Coming soon: Amazon Book Clubs

Coming soon: Amazon Book Clubs

I recently was looking at an e-book page in the Kindle store, and saw a new feature:

Amazon Book Clubs

It was labeled for me as “early access”, which presumably means I was randomly selected as a beta (pre-release) user. Note that anybody can join Amazon Book Clubs right now: only early access users (like me) will be able to create clubs.

What is it going to be?

There will be both public and private clubs. Anybody will (eventually) be able to create a club. With private clubs, access will have to be requested. With public clubs, anyone can join.

Only the book club adminsitartor will be able to add books. You can add books the club has previously read (they want you to consider migrating existing clubs to Amazon, which might be convenient for tracking). It’s worth noting that they include the option to have a location…this is designed to be able to work for p-books (printed/physical books) with members meeting IRL (In Real LIfe), in addition to online.

It’s worth visitng the page now: you can browse (and join) clubs, but another feature is a list of books that are being recommended a lot across all club membership.

I checked one public club: “Unforgettable reads”. It has over 65,000 members at time of writing. The curent book is the novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.

Club members can add comments and have a discussion.

You can search for clubs. I was curious so I put in UFO and got four results. All of them were public: the one with the most had 71 members.

Searching for “Doc Savage” didn’t seem to work at all: they were all false positives, having the word “Savage” but not being about Doc Savage. That was true even with the search term in quotes.

A similar problem happened with “Star Trek”…it found clubs that had nothing to do with the show.

“Sci-Fi” did give me some results.

I’d say discovery could use enhancement. I’d want to be able to browse by most members, or most active, for example.

I do think this is interesting, and could be pretty engaging. Their challenge right now, I would say, will be to improve discovery and overcome the “noise to signal” ratio. There appear to be lots of clubs with under 10 members in them. Maybe it’s better for the people who are already in clubs, but I would think encouraging people to join clubs would be a primary goal.

I’m interested to know what you think! Feel free to let me know by commenting on this post or you can let me know on my Twitter feed:

Tweets by bufocalvin

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Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

Note: if you see ads below this, I didn’t put them there and don’t get any revenue from them. 🙂

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Samuel J. Jackson Celebrity Voice (for Alexa): 1st Impressions

Samuel J. Jackson Celebrity Voice (for Alexa): 1st Impressions

This was fun!

I’m seeing some misleading headlines on this, but I thought it was well worth the $0.99.

What is it?

You can add Samuel L. Jackson’s voice to Alexa.

The easiest way? Just say, “Alexa, introduce me to Samuel L. Jackson,” and there will be an offer made for you to purchase the voice.

Jackson doesn’t replace Alexa’s voice, contrary to some headlines. It’s an addition.

Every time you want to evoke Jackson, you say, “Alexa, ask Sam to…”

It also seemed that it took a bit longer to process and carry out the action than Alexa does, but I didn’t objectively time it.

Once you get to it, though, it sounds good. In fact, and this is important, even if you had no idea who Samuel L. Jackson was (which is extremely unlikely), you might still prefer that voice to the standard Alexa voice. It sounds much more natural.

That is not, by the way, because it’s all recorded…it’s not. One way you can see that is to say, “Alexa, ask Sam to Wikipedia [something]).” Then, just as Alexa would do, the voice of Samuel L. Jackson will start reading the Wikipedia article (assuming one exists) about your search term.

Jackson can also tell you the time, answer your trivia/knowledge questions, and give you the weather.

I tried to get the Jackson voice to say whatever I wanted…for example, “Alexa, ask Sam to Simon Says…” but that didn’t work. Might have been nice for getting dinner reservations (just kidding, of course).

Some things were clearly Jackson specific: when I asked for a song, I got Jingle Bells in a very clearly Jackson version. Same thing with a joke: a specific Jackson joke.

I have mentioned this yet, but you can have a “clean” version or explicit version, the latter where Jackson swears. You can change that whenever you want in the Alexa App: Settings – Voice Responses – Celebrity Voices. I’ve only used the clean version.

Worth noting that when you pay the ninety-nine cents, it’s good on all of the Alexa devices on your account: I’ve used it on my Echo Auto and in the Alexa app in my phone. That means a fan could have fun with it without having an Alexa device, by just downloading the Alexa app to a SmartPhone.

The future of this?

Well, for one thing, the price for this will go up to $4.99…honestly, even though this is fun, I probably wouldn’t have paid that.

