you’re continuing to look at everything from a perspective of an altruistic product to consumer relationship and not the reality the other commenter is trying to describe.
yes it’s an “exciting feature” if your AI fridge can know that you’re pregnant and not recommend recipes that contain certain ingredients. what the other person is alluding to is that the data it has about you specifically will not stay contained between you and your fridge. what if you’re not married and your employer is like dave ramsey and fires women for being pregnant out of wedlock? or you live in a state with much more grim conditions currently around women and miscarriages? what if the meds in your fridge are related to HRT and there are orgs actively buying data to find these people to target them for bullying online (or worse)?
all of your data will inevitably end up in the hands of people that aren’t at all interested in improving your health. they’re interested in extracting value from you and your data or they have ill will towards you.
what starts as “exciting features” leads to your fridge tracking what groceries you purchase and what you consume. then it (or a third party that gets this data) makes determinations about your religion, your lifestyle, if you’re pregnant or not, etc without you knowing.
when every device in your house is collecting and selling off your data as a business model, there’s a significant mental overhead that needs to be expelled to ensure that you are able to keep your life private if you choose to. you may say: “don’t buy the appliances with the feature, then!” once a company can integrate these features effectively and subsidize hardware costs by selling the data, they’ll have other companies competing to offer the same so they can hit those target features and prices. eventually the market is flooded with appliances with these “exciting features” that are just gathering and selling data. in the end, we’ve traded our option to _choose_ privacy for a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. personally, i don’t believe the public is currently aware enough to understand the consequences.
I should be able to decide that I don't care about this type of privacy. Sure there are people out there that could be harmed by this. I don't believe in the argument that you can't have a market with both ways, one where you can't opt in and other where you can. I should be able to choose to give my medical data to companies if there are ways to improve my lifestyle and quality from that. And to me that is exciting. I have been lucky to be born in a place where religion and other things like that don't matter. I see a lot of problems and ways life could be optimised. I notice daily how I spend so much time constantly on things that could just be automated away. And it is horrible knowing I am spending so much time on that.
We live in this World for a very limited time. If things can be automated, they should so we can choose exactly what we want to do with this time.
> I don't believe in the argument that you can't have a market with both ways, one where you can't opt in and other where you can.
the problem is that “the market” doesn’t care what you believe in or what you “opt out” of.
there are devices that have programmed in alternate ways to phone home even if you choose to intentionally not connect it to wifi.
> If things can be automated, they should so we can choose exactly what we want to do with this time.
there’s very likely a CSA in your area that you can pay to deliver you fresh meats, eggs, fruits, and vegetables. some also provide recipes alongside.
it’s a much simpler solution in lieu of shoehorning tech into an appliance that will likely stop receiving bug fixes or security updates in 3-5 years when the company releases a new version.
like most of the tech industry, this is a “solution” looking for a problem.
The thing about data, unlike many common objects (ignoring 3d printers), is that you can easily copy data you control. So the fact that the fridge tells you "as an additional comfort in your pregnancy, I would add X" (if it even says that clearly) does not mean it also don't send data to other people.
Again, this is not a science fiction example. Many companies have successfully sent personal data to other companies or leaked that somehow to the Internet.
Personally this still makes me uncomfortable, even if I know this cannot be 100% avoided in today's world. So if I can avoid volunteering additional data to some company in exchange for voice activated lights, I'm happier. Maybe it's just me, though... but probably not.
I absolutely love this. However, my wife and kids all read EPUBS on kobo e-readers, so I wish we could somehow sync the last page read from kobo to Storyteller so that we could pick up on audiobook later. I’m not opposed to installing koreader on all of our kobos either if that would be required for syncing… it does look like koreader doesn’t support epub3 media overlays, but it does have a sync feature.
Amazon now has the text (books), and the audio (audible), and it’s absurd that there’s not some sort of sync feature. It would actually encourage people to cross-purchase books. There are so many times that I’m reading an ebook and I want to continue while driving and wish there was some sort of obvious and seamless “handoff” to continue with the audio version.
It looks like the feature is only available if you “add on” the audible version when you’re making your ebook purchase? And, for limited titles.
If I just bought a book in audible, there should be a “buy ebook” button in that app! And if I have the book in kindle, it should give me the option to add on the audio book after purchase. Seems like a missed opportunity— there must be a reason for it being so clunky.
