Alexa Plus May Actually Be a Plus - DTNSB 4964  ## Metadata - Author: [[Daily Tech News Show]] - Full Title: Alexa Plus May Actually Be a Plus - DTNSB 4964 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/a2d00ceb-dbe3-4489-bda4-226c25fd8cac ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Alexa Plus Launch** - Amazon launched Alexa Plus, a premium voice assistant. - It offers advanced features and integrations for $20 monthly or free with Prime. Transcript: Tom Merritt I'm Tom Merritt. I'm Jen Cutter. Let's start with what you need to know in the big story. Amazon announced Alexa Plus. I'm trying not to set off your device. It is a more capable version of its voice assistant available for $20 a month or, hold on, free if you already have Amazon Prime. So they're doing that free with Prime thing, at least for now. There will also be a website at A-L where you can do more long form work. There's some demonstrations they did where you could upload stuff that that might be capable of handling a little better, but there will also be a new app, but also there will be a new App. So if you want to get plus, you're probably going to have to keep an eye out for that. It will work on most recent Amazon devices, so probably not the first gen. They didn't detail exactly which ones. And it's going to roll out in waves over the coming months, starting in March. If you're an owner of an Echo Show, that's the one with the display, Model 8, 10, 15, and 21, you will be in the first wave of people to get it. And of course, Amazon helpfully noted that you could buy one of those devices if you don't have one and jump the line. Plus runs on AWS's Bedrock platform. That is a platform that lets any organization pay to experiment with multiple large language models. That includes Amazon's own Nova model, but also Anthropic, which Amazon is an investor in. And there are other models on there. So we don't know exactly which ones they're using for the new voice assistant, but they're using more than one. Amazon says it will choose the best model for any given task. When you talk to your voice assistant, you don't have to know which model it's going to choose, but it's going to know like, oh, this is the best for that. This is the best for that. Data partners include Time, The Associated Press, Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, Reuters, and Politico, amongst others. So it's going to be pulling information from licensed partners that it's paying. It also integrates with multiple services. So yeah, obviously you can get your groceries delivered from Amazon Fresh through here, but also Uber Eats. They are partnering with Sonos, Wyze, Zoom, Xbox, Plex, Dyson, Bose, Grubhub, Levoit, Ticketmaster, and of course, Amazon and Amazon Fresh. Once you use the wake word, you can carry on a conversation without having to repeat the wake word. That's something it can kind of do now, but it works all the time in the new version. It can also analyze images and scan documents for reference later. So if you're using it on your phone, you can take a picture. That includes handwritten notes, emails, photos, and more. Amazon demonstrated some agentic capabilities where you just tell it to do something and it goes and uses the different apps and websites it needs to make it happen. So it made dinner reservations. They had it read a student's study guide and then quiz the student to help them study. It could research a trip and create an itinerary for you. It ordered concert tickets. It can also create smart home routines. You just describe what it wants to do and it'll make the routine. It can also find music based on just kind of a vague description rather than a specific title. They showed that off. It can jump to a particular scene in a TV show or movie on Prime Video just based on your description. You're like, I want the one with the explosions and people walking away. Echo shows get new widgets on their home screen. So that'll surface things like recipes, recent apps, weather, based on your use cases. And it will adapt based on how close you are to the screen. So if you're standing across the room, it'll just show some photos that you're sharing. But when you're close, it'll give you informational content that you can read because you're close up. Also works with Amazon's ring cameras to answer questions about what happened in the house. The example they demonstrated here kind of made me laugh. They asked the assistant to use the ring camera video to tell if anyone took the dog out yesterday, which I have to say, you might know anyway if no one had taken the dog out. But it worked, so I get it. Amazon was supposed to launch this new assistant last year, but it wasn't ready yet. And in the interim, the company replaced its devices team head, Dave Limp, with Microsoft Surface head, Panos Panai, who conducted the demonstrations today. Looks like it was worth the wait. Everything worked well. The demo shows the ability to do a lot of things in voice mode. This is very similar to what you can do on ChatGPT, where you can just change your mind halfway through a sentence, get it to do things like text the babysitter, buy concert tickets, all That kind of stuff. If it works as well as the demos, Jen, I think Amazon has the advantage of being on a lot of people's devices already. Victoria Song This is the first time I've seen one of these AI demos that actually feels like this is what people want from the future. You've got the thing. Now the thing can do this huge list of actual daily tasks, not hypothetical future things, things you are doing right now. Tom