reverse?

There are plenty of use cases on that website, such as being able to use it as a mirror alternative. I'm a male and I still can see that it can be beneficial.

If you still can't see the benefit, then you really probably are not the target audience as you say.

It uses machine learning to tell you which outfits look good as far as I know. Which is quite amazing.

How secure is Echo? I presume that it uses HTTPS. But let's say that your LAN is pwned. Could an adversary MitM the connection, and exfiltrate traffic? I can imagine lulz.

I assume they adhere to best practices, so no, MitM shouldn't be possible. If they don't we would've heard about it already.

OK, but can Echo accommodate enterprise security best practices, which would require that HTTPS be MitMed?

A dedicated selfie cam that you can also talk to? I anticipate great success. And then massive backlash from the next gen.

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