old tech guy

Also, relevant: https://xkcd.com/927/

Clippy: "It looks like you’re trying to pwn the other team. Would you like help?"

There is an over-saturation point in which too much dilution results in overall worst choices.

We see it in streaming services and smartphone OSs.

ESPECIALLY when working with voice assistants, in which the greater ecosystem surrounding that assistant is critical for success. The ‘big 3’ have an extensive ecosystem of products that can use the same assistant across the scope of products. Sonos is going to have a niche use case on a single product category, and it’s going to compete for attention from one of the other big 3 that everyone else already has/uses.

I have a max limit of 2 voice assistants I want to deal with across my personal technology landscape, in this case Siri for Apple products and Google Assistant for the Google Homes I have around the house. I don’t want to deal with yet another one I have to remember names/commands for that’s not linked to the other two.

Because of that, I forsee this voice assistant not being very good.

The reason that Google Assistant, et al are so good at parsing voice requests as well as the intent behind them is because they have TONS of data to learn from.

More data = better machine learning results = better voice assistants.
Less data = worse machine learning results = worse voice assistants.

How is Sonos going to make a competent voice assistant without the necessary data to train it for accurate results?

Blaming remote work as the primary reason for inflation and a recession, with a sprinkling of vast government conspiracies….that’s a stretch. I’m going to need a source for that.

Wonder if we’ll ever get any news on Elder Scrolls 6, or if that’s eternal vaporware.

Bull

No…no they would not buy it. That’s fanciful thinking. Thinking that any sports car enthusiast would voluntarily pay for a sports car that disables high performance features based on location, with no ability to override it, is completely delusional and has no basis in reality. This is fantasizing, delusional thinking.

Yes.

1. Hybrid systems built for performance applications can be absurdly fast.
2. When not driving flat out, you also have a VERY high performance Corvette that also gets great mileage when driving ‘normally’.

This is essentially the best of all worlds for both high performance and fuel efficiency.

I have to respectfully disagree. Continually switching things up without first refinement is an issue that’s plaguing Google across many of their products. See face unlock/soli on the Pixel 4 for exhibit A.

Apple’s done a pretty good job of refining the user interface and interaction of the Apple Watch over the years. It may be ‘boring’ to the tech enthusiast crowd after a few years, but what the tech enthusiast crowd finds ‘exciting’ and ‘switching things up’ is not how to keep the masses happy with a product.

Doing something radically different just because you’re bored with a current design is rarely a good idea.

I’m on the 3 month free trial of Apple Fitness+ after I bought an Apple Watch. It’s actually not too bad. The integration with my stats is unsurprisingly well done. Workouts are pretty good too.

I might stick with it when the trial is done.