There will undoubtedly be other voices available before long. This is not the old method of someone spending days in a studio recording different phrases so they can get the sounds they want…this involved AI to extrapolate from a smaller set. While I certainly think living celebrities will be first (I could see Morgan Freeman & Scarlett Johansson), there are probably enough sound bites (and the amount needed will reduce over time as the software gets more sophisticated) to do, say, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, or Vincent Price.

TomTom did Star Wars voices for its navigation systems…that could happen.

Another possibility? Having it learn your own voice. That might be something some people really want, so their digital assistants can fake being them on a phone call (this is in the future), or parents could “speak” to their children. Independent voice artists (or programmers) might be able to get some royalties from voices they create being made available. Much further? Video simulations…realistic avatars, augmented reality, and so on.

Another interesting possibility: using it to change someone’s voice, to make it easier to understand for someone with perhaps speech challenges…or engineered to make a politician more persuasive.

I would also say that they’ll be able to use information they learn from working with real voices to improve the naturalism of Alexa’s base voice.

What do you think? Have you tried it? Did you like it? What voices would you like to hear in the future? Do you worry about this technology being used for fraud? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. 

Shop ’til you help! 🙂 

Amazon Announcement Day 2019: maybe the best ever (Part 1: the wearables)

Amazon Announcement Day 2019: maybe the best ever (Part 1: the wearables)

I’m not saying that the products and features announced Wednesday were necessarily the best ever (it’s hard to overstate the importance of Apple’s iPhone introduction), but in terms of entertainment value, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a event like this that could beat it.

Part of that was just the sheer range: from “Say what now?” experiments (what Amazon calls “Day 1”) to a new price low on an iconic product line.

The first thing I’ll say is that this seems to be being well-received amongst tech writers and mainstream coverage. No one is doubting that there is that rare combination of wisdom and bravery here. Brave because it’s breaking new ground. Wise because they are addressing customer (and potential customer) concerns, and making it all seem genuinely obtainable for many consumers.

In terms of general themes, the main one was our Alexapresent future. I just coined that term, wanting to play on Alexa (Amazon’s digital assistant) being omnipresent (available everywhere). We are truly reaching what has been called “ambient computing”: computing available just as part of the background of your life. It means that, eventually, you don’t even think of it as accessing a computer…you just ask what the weather is, or for navigation somewhere, and it happens. If we go back to perhaps the biggest society changing technology to date, the written word, we have that. We read almost constantly: street signs, the time on a digital clock, the words at the bottom of a TV screen, product labels, and so on. We don’t think about doing it most of the time. It’s actually a very complex process: watch someone, child or adult, when they are first learning to read. It takes immense concentration and effort. Reading is ambient: computing is moving towards that state.

Another theme was consumer control. We hear a lot about people having privacy concerns…I’ve seen the term “spy” used more than once. However, it’s not spying if you know about it, and if you can end it whenever you want. There were significant control elements introduced, both in when Alexa collects information, and how you can get rid of what it has collected. I wonder if some consumers won’t even look at some of these products because of privacy concerns which may have already been addressed. That parallels something that happened years ago, where Amazon removed infringing copies of 1984 from customers’ Kindles without asking them. That has been clearly addressed, even stated publicly that they wouldn’t do that in that way again. Still, there are probably people who still worry about that happening, about Amazon removing books which have already been downloaded, today.

In the past, I’ve felt that Amazon as an organization didn’t always have a great empathetic ability to tell how people were going to react to things that it did. I do believe that is changing, that they are getting better at how typical, non-techie customers will respond to things they do.

Let’s get to what they announced!

I’ve decided to make this post just about the three wearables Amazon introduced. There may be a series of posts, just because of the cornucopia of items.

Echo Buds (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

What are they?

Wireless in-ear devices with speakers and a microphone (actually, 3 microphones per ear), which makes Alexa available anywhere.

When will they be available?

They can be pre-ordered in the USA now with an October 30th release date.

What do they cost?

$129.99

That’s the overview…here are some more details.

• Bose Active Noise Reduction Technology: can be used to block out sounds
  • Importantly, they also have “passthrough” so you can hear sounds around you
• You can access Alexa just be speaking
  • Hear an audiobook (as an introductory offer, you get 3 months of Audible free (not available to current members)
  • Play music
  • Make phone calls
  • Get directions
  • You can do all the other usual Alexa functions…for me, I would use text-to-speech, control our SmartHome, check the weather, maybe listen to TuneIn…they use the regular Alexa skills (apps), so that gives you lots of options
• You can also access other Smart Assistants on your phone…Siri on iPhones, Google Assistant on Android phones: they don’t just respond to your voice, the way that Alexa does…you hold in a button to invoke them, then you can speak to them
• It can play music for five hours on a charge, and you can get a two hour charge in about fifteen minutes. There’s a charging case that gives you 20 hours of playback
• They give you 3 sizes of ear tips, which should help give you a comfortable fit and a good seal (the latter important to keep outside noise out)
• It’s water-resistant: should be fine when you sweat, and in rain
• Amazon is doing a lot to improve your privacy. You can turn off the mics, for example, although you use the phone and the Alexa app to do that

Is there competition? Yes, and some can do Alexa, but honestly, pricewise and featurewise, these do very well.

