I believe you can achieve something similar with cheap tracker from xiaomi (like mi band) connected via "Notify and Fitness for Mi Band" (I use paid PRO version) or Gadgetbridge [0] (I didn't use it).
Gadgetbridge looks better in terms of privacy, but for some reason I'd chosen Notify and Fitness for my mi band 4 and some xiaomi body scales. Probably because it had more features than gadgetbridge.
What features are you missing in Gadgetbridge? The upcoming release brings another round of goodies: events forwarding ( act on detected sleep, wake up...) and sports activities ( swimming, yoga ;), but also running, walking, biking...), including computer statistics for these. That besides many other small and large under the hood improvements...
Unfortunately, I do not remember. I've bought my miband and set everything up last fall.
I will definitely try Gadgedbrige again when there are less active covid cases in my city so I can continue working out outside.
My main sport activites are free weight lifting and longboarding (long distance, 10+ km, no trick like on skateboard).
In my current app I really like trend charts, especially weight trend (and recommendations on how to lose more weight based on my activity). Do not remember if they were present in Gadgetbridge when I last checked.
But I don't like that the app I use now is slow on my old android (looks like unoptimized react native app).
We do not track weight (at this point), but do have charts (not trend charts) but these are all good ideas, i will mark them. Still, give Gadgetbridge a shot, you might like it. Check out our wiki, many things of the MiBand are similar with the Bip: https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/wiki/Amazfi... , which i think has most comprehensive article from the whole Huami (MiBand/Amazfit) family.
> Tone: The globally accepted definition of health includes not just physical but also social and emotional well-being. The innovative Tone feature uses machine learning to analyze energy and positivity in a customer’s voice so they can better understand how they may sound to others, helping improve their communication and relationships. For example, Tone results may reveal that a difficult work call leads to less positivity in communication with a customer’s family, an indication of the impact of stress on emotional well-being.
Reminds me of Radiohead's "fitter, happier, more productive self".
~Mindset tracking is pretty sensitive data, and to pay for the privilege to give something so personal away feels less than optimal. I would feel better about it I guess if there were a guarantee that no one would ever receive my data, ever, after Amazon, but even then...
A few giant elephants aside, I wonder how they train it at all and how it works across cultures, as coincidentally I just saw someone tweeting that multi-lingual person basically has independent thought processes and split personalities for each languages, and someone else following up they notice their facial expressions and gestures switch.
Assuming it becomes widely accepted, the cases will be fascinating. Domestic abuse where voice data will be used to establish that individuals were lucid and not emotional.
Interesting that this device requires a monthly subscription fee. I'm very curious to see what level of success this achieves. Being able to track body fat percentage more accurately than smart scales seems like an amazing feature. Does any other wearable do this? My guess is the monthly subscription will be a massive barrier for most people, but kudos to Amazon for trying something different.
Okay, I like the direction they went with their device. As in, health tracking devices that feed another device to me are far more interesting that devices with screens and other functionality that always seems to eat battery.
Privacy of course is a concern but they seem to have addressed this but the test will be of course how it really plays out over time.
As usual for things like this one: on one side there will be great benefits from tracking people's health using several metrics, something not possible even just a few years ago.
On the other side, how these giant companies will handle our data, and how this data will be used by, for example, health insurance companies, is the sinister aspect of any innovation in this direction.
It's a good example of "free market" trending to dystopian societies with huge disparities, whereas a good, simple, targeted government intervention (in terms of regulation, etc) could go a long way.
The monthly fee pisses me off. The only apparent differentiator on launch day is mood analysis and fancy BMI which I get from a WiFi scale. Not worth $4/mo.
I am no more willing to provide my biometric sleep, voice, and body data to Amazon than I would to eBay or Netflix. However, if you'd like to help Amazon train their human being analysis models and get no payment in return, this is your chance.
What benefit does Amazon derive from having such comprehensive biometric data about Amazon consumers? They're offering this device at a significant loss vs. the investment that goes into it.
> The innovative Tone feature uses machine learning to analyze energy and positivity in a customer’s voice
Will they start charging people more for a product category when Alexa overhears that they're talking about it excitedly? Will they 'invite' you to install a Nielsen ratings integration that lets them listen for content and measure how you feel about it? If your pulse rate jumps during a Clorox bleach ad, will you start seeing ads for the Amazon Basics product that competes with it?
> Body scan images are automatically deleted from the cloud after processing, so only the customer sees them.
> Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer’s phone and automatically deleted after processing
"Processing" permits them to train models and transmit training outcomes that are derived your body data, as they only commit to deleting the raw data, not the training outcomes that result from it. They can claim correctly that the raw data cannot be extracted from the processed results.
