Warning: Tech Rant

[Foxbat]

I think the title says it all...

Recently, I watched an article on BBC news about Amazon and how they'd built a microwave that would communicate with their Alexa (or whatever it's called). When quizzed about why they'd done this, the Amazon rep said that it was because some things were too difficult to cook. In a microwave? Really?

Well here's a couple of novel ideas.

1) instead of building an internet ready microwave (if they are so concerned about people and their microwave cooking abilities) then why not just be all philanthropic about it and release a chart of all conceivable power and time settings for things to cook in a microwave. Let's face it, they must already have that information ready for Alexa.

or
2) people should just learn to cook instead of living out of packets and relying on ridiculously over-engineered pieces of worthless crap!

Honestly, I used to love reading about the latest technology but this is just nonsense to con naive people out of their hard earned cash. I find myself becoming more and more disillusioned with the directions these companies try to steer civilisation in. If its not ignorant cretins filling up social media with hate, it's new-age carpet baggers trying to sell their modern equivelants of 'wonder treatments for all ailments and problems'.

 

[L D Warne]

Nice post.

With regards to #1, I suspect the irony would be that if Amazon released all that information in a document, everyone would ask, "why do we need this?".

However, put that into Alexia and suddenly everyone is wondering how they ever managed to cook before in a microwave before Alexia existed.

 

[tinkerdan]

I saw this and in the long run it is something to be expected.
They came out with alexa mostly as a means to bring Amazon online closer and more immediate to people through a clever voice that somehow acts as both a marketer and sales rep right in your home.

Now they need a few more devices that respond to alexa to create a smart home and at the same time generate extra revenue. It's a rather new twist to an old standard; create a need for something rather than create something that is needed.

It's nothing new or innovated at its core, so pretty much expected from something like Amazon.

 

[Edward M. Grant]

As far as I can see, Alexa is all about vendor lockin. Once your home is full of Amazon devices, they don't need to worry about you buying toilet paper from anywhere else.

 

[Lumens]

It's the ancient forerunner of the Entreprise food dispenser.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

It's the ancient forerunner of the Entreprise food dispenser.

And/Or the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser

 

[vanye]

(...) this is just nonsense to con naive people out of their hard earned cash.

Not their cash, their data first and foremost. And I am less disillusioned with the companies than with the people who give it away freely just because it‘s so comfortable and they ain‘t got nuttin‘ t‘hide.

I felt eerily reminded of that when I read that novel by Neal Asher in which the majority of people are referred to as „zero assets“. Still creeps me out.