Edit: I have not been able to find a single whispersync title. Looks like it’s not enabled at all in Canada? And the US books that have the feature don’t even follow the setup (eg icon) as described on the website (https://www.audible.com/ep/wfs)
You don’t need to buy ebook and audiobook at the same time.
The icon appears when looking at the audiobook’s product page (both on Amazon and Audible). Unfortunately the ebook page doesn’t appear to have something similar.
have you never heard or read someone start a reply with “i agree” or “i disagree”? in any case, what an awfully off-topic, pedantic thing to get bent out of shape about.
I was going to reply with this exact sentiment, so I’m glad you brought it up.
There’s also talk in this thread about how we’ve designed the outside to be kid-unfriendly. Let’s think for a second about how we design our home spaces inside to have screens all around. I’d wager that if you could walk into any house in suburbia, 90%+ will have a massive flat screen hanging in the main living space. Not only that, but all the chairs are aimed to face it! It’s the focal point and THE activity to be done in that space. Some houses will have screens in nearly every room. A screen in every pocket and maybe some portable screens too! With so much priority put on these screens and when parents, grandparents, friends, etc all spend a majority of their waking life on them, what is a kid going to mimic and learn is acceptable?
We definitely still struggle with screen time for our kids. They’re getting much better about turning it off without tantrums, but we only have one TV in our bedroom (rarely turned on), an iPad, and our phones. We try to watch TV or movies together rather than having a screen on in the background or relying on a screen to entertain our kids while we go off and do something else. All that said, our oldest (4 y/o) reads chapter books like there’s no tomorrow because she sees my wife and I read physical books. We also frequent the library often where she can have some independence to wander and find what interests her to bring home. Parent friends always make remarks about how smart she is and how they wish their kid would read more, but they can’t get them to stop wanting to watch TV or the tablet… but we’ve been to several friends’ houses and they always have a TV on nonstop and they themselves don’t read any books.
I like to think through example use cases from the perspective of the assumed customer segment.
From your example: I am from a vulnerable group and I am uncomfortable handing over my phone to authorities. If I am uncomfortable with handing over my phone, why would I digitize my license where I would then be forced to do so? If I was looking for an alternative solution to this problem, it would need to be more convenient than just carrying my existing ID, since the whole advantage of digitizing my ID is so that I don't have to risk losing it. If I have to carry a separate device, that advantage is lost.
Also I would actually talk to the people in the vulnerable groups to validate these assumptions before getting too invested in the narratives. They may not be as concerned as you think or may not have considered the risks.
i just bought the hisense hi reader pro. it has 4G/LTE, a headphone jack, and (slightly) larger battery. thankfully it has no camera (i hate camera bumps and i have enough of them), unlike the palma. my only real gripes with the hi reader pro are the lack of sd-card slot and no easily user-serviceable battery.
> As far as the nation’s and the state’s need for livestock feed, the 2.2 million tons of alfalfa Utah produced in 2021 amounted to 1.8% of the nation’s total output.
yes it’s an “exciting feature” if your AI fridge can know that you’re pregnant and not recommend recipes that contain certain ingredients. what the other person is alluding to is that the data it has about you specifically will not stay contained between you and your fridge. what if you’re not married and your employer is like dave ramsey and fires women for being pregnant out of wedlock? or you live in a state with much more grim conditions currently around women and miscarriages? what if the meds in your fridge are related to HRT and there are orgs actively buying data to find these people to target them for bullying online (or worse)?
all of your data will inevitably end up in the hands of people that aren’t at all interested in improving your health. they’re interested in extracting value from you and your data or they have ill will towards you.
what starts as “exciting features” leads to your fridge tracking what groceries you purchase and what you consume. then it (or a third party that gets this data) makes determinations about your religion, your lifestyle, if you’re pregnant or not, etc without you knowing.
when every device in your house is collecting and selling off your data as a business model, there’s a significant mental overhead that needs to be expelled to ensure that you are able to keep your life private if you choose to. you may say: “don’t buy the appliances with the feature, then!” once a company can integrate these features effectively and subsidize hardware costs by selling the data, they’ll have other companies competing to offer the same so they can hit those target features and prices. eventually the market is flooded with appliances with these “exciting features” that are just gathering and selling data. in the end, we’ve traded our option to _choose_ privacy for a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist. personally, i don’t believe the public is currently aware enough to understand the consequences.