Category: digital assistants

The coming ubiquity of home assistants – choose wisely!

As I’ve written before, I am very bullish on the inevitable adoption of home assistants in most homes. After seeing my parents’ new Comcast remote with voice recognition, and then watching the Amazon Echo in action at a friend’s house, I knew this was a game-changer.

There’s been a flurry of announcements in the past few weeks introducing new devices and added features, with the lion’s share coming from Amazon. Here is a sampling:

Google is reportedly working on a screen-equipped Amazon Echo Show competitor – Business Insider

Google is working on an Echo Show competitor – Business Insider

Amazon announces new Echo devices for the whole home – Business Insider

Amazon’s new Fire TV gives Alexa one more place to live – Wired

NFL’s Amazon deal could be test for more streaming games – The Los Angeles Times

No matter who you are, Amazon wants you to be using Alexa – The Washington Post

Amazon’s New $99 Echo Is Part of Its Quest to Continue Dominating the Voice-Assistant Race – Slate.com

It seems inevitable that these will soon become ubiquitous, in much the same way that TVs entered the home in the 1950s and 1960s, or the phone message recorders did in 1980s. But will your choice of device condemn you to a Google-centric or Amazon-centric household?

My take has always been that technology companies see these devices as a means to get a foothold in your everyday life, connect you to their ecosystem of interconnectivity, and have direct access to your living and buying habits, in an effort to grow their databases and deliver advertising. They understand that the big bucks will not come from you buying any devices themselves, but from them selling advertising data to those trying to get your attention.

It’s an old joke in the TV industry that programs are just to fill the space between commercials, and that same idea applies to the new technology invading your homes, cars, phones and apps. When you think about it, who has the most access to your lifestyle habits? I would certainly put Google, Amazon and Apple in that category, but would also urge you to not ignore Facebook, the 800-lb. gorilla in this space. I will be watching carefully as to how they position themselves in this increasingly crowded arena. Will they attempt to sell hardware, software or platforms?

This is a look at the obvious players, but I guarantee that others will be stepping up, and they will either succeed as upstarts, or get acquired. I could list those already in that category, but most know about them. Which brings me to the looming question that remains to be answered… Will these devices be interoperable, or will they remain siloed? Microsoft and its Windows operating system, and Google with the Android OS, both work (mostly) well with others, and reaped those rewards, while Apple’s iOS pretty much sticks to iPhones and Macs . But will Alexa speak to Cortana at some point? Or will technology behave like 7-year old boys in the back seat of a car, continually fighting for supremacy and causing frustration for all?

Apple’s missteps and future

I’ll admit to feeling a certain sense of vindication when I read this recent column on Bloomberg Businessweek about the sorry state of Apple’s TV initiatives (or lack thereof):

“After 10 years, Apple TV is pretty much the same. Meanwhile Amazon, Google and others are leading the way in revamping how people interact with TV sets by speaking to them or mixing live television programs with libraries of older shows and movies.”

Ever since it became apparent to me that digital delivery of TV programming was the inevitable future of distribution, I have thought it was a nearly-perfect fit for Apple to purchase Sony. It would deliver them a source of IP that spanned from videogames and music to television and film content, as well as the know-how to produce new material.

In the mid-2000s (like now), Apple was flush with cash and should have spent a chunk of it to acquire Sony, which to this day, still struggles with its own line of businesses, from the Vaio to the Walkman to the Betamax. Even their vaunted televisions are now second-banana to upstarts like Vizio.

Granted, I may be overstating the predicament that Apple finds itself, but it seems to be strategically challenged in the arena of digital content delivery, especially with regard to streaming video. A purchase like Sony would be a bold statement from this parent of the smartphone to enter the next phase of innovation.

In fact, I suspect (hope?) they’re working on the next entrant to the home digital assistant market. Will Siri’s home-based device – whatever that may be – serve as a viable and successful challenge to the likes of Alexis, OK Google, Cortana and Bixby? I won’t hold my breath, but hope springs eternal, right?

 

Here they come… the inevitable march of digital assistants!

Apropos of my last post, I was reminded that Samsung has recently introduced “Bixby” on its Galaxy S8 – now, with an English version! – that portends yet another entrant into the digital assistant marketplace. More importantly, it will try to lure you into the Samsung ecosystem, as opposed to the Amazon, Google or Apple ones. In fact, I just received an email from Capital One with this little snippet:

Your Capital One® credit card comes with lots of great perks and benefits, and we’ve teamed up with Samsung Pay to reward you with a little something extra the next time you use your card in Samsung Pay.

Clearly, there are incentives being provided to draw you ever more into these respective ecosystems. From smartphones, to digital payments, to entertainment (media), to content, there are growing signs that we are facing a fractious technological future.

My big question is how Samsung will manifest Bixby into your digital life. Clearly, there is a trend toward having a separate device that stands alone in your home environment. Alexa (aka Echo) was first, with Google Home and Apple right behind. But will we see a standalone device – separate from the smartphone – which will incorporate Bixby’s functionality and permit voice commands to run appliances, televisions, and more (many of which Samsung manufactures)? Or could you simply have a stand for your phone that recharges it and also responds to voice commands?

It would appear that other home devices have distinguishing characteristics, from ultra-high quality speakers to screen touchpads. But I can envision Samsung having all these options contained in a dock or port of some sort, which will use the Galaxy smartphone as its core.

There are so many ways that things can go, and with power players like Amazon, Apple and Google behind them, it will be fascinating to observe which rise to the top, or fall to the wayside. Regardless, things continue to change at a rapid clip, and I believe the evolution of the home assistant will greatly determine how it proceed. Stay tuned!

p.s.  – Just saw this about Amazon and Sears getting into business (poor retail!), and it reinforces the growth of this tech giant into all sorts of business – data acquisition, entertainment, consumer goods, retail, and so much more. How will it get into social media? and where does Facebook figure in this whole new universe?