My assessment? I think these could be a popular holiday item (and would sell before that, of course). Since they can be used with Apple and Android phones, they’d be a pretty safe bet. They should have that cool factor.

Echo Frames (at AmazonSmile*)

What are they?

Eyeglass frames (you can have prescription lenses or use them with ‘hipster’ clear lenses) which have Alexa built into them.

When will they be available?

They are currently only available by invitation…you can ask to be put on the list, but that doesn’t mean you will get them.

What do they cost?

$179.99 currently, $249.99 after the “introductory period”.

• They come in one size, Medium/Large. There is a sizing guide on the product page
• All the Alexa functions are available: make phone calls, etc.
• Their weight is comparable to regular frames
• You can filter what notifications you get
• You should be able to hear easily, but other people around you should not be able to hear what is being said. This is all without having to stick something in your ear. Note that that means people will generally be unaware that you have Alexa frames
  • However, it’s worth noting that there is no camera and no display, making it considerably different from Google Glass, which may have sunk under privacy concerns. At this point, I don’t think there will be much possibility for them to invade other people’s privacy…I doubt it will pick up a voice two arms lengths away, although I don’t know that for sure
• It can connect to Google Assistant
  • Note: currently it does not connect to iPhones
• One change to people’s routines would be plugging in your glasses to charge at night. I don’t see that as a major hurdle: people are used to plugging things in to charge. If you have strong glasses, it does mean that if you wake up and need your glasses, you might fumble a bit to unplug them, but again, I don’t think that’s going to stop very many people
  • Charges in about 75 minutes
  • One charge seems to handle a typical day pretty well, the way they describe it…they give you an example on the product page

My assessment? At this point, this is pretty niche. If you already wear glasses and use Alexa, this make sense. They’re more expensive than the Echo Buds, but some people won’t want to have things in their ears all day long. Oh, I saw a stat that frames are usually in this price range, which helps.

Echo Loop (at AmazonSmile)

What is it?

A ring with a microphone and speaker built into it so you can use Alexa

When will they be available?

They are currently only available by invitation…you can ask to be put on the list, but that doesn’t mean you will get them.

What do they cost?

$129.99 currently: after the “introductory period”, they’ll be $179.99.

• It’s not always listening: you tap it to access Alexa
• When you make a call, you’ll be switching from holding it in front of your mouth to speak, then holding it to your ear to listen
• You can get haptic feedback: you’ll feel it when something comes in for you
• You can put one contact on “speed dial”, to call them easily…everybody else you’ll speak
• Charges in 90 minutes, should last all day

My assessment? This is definitely a gadget, I don’t see it as being very practical. I would think most people would go for the earbuds instead. I think it will be pretty obvious when people are using them: it will look like Dick Tracy in the old comic strips, raising his wrist to use his wrist telephone.

One thing: I’m pretty sure I suggest an Amazon ring at some point, but haven’t found it. At that time, I was thinking of wearables for text-to-speech, but now it makes sense that it’s Alexa….which does include text-to-speech.

Well, that’s the first three items! A lot more to come…not sure when I’ll get to them. If you have questions or thoughts about these items, let me know by commenting on this post.

Special announcement: while I’m not seeing something specific from Amazon, this post

Michael Kozlowski’s excellent Good E Reader blog article

alerted me to the need to update older Kindles before October 2nd to continue to work smoothly. They can be updated after that, apparently, but this has happened before. See the article for more details.

I’m going to connect my older Kindles to Whispernet…I have at least one I very rarely connect.

Thanks, Good E Reader!

Here’s the update page:

Kindle Software Updates Page (at AmazonSmile*)

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

 

Free Alexa Guard may save your home…and lives

Free Alexa Guard may save your home…and lives

While I haven’t seen much mainstream coverage on it, Amazon has rolled out something which I think may significantly affect American society.

Sound like hyperbole?

Maybe a little. 🙂 Whenever I feel that sure about something, I always have to check myself…the odds are I’m over or under estimating whatever it is.

