Amazon Echo
▻http://www.amazon.com/oc/echo
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkOCeAtKHIc
a connected speaker called Echo that’s always-on, listening for commands that its virtual assistant can then respond to with information or by triggering a task.
The cylindrical device has room-filling sound, and seven microphones on top, which use beam-forming tech to pinpoint your voice and ensure it can hear you no matter where you’re speaking to it in a room. It can filter out background noise, including playing music, in order to better understand requests, and it processes voice input via Amazon’s cloud-based web servers, meaning that
see also, Isaac Asimov’s 1956 “Someday” :
The story is set in a future where computers play a central role in organizing society. It aims to provide people more information about the evolution of computers. Humans are employed as computer operators, but they leave most of the thinking to machines. Indeed, whilst binary programming is taught at school, reading and writing have become obsolete.
"Amazon is in the business of selling you things — and that is why Echo exists."
▻http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/06/lets-call-the-amazon-echo-what-it-is
"Corporate America is looking to use the Internet of Things as a trojan horse to penetrate our remaining private moments."