#alexa

Lange hat es gedauert, aber ich habe vermutlich eine Lösung gefunden, wie man die Werbung, die Amazon seit gut einem Jahr ungefragt auf ihre EchoShow-Systeme ausspielt, unterbindet. Und bevor irgend ein Naseweis meint, das könne man doch in den Einstellungen ausschalten, sei diesem Naseweis gesagt: Hoecker, Sie sind raus!

OK. Man muss die folgenden Adressen, z.B. in der Fritzbox in der Liste gesperrter Internetseiten, unterbinden:

alexa.amazon.dev
advertising.amazon.dev
api.amazonalexa.com
mmechocaptiveportal.com

Fertig. Keine Zwangs-Werbung mehr. Kollateralschäden hab ich keine bemerkt.

Aber es ändert nichts an der Tatsache, dass es eine maximale Frechheit von Amazon ist, ungefragt, ohne Vertragsbasis und dann auch noch ohne Gewinnbeteiligung Werbung auszuspielen.

Es reicht, wie die mit ihren Diensten dem Konsumenten Dinge aufzwingen bzw. aufzwingen wollen.

Mich nervt z.B. dass Amazon Music, wenn ich einen Song auswähle, dann meint zu wissen, was ich danach hören will und einfach abspielt. AMZON DU DRECKSBRATZE! NICHTS! ICH WILL NUR DEN EINEN SONG!

Und Alexa wird auch immer nerviger. Ich hasse es, wenn Technik versucht zu raten, was ich als nächstes will. Nein, ich will den Beamer nicht in einer Routine immer Mittwochs bei Sonnenuntergang nur gedimmt einschalten! Du verblödete Dummtorte.

#amazon #werbung #zwang #alexa #dumpfbirne #hohlbratze #amazonistvölligverblödet

:fedora: filippodb ⁂ :cc:filippodb@mastodon.uno
2025-06-19

#Bezos è uno dei volti più visibili e potenti dell’oligarchia che gravita attorno a #Trump. Lo ha apertamente sostenuto, mettendo a disposizione il Washington Post, e si è presentato sorridente e in prima fila al giuramento del nuovo presidente, fianco a fianco con altri miliardari come lui.

Ogni volta che acquistate su #Amazon, ogni volta che attivate un abbonamento #Prime, che usate #Twitch o #Alexa, ricordatevi cosa e chi state finanziando:

▶️ noblogo.org/filippodb/una-vita

:diggita: @attualita

2025-06-17

"And similar works" is always a factor when I ask #Alexa to play something specific. I accidentally did that when I said "Make chamber red"¹ and my #Echo heard "Play Chamber Red," which it interpreted as "Play Dream of the Red Chamber".

So it played a Chinese song. Fine. But so far "similar works" have included a Brazilian song, an instrumental version of "Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can", an instrumental Japanese song, a Russian song, some creepy song called "Crow's Betrayal" from The Sea Beast, and more.

I'm not getting what the category is. Ultra-obscure movie tracks?

[1] I let my father call his room "bedroom" while I call mine "chamber". Not that he used Alexa past the first week, despite asking for one.

Terence Eden’s Blogblog@shkspr.mobi
2019-06-17

Alexa Skills - get custom slot names using Flask-Ask

shkspr.mobi/blog/2019/06/alexa

Amazon encourages developers to use Flask-Ask - the handy Python library for working with Alexa. Sadly, the project has been abandoned. They no longer take pull requests, you can't raise bugs against it, and the documentation is incomplete.

So this is how I solved an annoying problem - how to get the name of a custom slot.

Here's the code, with a fuller explanation afterwards.

from flask import Flask, render_template, requestfrom flask_ask import Ask, statement, question, sessionapp = Flask(__name__)ask = Ask(app, '/')@ask.intent("YourIntentName")def your_intent_name():    content = request.get_json()    name = content['request']['intent']['slots']['YOUR_SLOT_NAME']['resolutions']['resolutionsPerAuthority'][0]['values'][0]['value']['name']

Yeuch! What's going on?

Alexa lets us define custom slot names - these can be associated with any spoken text. For example, I might want the slot name "car" to be sent whether the user says "car" or "automobile" or "vehicle" or any other synonym.

In my case, I want to send my API the ID Code of a hospital.

If the user says "John Radcliff" or "Oxford" or "John Radcliff Hospital" - then my API should receive the ID RTH08. It can then use that ID in a separate API call.

Here's the JSON that Alexa sends our API (I've truncated it for ease of reading).

{    "request": {        "type": "IntentRequest",        "requestId": "amzn1.echo-api.request.1234",        "timestamp": "2019-06-17T06:54:52Z",        "locale": "en-GB",        "intent": {            "name": "CarPark",            "confirmationStatus": "NONE",            "slots": {                "hospital": {                    "name": "hospital",                    "value": "John radcliff",                    "resolutions": {                        "resolutionsPerAuthority": [                            {                                "authority": "amzn1.er-authority.echo-sdk.amzn1.ask.skill.1234.hospitals",                                "status": {                                    "code": "ER_SUCCESS_MATCH"                                },                                "values": [                                    {                                        "value": {                                            "name": "RTH08",                                            "id": "abc123"                                        }                                    }                                ]                            }                        ]                    },                }            }        }    }}

A bit verbose, but easy enough to parse.

