So Amazon wants to turn your Raspberry Pi...
Into a Raspberry SPi...
Amazon.com has released a Raspberry Pi version of its Alexa Voice Assistant, the company's voice-activated “companion” bot that resides in its Echo range of speakers and offers voice-driven home automation and shopping. Amazon's cylindrical Echo speakers make a virtue of simplicity: one just plugs them into power and Wi-Fi, …
I was intrigued by the picture and wasted some time chasing AYL speakers.
The ones looking like the picture are audio cable speakers with no microphone.
So presumably the USB bits include a Bluetooth dongle for a microphone. In which case why not go for one of the many bluetooth speaker/microphone combos?
Just a picture to say "look - Pi with a speaker" to explain what audio is?
Anyway, looks like fun.
"Google's as-yet-free-of-anthropomorphism"
Please, please keep it this way. Voice recognition assitant software is just that. handy software. It doesn't need a name/face/emotional responses just search stuff and run recognised commands.
"Remind me it's Mum's Birthday next Friday"
"Do it yourself you lazy bastard I'm feeling Sensitive (version 2)"
Fuck all the off with that shit, seriously (Siri-ously?)
*"Google's as-yet-free-of-anthropomorphism"*
Google's does have a name. It's just that it's called er... "Google", in that you have to activate it by saying "OK Google..."
Until such times as one of these virtual assistants is released which allows me to define how I address it, I'm not playing. "OK Google" sounds dorky and all the other ones have the kind of names that a twelve year old would come up when bragging about his supposedly sexy, but sadly imaginary, girlfriend.
I haven't looked in detail at them but the github build has companionApp samples directories for Android and iOS as well as the Pi java version, so could be that they have.
Button is annoying but that is only sample code. No reason you can't trigger it with something else connected to the Pi with a bit of development.
Creepy about the whole Alexa/Echo thing. I remain to be convinced of any advantage to the user that is not outweighed by the advantage to the supplier... but they still want to charge you an eye watering price for the Echo, and even more disturbing is that people, a lot of people judging by the reviews on Amazon, are willing to buy them.
"I'm sorry, I'm too depressed to answer you now. I've a terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side..."
Why bother with any of these when we can have truly "fun" digital assistants at our beck and call? Just throw on some voice recognition, and pipe through a modified version of Eliza.
Im particularly interested in right now.
Though it is incredible that voice recognition is accurate enough now that it exceeds the level of understanding of a common garden variety pikey.
That said, I'd love a Danny Dyer cockney sound pack for something like this. Especially if it had a slightly insolent tone.
You: Oi Dyer!
"You fackin whut? What did you fackin say?"
"Dont forget its ya mams facking birfday you fackin toilet"
You: book tickets for chitty chitty bang bang.
"Oive booked yer facking chitty baing baing tickets nah fack off"
You: Oi Dyer, Check IMDB for Bridget Jones rating"
"Schtweamin Under Seige, watch a pwoppa fackin movie you fackin cant"
If he really is concerned about cockneys dy(er?)ing out he needs to get something like this done.