Let me tell you about it, what I think, and why I think it may make such a big difference.

Last year, Amazon introduced

Alexa Guard (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

It’s not hardware: if you already have a compatible Alexa device, there is nothing to buy.

It’s not a subscription service: no monthly fees.

It’s just a feature you can activate on your Alexa devices.

What does it do?

It listens…for danger.

If your device hears something it thinks is a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm, or breaking glass, it will send you an alert on your phone.

That’s just one of the main features (and the only one I activated), but that, by itself may matter…a lot.

When it accurately alerts you, you may be able to save the lives of your pets…or of a bedridden relative. Fires that start in one house or apartment often spread to other homes.

Sound good (when something sounds bad)? 😉

To activate it, just go to your Alexa app – Settings and tap Guard. Then follow the prompts.

You can turn Guard on and off there, or do it by saying, “Alexa, I’m leaving,” and then “Alexa, I’m home.”

I honestly think this could have a statistical impact on both property and life loss…and that it may be seen within two years.

I could see insurance companies offering you an Alexa device, or giving you a discount for having them. It would be an easy way to mitigate losses.

Now, sure, there are possibly some negatives.

Amazon will know when you are saying the house is empty. Imagine what could happen if someone with malicious intent gets that information, either through hacking or “employee theft”?

Thieves may attack your internet first….pulling down outside wires, for example. Since they won’t know if you have an Alexa device or not, that might become a routine thing.

It could lead to false confidence, which might make people less careful about other kinds of precautions…maybe even leaving kids home alone when it isn’t safe.

False positives could also be annoying.

I assume, though, that the good will far outweigh the bad, depending on how accurate it is.

What else can it do?

You can have it turn your lights on and off (if you are set up for that), to mimic your habits and make thieves think you are home. It did sound like it would be learning what you are doing…some people may not be comfortable with that. I have used Alexa to turn lights on and off when we were on vacation: this would do it automatically.

Additionally, it will integrate with your alarm system…not just Amazon’s own Ring, but ADT, sending them alerts for their evaluation.

Oh, and if you have an Echo Show or Spot, you could, of course, look into your house yourself when you get an alert.

What do you think? Am I missing something here? Do you think people’s privacy concerns will outweigh their perception of the potential benefits? Will this increase Alexa sales? Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.

Related article from this week:

Smile! You’re on Amazon’s Neighbors app

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Amazon’s Announce-A-Palooza 2018!

Amazon’s Announce-A-Palooza 2018!

Amazon does announce things throughout the year, but September is a special time.

Today was no exception. 🙂

While they didn’t announce a home robot (they could still do that this year…it probably deserves its own event), they did announce a whole slew of new products and features.

Okay, there wasn’t a new EBR (E-Book Reader), or Fire Tablet…although they did just refresh the Fire Tablets about ten days ago:

• Fire HD 8 Tablet (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• All-New Fire HD 8 Tablet with Alexa, 8” HD Display, 16 GB, Black – with Special Offers + All-New Show Mode Charging Dock (at AmazonSmile*)

Was it All About Alexa? Pretty much, but not entirely. 😉

You can see new products here:

Alexa for Everyone (at AmazonSmile*)

I’ve ordered one so far…or, at least, ask for an invitation:

Echo Auto (at AmazonSmile*)

It’s funny, but when I was hearing about possible new models, I thought this one wouldn’t interest me that much. Not because I didn’t think I would want to use Alexa in the car, but because I already do…in the Alexa app on my Galaxy phone.

However, we are only allowed to do a one-tap operation in California when we are driving. I can just drive with the app open and then tap the mic to talk to it, but I don’t want to have to look at the phone to do that. This device is really just a way to access the app on my phone…it does need both of those. What it will do is give me an eight-mic array designed to hear me in the car.

It’s going to have access to apps, including Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze…and it will be able to control my home devices. You can also listen to podcasts, like Len Edgerly’s The Kindle Chronicles. Full disclosure: I’ve appeared on The Kindle Chronicles, but I don’t know Len outside of our Kindle coverage (which has extended to XR…virtual/augmented/mixed/merged reality).

It will also take advantage of one of Alexa’s new abilities: location-based routines. You can ask for nearby gas stations…and it can direct you there.

All of this is cool, but one of the things that convinced me? It’s $24.99! That’s 50% off what will be the price. It’s supposed to come out later this year.