Merritt The devil's in the details, right? Because, yes, the demonstrations were very impressive. And I believe they were live. And so you will be able to just talk to this thing in natural language. But what happens when you want to add it to the calendar and it doesn't work with your preferred calendar, right? What happens when you want to order groceries from Instacart? And it's like, well, we have Uber Eats and Amazon Fresh. Like it starts to get a little bit of friction there is the only alarm bell I could really see so far. Victoria Song Yeah, I think a lot of especially that kind of nitty gritty is going to be regional. It's like, OK, what's available in your area that it talks to? I am a little suspicious of their claims about, oh, yeah, we can jump to a song or a movie scene. Well, you guys kind of made the news about how off your AI descriptions of certain videos and shows were. So how do we trust you with a seed? I mean, the answers might be hilarious. So I will be searching for those. Tom Merritt Yeah, that is definitely one of those things where they demoed one that worked really well. And I'm sure if you do exactly that one, it's going to work really well. But how, you know, when I ask it to play La Seraphim's new album right now, it doesn't even know what I'm talking about. So, you know, is it going to be able to understand all of that stuff? People with different tastes are going to have different experiences. DTNS ([Time 0:02:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/11fecaea-089b-4f20-be8b-5ef7962306c9)) - **Ring Camera Integration** - Amazon demonstrated Alexa Plus checking Ring camera footage. - It determined if the dog had been taken out, a task easily verifiable otherwise. Transcript: Tom Merritt The example they demonstrated here kind of made me laugh. They asked the assistant to use the ring camera video to tell if anyone took the dog out yesterday, which I have to say, you might know anyway if no one had taken the dog out. ([Time 0:06:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6eee0def-4d63-4fa2-9e69-fe7ea741a5b6)) - **GitHub Data in LLMs** - Lasso discovered private GitHub data appearing in large language models. - This happened even after repositories were made private, raising security concerns. Transcript: Victoria Song Israel's security company Lasso says that data public from public GitHub repositories can show up in large language model outputs even after the repositories were made private. The right prompt has to be crafted, but if you work at it, you can make some of the data appear. Lasso discovered one of its own repositories had been accidentally public for a brief period of time, indexed by Bing, and now could show up in Copilot responses. Lasso found evidence that data from 20,000 repositories, now private or deleted, could be accessed through Copilot. They included code from Amazon, Google, IBM, Tencent, and even Microsoft itself. In slightly related news, Cop-pilots Think Deeper and voice models are now unlimited for all users, including free users. Tom Merritt Yeah, I put this on a yellow alert level for myself, which is the problem was that you had a repository that you made public and then it shouldn't have been public, right? So there's been some examples of confidential information in those repos. The problem is they should never have been indexed by a search engine to begin with. That's how they got into Copilot. So this is not one where I'm directly going to be like, Copilot should have never had this. You should have never made it public. However, I think Lasso is doing a good job of pointing out that once stuff gets in there, it would be good if there's a mechanism for you to talk to Microsoft and say like, hey, this should Have never made it into your search index. We not only want to make sure it's off of Bing, but we need it to be out of Copilot as well. Victoria Song I understand why these companies are hesitant to include an opt out. It's like when Microsoft had to roll back the, oh, yeah, we capture everything on your screen in Windows 11 for our new tool and everybody freaked out at them. So now that there's more awareness of this, hopefully there will be some opt-out things because, you know, there's a lot of sensitive information on the internet and human error is Going to human error. We're human. Some things are going to get misclicked and show up online. ([Time 0:11:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aacf1228-8751-4463-830b-8e12e5e5d347)) - **Casio Watch Ring Recommendation** - Victoria Song recommends the Casio watch ring for Casio fans and gadget nerds. - It's a fun conversation starter and a way to express personal style. Transcript: Victoria Song We told you about the Casio watch, which is literally an old style digital watch that you wear on your finger. The Verge's Victoria Song has been wearing it on her finger and took some time to explain why it's silly, but she loves it. Tom Merritt Victoria, thank you for joining us. And thank you for bringing your finger. Jenn Cutter How happy to be here. And so is my finger. Tom Merritt So you're you're I was surprised when you joined the call, you're still wearing it like you really like it. Jenn Cutter Oh, yeah. No, I genuinely I genuinely love this little thing it's it's um in the in the photos in my review it's on my index finger those are that was just for the photos in the review i actually wear It on my ring finger uh it's most comfortable there i just i just really love this little thing yeah so how does it feel is it is it way more is it uh it's a it's a ever worn a statement ring of Any