I've moaned before about Alexa skill development - but it is getting worse. As you can see from the above screenshot, the development website's contrast isn't great - which makes building a skill physically painful.

Add to that the outdated tutorials, the weird terminology, the multiple sites to use, broken links, and abandoned libraries... It's hard to feel enthusiastic about building more skills.

Amazon have gone down the classic route of paying developers to build for their platform. But I don't think that's enough.

The Alexa team need to work on the developer experience. A GUI like NODE-RED could be used to help build skills in one place. Why is it so complicated to deploy and test skills? Where are the official libraries which "just work"?

I honestly believe that one of the things holding back voice assistants from their full potential is the poor developer experience.

#alexa #developer #hackday #nhshd #python

Norbert Preiningnorbu
2025-06-16

is too stupid, even more stupid than the most simple expert systems from 50 years ago.
My daughter orders the same song again and again, and in 70% cases Alexa just messes up. Pure roulette. No ambient noise, no excuse.
2025 and still lags behind 50 years.

2025-06-14

Interesting, if anyone uses their #Echo devices to answer their ring doorbells do not enable #Alexa+ as it doesn't work with that yet. She'll act like it does but then won't respond. I just disabled early access and functionality hath returned.

2025-06-12

Well now, apparently I just got access to #Alexa+ not sure what I think of her new voice just yet.

César Encarnacióncesariux23@mstdn.mx
2025-06-11

Yo: #Alexa, pon el soundtrack de Celeste
Alexa: Aquí tienes Azul celeste de Paquita la del Barrio

#TrueHistory

PUPUWEB Blogpupuweb
2025-06-10

Amazon reports 1M+ users now have Alexa+ access—up from “hundreds of thousands” in May—and aims to expand availability this summer.

Jukka Niiranenjukkan@mstdn.social
2025-06-08

It's not a failure if you can get GenAI to be good enough for your products. It's the right thing to pull or delay such products.

WSJ writes about how Amazon has struggled with getting Alexa+ to be reliable in scenarios like shopping cart management. Panos Panay has been insisting such problems must be ironed out before the release.

That's what more companies SHOULD do. Rather than deciding "just ship it" so they can watch their stock price inflate alongside the AI bubble.

#Amazon #Alexa

"Teams have demonstrated Alexa+ to Panay every few weeks. At one internal demo late last year, the assistant accidentally duplicated items in a shopping cart for a recipe. It also would default to recommending bananas to everyone since those are one of the most popular grocery items on Amazon."

WSJ article quote together with an Alexa+ logo that includes a banana. "It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost, ten dollars?" meme picture.
Hobbyblogging.dehobbyblogging
2025-06-07

Nachdem ich heute den Nachtmodus eingeführt habe, kann ich es echt kaum abwarten bis es soweit ist 😂 Was er tut: 🔸Benachrichtigungen via Alexa unterbinden 🔸Das Hochfahren von Rollläden am Morgen unterbinden bis man ihn aufhebt … Weitere Ideen? 🤓

CelebHubXcelebhubx
2025-06-06
Marcus Adamsgerowen
2025-06-06

Headline: annihilates settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading

Snippet: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing, even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:

Source: pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/alt

🏳️‍⚧️ Christin Löhner 🏳️‍🌈christin@lsbt.me
2025-06-06

Unser aktuelles Home Assistant #Dashboard. ❤️ 😍

Die acht Kameras, sowie die Anzeige der privaten und geschäftlichen Webseiten die ich überwache, habe ich hier jetzt mal weg gelassen, aus Datenschutzrechtlichen Gründen.

Im Ganzen haben wir aktuell 439 Geräte, mit insgesamt 3146 Entitäten (Datenpunkte) in unserem #HomeAssistant integriert. Dazu gehören unzählige smarte Deckenlampen, Glühbirnen, #SONOFF Schalter, 17 Bewegungssensoren, neun Tür/Fenster Kontakte, acht Kameras die ebenfalls auch als Bewegungssensoren fungieren, zehn Smarte #Zigbee Steckdosen, viele #ESP32 und #ESP8266 die jeweils #Temperatur, #Luftdruck und #Mikrowellenradar (Präsenzsensoren) bereitstellen, sechs Smarte Heizungsthermostate, ein #Aqara Door Lock, eine EasyWeather Pro #Wetterstation, eine große PV Anlage (11 kWp) mit Speicher (11 kW), drei 3D Drucker, Pflanzensensoren und Vieles mehr.

Sogar unser Briefkasten teilt uns per #Alexa Ankündigung mit, wenn Post eingeworfen wird.

Insgesamt laufen bei uns 103 Automationen, die das Haus automatisch überwachen und steuern (Thermostate, Lampen, etc.).

Alles ist per #Sprachbefehl über neun, im Haus verteilte Alexas, sowie über das Dashboard ein- und ausschaltbar, bzw. abfragbar.

Langsam aber sicher kommen wir an den Punkt, an dem wir unser perfektes #SmartHome haben. ❤️ :heart_trans: :heart_trans:

Ars Technica Newsarstechnica@c.im
2025-06-05

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