Let’s jump from that to something that costs about nine times that much ($229.99):

Fire TV Recast (at AmazonSmile*)

This one also requires a Fire TV (“or compatible mobile device”) and an HDTV antenna. I already have both, but I’m not springing for this now. What does it do? It records TV and plays it back…you know, like a VHS machine. 😉 It actually does a lot more than that, but that’s the heart of it. The less expensive model can record two shows at one, the more expensive one can record four. I think that’s going to be seen as a luxury, but will have some gift value at the holidays.

They’ve upgraded the Dot and the Show, and added a bunch of things to give you better sound.

Things have also gotten a bit more out there.

AmazonBasics Microwave 700W Works with Alexa (at AmazonSmile*) $59.99

Not only can you give it voice commands to set the time, it can also automatically reorder popcorn using Dash button tech. 🙂 You also won’t be telling it just things like, “Level 3 for two minutes”…it will have presets, so you can say things like, “Reheat coffee”.

It’s an Alexa accessory…it doesn’t have Alexa built into it, you use it with an Alexa device. The same thing is true for the new Echo Wall Clock, which will display your timers counting down.

That’s just the beginning! Amazon recently made it easier to add Alexa to gadgets, and the ones that they’ve told us about include a new version of Big Mouth Billy Bass…that will “lip sync” while Alexa talks.

You can sign up for a newsletter to hear about new gadgets:

Alexa Gadgets News and Notifications (at AmazonSmile*)

If you do see something there you want to buy, I’d appreciate it if you get to Amazon by clicking on a link in this blog, of course…

Well, this is about as much as I can do tonight. I did want to mention one more new feature for Alexa…partially because I suggested it about a year ago. 😉

Kids are growing up with talktech being normal

You’ll be able to whisper to Alexa…and Alexa will whisper back! You can whisper now, but Alexa responds full voice. This will be a lot better when I’m up and my Significant Other isn’t.

There’s a lot more (Amazon put out four press releases today), but I’m just out of time. Did something else stand out to you? Do you have questions? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post…and I’ll keep my eye out for that robot!

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Heads up! Amazon announcement coming today (20 September) at 10:00 AM Pacific

Heads up! Amazon announcement coming today (20 September) at 10:00 AM Pacific

It’s reportedly not being live-streamed, and I’ll plan on posting more about it later.

I speculated some here:

Amazon refreshes the Fire tablet line…but the big announcement is yet to come

Rumor has eight new Alexa products (including a microwave and improved sound options…and a smart plug). We could also have that home robot project announced. There is usually some non-hardware announced as well. So many possibilities rumored/announed recently, including hundreds of cashierless brick-and-mortars, and they just did this thing with Alexa Gadgets…more later.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Alexa gets a(nother) game changing new feature: memory! [updated]

Alexa gets a(nother) game changing new feature: memory! [updated]

I recently wrote that this was going to happen, although I was surprised when it showed up this morning!

Well, it happened when the Alexa app last updated, I’m sure…I’m running 2.2.2— on a Samsung Galaxy S7. It updated on May 2nd.

However, I’m not seeing any documentation on it at Google Play or within the app. It could be that the ability is out there, but they haven’t fully documented it yet…that has happened with Amazon before.

So, what’s the feature?

Memory.

Sure, you’ve been able to enter things into Alexa memory before…using a shopping list or to do list, for example.

This is much simpler than that.

You just…tell Alexa to remember something.

For example, I said, “Alexa, remember that Doc Savage’s first name is Clark.”

Then, later, I could say, “Alexa, what is Doc Savage’s first name?”

Alexa told me, and told me that I had asked Alexa to remember that.

I wanted to check the parsing, so I said, “Whose first name is Clark?”

No problem: the response was, “Doc Savage’s first name is Clark.”

I was curious what would happen if the same answer was true for two things. I told it to remember that Superman’s first name is Clark.

After that, when I asked whose name is Clark, it told me both of them…cool!

The next thing I did was give it contradictory facts…so I told Alexa that Superman’s first name was Wayne. When I asked what Superman’s first name was, it told me Clark and Wayne…impressive!

I did test: I could ask Alexa in the (free) Amazon shopping app, and it knew what I had asked our

Echo Show (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

to remember.

I can see many uses for this, including as a quiz. My guess is the most common use will be the equivalent of jotting something down on a piece of paper.

I’ve checked at the Amazon site as well, and can’t find anything on this yet. One big thing I haven’t discovered yet is how to get Alexa to forget something. 😉 I’ve asked several ways. I also couldn’t find what it was remembering in the Alexa app…I suspect the documentation will show up in the few days. [SEE UPDATE BELOW]

I’m assuming any information being remembered can be seen by anybody on the account…at least those with the credentials (username and password).