kind, like a class ring or a signet ring, it's kind of similar feeling to that in the sense that it's quite top heavy on account of there being a little watch on there. So there is the fact that because of the way they've made it, which I think is with injection molding, it only comes in a size 10.5. I don't have size 10.5 fingers. I have to use one of the included spacers that come with it. So, you know, is it the most comfortable ring I've ever had? I probably not just because I have really lightweight rings that you can't even tell that you're wearing them. But as far as like a good statement ring, it's pretty good. I love a statement ring. So it's great. Tom Merritt Fantastic. It's not a smart watch per se, but it does have digital functions like a classic digital watch. Do you end up using it for? Jenn Cutter Just the watch features. Of course, I tested the other things because as a reviewer, you have to. So yes, it does work as a stopwatch, though for the life of me, I can't remember how to actually start the stopwatch just because, you know, I always had that problem with the old Casio Watches, remembering which button to press to put it into what mode. So, you know, like in that sense, it's very much a Casio watch. If you too have had trouble remembering those functions, you probably will struggle like me. You can set a dual time zone. So if you want to know the time in two different places, you can. And you set it as like this little alarm there's a very tiny useless backlight um and it's it's so tiny like i don't think you could see it but uh it's just so tiny so useless if you're in direct Sunlight won't help if you're the dark, also probably won't help you that much. It's not bright enough even in the dark. It's really, I mean, you have to put it really close to your eye to see it. Or I do because I have very bad eyesight. So it was hard for me to see it. So technically not a smart watch, though it is kind of a smart ring because it's a ring that is a gadget. It's just not like I'm wearing the Aura ring on the same hand. It's nowhere near as advanced as the Aura ring. It doesn't do anything like the Aura ring in terms of tracking your health or monitoring your heart rate. So it's really just a ring that looks like a watch and functions like a watch. But it has the functions. Yeah. Yeah. Tom Merritt Because there have been rings that you could get like out of vending machines that look like that, but they just didn't do anything. Does it have the multiple buttons? I can't remember. Oh, yes. Yes. So how do you do that when one of your hands is gone? Jenn Cutter Because the ring on it um yeah so these buttons these uh these are these are buttons for ants uh these are tiny tiny buttons uh they work you do press them and like there's there's a little Manual that comes with it that you just stare at probably one time to set the time and then you put it in a drawer and you go like i'll look at it later uh which is what i did uh but yeah there's These tiny little buttons i have lost many a press-on nail using the buttons because they just come flying off uh so it's it's not like perfect there are sacrifices that that come with Wearing something like this. But I really, I just, it just brings me so much joy when I'm wearing it. And it is practical because, you know, it's really, it's been really cold. Anytime I wear a winter parka, I'm a wearables reviewer. I have two smartwatches on at any given point in time. But when I'm in my winter parka, it's the kind that has the thumb hole covering. So I actually can't pull out either of my wrist because also smartwatches are chunky. I can't pull out either of my wrist to look at the time. So I've been using this, uh, this winter quite a bit just to check the time on my, my finger. Cause I don't always want to pull out my phone. Because I have an older phone at this point. And if it's too cold outside, like it has been, it's going to die. So yeah, I just take a look at my ring for a little bit. And I go like, oh, I can see the time. Wearing a lot of sweaters in this season. So when I'm typing and I'm heads down and all my notifications are off and i'm about to miss a meeting oh look at the time i could see it right there on my finger so like it isn't completely Useless there are like several instances where i've been pleasantly surprised that and like found it helpful to have a little watch on my ring but um yeah yeah it's it's so silly It's The silliest thing I have at the moment and I love it. So yeah. Tom Merritt If you had to recommend it for a type of person, who do you think this is for? Jenn Cutter Definitely Casio fans, definitely anyone who is, you know, looking at the state of Western democracy at the moment and feeling dread overwhelm them and wanting to feel a little bit Of joy. Or just, you know, if you're someone who really enjoyed those vintage ring watches, if you enjoy fashion even, and you want something to like communicate to other people that you are Not only fashion forward, but a bit of a gadget nerd. It's a great conversation starter in that case. Yeah, I've had a bunch of people just come up to me like friends, family, co-workers, complete strangers, just go like, oh my God, where did you get that? That is really cool. And you can have a little conversation with it. Have I started like propping my face up with my hand and just like showing it off a little bit when I talk to some of my friends? Of course. And you know what? It always works because they're always like, ([Time 0:20:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f49a88c6-0313-46e9-898f-289d12db7aa2))