I also don’t know how secure this is, although I’m assuming as secure as anything else on your Amazon account.

If you test it out, I’d be curious about what you think! Feel free to tell me and my readers by commenting on this post.

Update: I got some responses from Amazon…good to know!

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Hello Bufo,

I understand your concern regarding the New Feature “Remember This”. Glad to assist you.

A) Regarding your First Query. To  make Alexa forget something that you told it to remember, you need to delete the information from the Alexa App.

To do so:

1. Go to the homepage in the Alexa app.

2. Find the card containing the information you want to delete.

3. Select “Delete.”

When you delete the card, Alexa no longer remembers the information.

——- Are there limitations as to how long the responses can be or how many there can be?

Currently there are no limitations or restrictions as how long the response can be or how many there can be.

3. Who sees the responses that are stored… Is it safe to put in, for example, a social security number?
Utterance ID:

You’ll be able to see the responses in the Alexa App. i.e who ever has the access to your Alexa app, they will be able to see the responses stored.

If you still have any other or related concerns, please feel free to write back to us, we will be happy to assist you.

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I tested deleting a card (the spurious information about Superman’s first name being Wayne)…worked like a charm.

Oh, I also tried asking like Bizarro might: “What Superman name?” That worked, too. 🙂 Just, “Superman name” didn’t, though.

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Another update: since it picks out individual words, you can categorize by mentioning the category. I’m preparing a charitable donation today. When it comes time to do the taxes, I’ve often had to dig a bit to find which organizations and what dates. I asked it to remember, “We made a donation to [organization name] for the taxes on [date].” When I said, “What about the taxes?” it told me my full statement…and would do so with multiple items.

Another good use for me: I’m watching an old movie, and there’s something in it that might spark an article on my The Measured Circle blog…but I probably won’t get to it for a while. I said, “Remember that [movie name] has [trivia] for The Measured Circle.” Then I asked, “What about The Measured Circle?”, and there was my writing prompt!

Truly game changing!

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Another update: you can easily delete and edit your items! If you say, “Alexa, what did I ask you to remember?”, then go to the Alexa app on your phone, you’ll see a list. With each one, you can delete it (with the “x”) or edit it (with the “pencil”). I deliberately said a wrong fact. Then, I edited it in the app…it instantly knew the right answer.

So many possibilities! I’ve already used it to remember where the Mothers’ Day gifts are, for example. This is a true digital assistant, like Iron Man’s Jarvis. 😉

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

“It’s 5 stops away right now…”

“It’s 5 stops away right now…”

The Amazon Shopping App updated for me (to 16.8.0.100 on my Galaxy) and brought a great (but thought-provoking) new feature.

I got this notification that I could see where our package was on a map…and how many stops away it was!

It was like Uber/Lyft…I could actually see an avatar of the car/truck moving around on a map of the neighborhood.

That was certainly useful: we knew exactly when it was getting to the house. Oh, and if you’re curious, it was about five minutes per stop. 🙂

However…

If I was the driver, I think that would worry me. I never do anything criminal (intentionally), but I do have a mind that likes to consider all of the possibilities…so I’d probably make a great criminal genius. 😉

So, imagine somebody orders something inexpensive. They then alert their thief buddies, who get to the houses about five minutes after the delivery. If the package is still on the stoop, they steal it. If it’s not, no big deal…on to the next.

The app wasn’t showing any addresses except for ours, but thieves wouldn’t need that.

I suppose Amazon could tell who was looking at the map when, but that’s really just circumstantial.

Of course, I’m not recommending this! It would just worry me, especially I was an

Amazon Flex

driver.

The way I was thinking about it reminded me of a couple of scams from the old days.

We had IBM Selectric typewriters in an office where I worked…and they were valuable.

One scam was sort of like what I was envisioning above. They would follow the IBM delivery person, and then go back to the office maybe five minutes after the other person left (this could be a two person job…one tracking, one doing the scam).

They’d walk in and say, “We just delivered a typewriter here, and we gave you the wrong kind. I’ll just take it down to the truck and swap it out for you.”

Another one was just walking into the office, looking like a repairperson and say, “Which typewriter is giving you the trouble?” The odds were good that at least one of them would…and would “have to go into the shop”.

Regardless, as a customer…this was cool!

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You can be part of my next book, Because of the Kindle!”

---

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Round up #172: new features for a Kindle app, people who haven’t read a good (or any) book lately

Round up #172: new features for a Kindle app, people who haven’t read a good (or any) book lately

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Today’s KDD: “Up to 80% off New York Times best sellers & more”

Today’s

Kindle Daily Deal (at AmazonSmile…benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

has really top brand name authors and other well-known titles! I’m quite impressed…titles include:

• Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child: City of Endless Night (Agent Prendergast) | 4.3 out of 5 stars | 615 customer reviews |  $4.99
• Robyn Carr: What We Find (Sullivan’s Crossing) | 4.5 stars | 512 reviews | $1.99
• James Patterson: All-American Murder | 4.1 stars | 232 reviews | $4.99
• Sara Paretsky: Fallout (V.I. Warshawaski | 4.2 stars | 242 reviews | $1.99
• David Baldacci: Guilty (Will Robie) | 4.5 stars | 4,232 reviews | $2.99
• Clive Cussler: Shock Wave (Dirk Pitt) | 4.5 stars | 868 reviews | $0.99
• Stephenie Meyer: The Chemist | 4.3 stars | 2,066 reviews | $3.99
• Now That You Mention It by Kristan Higgins:
• The Power by Naomi Alderman
• Christina Baker Kline by A Piece of the World
• Boundaries by Henry Cloud
• Capital Gaines by Chip Gaines
• Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall
• The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
• You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
• Let Trump be Trump by Corey Lewandowski
• You Say it First by Susan Mallery
• Love Does by Bob Goff
• The Black Witch by Laurie Forest
• Wanted by Maya Blanks
• The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp
• The Daniel Plan by Rick Warren
• Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
• Walk to Beautiful by Mr. Jimmy Wayne
• Finding Gobi by Dion Leonard
• Willow Brook Road by Sherryl Woods
• Private #1 Suspect by James Patterson

iOS Kindle app updated

The iOS Kindle app (for iPhones and iPads) was recently updated (March 19) to 6.5, and there are two particularly stand-out new things to me.

One is “infinite scrolling”. That’s something people wanted even back when the Kindle was first introduced in 2007. What that means is that rather  than reading it like a book, whiere you see a certain amount of text and then change to another block of text (like flipping a page on a p-book…paperbook), you can just scroll through the whole book, like one continuous webpage. I definitely see the attraction of that, even though it moves you further away from the “paper behind glass” feel.

The second one for me is that they’ve added an Arabic dictionary. There is a sense to me that Amazon may be working on an expansion into countries with a lot of Arabic-speakers, although Netflix also recently added more Arabic support. It is a top ten language in the world (I’ve seen both fifth and sixth largest cited) with hundreds of millions speaking it as their first language, so it’s worth noting that there are people outside predominantly Arabic speaking countries who also might like to read in Arabic.

The other two things they noted was swiping down in the library to refresh it, and support for split screen view on iPads.

Alexa, the protocol droid?

This was an interesting

Yahoo! Finance article by JP Mangalindan

It doesn’t surprise me that Amazon is working on Alexa doing real-time translation. It can do some minor pieces of that now through “skills”, but there are a lot of AI solutions for “universal translation” not far away (and some that work somewhat now).

What was more intriguing to me was the suggestion that Alexa would change what it gave you as a “translation” if you told it the role of the person. This can be very sticky in language (our adult kid is a linguist, and it’s an interest of mine): many people use overly familiar language, for example, when formal might be more appropriate.

This ties very much into their

Cleo skill (at AmazonSmile*)

What happens is that you have a conversation in a language of your choosing with Alexa. Alexa speaks English, you speak your language. What you are doing is teaching Alexa. It’s a crowdsourcing thing, and you actually get points. 🙂 While this should let Alexa learn about more natural language, there is also a serious risk that people will try to teach Alexa things as a joke…as Monty Python might say, “My hovercraft is full of eels.” 😉 However, I always believe the majority of people will have good intentions…so if enough people use Alexa, it should be fine.

I used to be “fluent” in Mangani, the language the “apes” speak in the Tarzan series of books. There aren’t that many words, and fortunately, the syntax is exactly the same as English. 😉  I couldn’t answer the sorts of questions Alexa will ask, though.

I have no doubt Alexa will learn Klingon…

Anyway, back to the protocol part: I assume this also means that Alexa could give you an idea of what to say in English in certain situations. “Alexa, I forgot our anniversary…” “Alexa, my boss caught me stealing…” 😉

Speaking of speaking, I really wasn’t pleased when our Alexa switch to the new “Brief Mode”. Instead of answering me with “Ok”, Alexa plays a note…a sort of muted “bing bong”; I’m fine with that being an option, but it opted me in without asking me. It told me it did it, but then it was done. I much prefer the “Ok”…it’s part of what makes Alexa special for me. I did go back into the Settings and Alexa Voice Responses to turn it off again.

I would really like Alexa to respond in a whisper when I speak to it in a whisper…I’ve been hoping with that for a while. 🙂

Does nostalgia not work for movies based on young adult novels?

While the market for movies based on young adult novels has generally cooled from the halcyon Hunger Games days, I’m wondering a certain part of it.

A Wrinkle in Time can be argued to be a box office disappointment. It has a 41% on Rotten Tomatoes, 53% on Metacritic, and 4.2 out of 10 on IMDb. This despite it being a beloved book with a cast of stars and a respected director.

That made me think of another recent movie that didn’t meet expectations for ticket sales: Ender’s Game. It was 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, 51% on Metacritic, and 6.7 on IMDb. The domestic gross was about $62 million on a reported budget of $110 million.

The Giver had a domestic gross of about $45 million on a reported budget of $25 million. It was 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, 47% on Metacritic, and 6.5 on IMDb.

I suppose we could go back to the 1939 version of the Wizard of Oz (even though that’s more of a children’s book series than a young adult series). It wasn’t a box office blockbuster when it was first released, and many readers didn’t like some of the things that had been done with it (and they especially didn’t like Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion).

Just wondering…

Almost a quarter of American adults report not having read a book in the past 12 months

There are some very interesting stats from this year’s Pew report on who hasn’t read a book:

article by Andrew Perrin

There are six categories, and the biggest disparity occurs in education. The three slots are: high school or less; some college; and college+. The difference between the highest and the lowest is 30%: 37% of people high school or lower reported not having read a book, where only 7% of “College+” say so. I’ll mention one more before leaving it to the article…adults fifty or older actually reported reading a book significantly less often (28% versus 20%) than younger people.

I’ll mention that fewer people are non-readers than was true in the past couple of years…

What do you think? Why are people reporting they are reading more? Are you going to help Alexa learn a language (or more than one)? Do you want e-books to try to emulate p-books? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

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You can be part of my next book, Because of the Kindle!”

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Web browsing comes to Fire TV!

Web browsing comes to Fire TV!

Well, well, well!

That’s not what WWW usually means…that’s “World Wide Web”, but both are relevant. 😉

I was quite surprised to see on our

Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD and Alexa Voice Remote (New Pendant Form Factor) | Streaming Media Player (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

that I could download either (or both) Amazon’s Silk Browser and Firefox!

That takes care of Google pulling the YouTube app starting January 1st. 😉

That was the first thing I tried on the Silk browser…and it worked just fine.

I didn’t find the controls quite intuitive, but they worked. You use the Fire TV remote…and if you have the Voice Remote, you can enter search terms by speaking.

You an add bookmarks, and you can request the desktop version, but I didn’t find that necessary.

You can turn off safe searching…I wasn’t sure that would be an option on this device. It does appear you can also delete history and other “evidence”. Hey, some people are going to want to know!

You can sign into Silk.

The settings seem quite extensive.

It basically defaulted me to Bing as a search engine, but by going into the Advanced settings, I could also choose Google, Yahoo!, Ask, or AOL.

You can use parental controls.

This is honestly a complete game changer! It’s going to take a lot more exploring than I have time for right now, but with the current sale price of $54.99, I could actually do away with a computer for some consumption uses. Creation would be more difficult without a keyboard, but that might even be an option with a Bluetooth keyboard (haven’t tried that yet).

I’ll have to see if it works on our Fire TV stick as well…but well done, Amazon!

Update: it does work on our Fire TV Stick (at AmazonSmile*) (currently on sale for $34.99). I also tested it with the Fire TV app on my phone…voice input, no voice remote needed. Importantly, that also does give you an onscreen keyboard, and you can tie a Bluetooth keyboard to a phone. The Firefox app has YouTube right on the home screen, so it’s an easy click to get there.

I’ve seen this pooh-poohed by tech writers…I don’t think they get it. It does give Amazon an end around on Google turning off the YouTube app on the Fire TV on January 1st, and quite an effective one. That’s just one small piece of it, though. I haven’t tested it, but I could definitely see attending a Webex meeting (where I was mostly observing on my TV…and still being able to work on my laptop.

I think some tech writers (many are excellent) think average people want more than they do from innovations…but I may also sometimes overestimate adoption, I’ll admit.

Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think about it by commenting on this post!

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You can be part of my next book, Because of the Kindle!

---

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project (Enwoven)!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.