In a hilarious naming clash, Halo is the name of a medical bracelet in the SciFi show Continuum created by one of the main characters, who is the CEO of a very Amazon like company. The bracelet uses ai to monitor, track, and treat your health. Since the show is of course science fiction, the bracelet is quickly misused. See the commercial for the device from the show:
Very dark for sure, but I can guess the folks making 6 and 7 figure salaries developing this stuff and foisting it on a largely unknowing society probably enjoy this type of humor
If it does everything it claims to do with a very acceptable degree of accuracy (not expecting 100%), I wouldn't mind something like this, even with the monthly fee.
As far as privacy, I'm more trusting of Amazon than a small startup personally.
They did already lie to congress about using sales data to screw other brands and favor their own ones. And they will use your data how ever they can, legal or illegal, for whatever they feel like gives them the edge over someone else.
So how does their size quarantines honesty? Quite the opposite apparently.
Most small startups I've encountered don't even have the principle of privacy; they happily vacuum up any data that's technologically feasible for them to collect in the name of helping them make data-driven decisions.
There is no privacy in home, and that's exactly what you want, to track our every tap, thought and utterance when using Alexa or any of your spyware.
> Health data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud
I feel PR pieces like this have given up even trying, and they only add that entire section reluctantly. I'd respect technologists more if they just openly admitted that this data is tracked, collected, processed and used for ads or other metrics and possibly collected by law enforcement or other purposes.
I mean, there was huge backlash against Ring cameras for working with the police, so absolutely nobody can trust anything that even remotely connects to the internet.
What they should say:
Truly private and encrypted: All data is stored locally, on device, and will never be transmitted via the internet. Using a free, open source application, you can transfer all the data to your own, secure offline storage. No data will be transmitted to Amazon, the cloud, or any other third party. Not even us can access your data.
But, as we know, that is never going to happen as far as Amazon is concerned, they want to track every second of your life in billions of datapoints; how often you blink, how many steps you take, your every interaction within the world.
They won't be happy until as much of our lives is being recorded by them as possible.
Imagine if this messaging wasn't from Amazon, but instead from your friend Bob down the street. Bob is pretty gregarious, but he's also creepy, what's he doing with all that data? Trying to take over the world?
There was a post here on HN a few days ago about the loads of information that the Kindle tracks. Then there's Alexa which is supposed to "wake up" only when the wake word is used which we all know isn't true. And now there's Halo. Amazon wants to own you in a way no other company has been able to just yet.
The most important question is, are you willing to trust amazon with all the data? I sure af don't
The fat measurement bit seems interesting. It seems entirely dependent on CV.[1] It does acknowledge that people gain fat differently but I am very apprehensive of this feature. Definition of muscles unless you go sub 10% BF looks very different among people. Also, clicking full body pictures and uploading it in a third party service even though this is Amazon feels very violating for some reason.
I think traditional home/gym scales use electrical impedance to measure this like this Inbody one. [2] They also claim to have been validated by studies. I would rather want these devices to become more portable and affordable.
Electrical impedance has been shown to be absolutely trash in accurately predicting bf%. I've used both Garmin's and Fitbit's smart scales, which are supposed to be top-of-the-line, and compared to DXA... the numbers aren't even close. Most people report similar experiences.
That's not something you can have at your home though, no? The DEXA/DXA scans machine I know of are something you can't keep at the comfort of your home.
In my personal experience I have found impedance ones to be fairly accurate(~10%, BF range 10-16) and for most people the accuracy of full body ones is good to have a general idea about their body. Probably when you reach sub 10 levels, accuracy matters more.
I've also found about a 10-point discrepancy. There's a huge difference between 15% and 25% bf.. one is approaching athletic while the other is obese.
DXA is definitely less convenient, but there's no real reason to test your bf% daily (just like weighing yourself daily isn't productive, you need to look at average changes over time). Considering the amount of time it takes to significantly change your bf%, twice a year testing would be plenty.. and would probably cost you the same amount as this subscription service.
Hydration and other factors affect accuracy of impedance body fat estimation. So consistency is key, like measuring at the same time in the same conditions (for myself, after waking and before any consumptions of food or water) daily. Still, absolute measurement will not be as accurate as DXA, hydrostatic, skin calipers, etc.
However, for relative changes over time when consistently measured, impedance works just fine (trending upward or downward).
I'm very skeptical of their claim that the photo measurements are more accurate than other means, but perhaps they've done massive validation of their methods and have achieved adequate reliability and validity.
While skin calipers are most affordable regarding equipment, the reliability is poor unless the person measuring is very consistent (well-trained and/or experienced for consistent pinch/folds). Calipers also will be inconvenient and possibly unaffordable for many because access to the person measuring is necessary whenever you want an updated measurement.
In my view, impedance evens out with calipers because of the convenience of impedance measurements over time. I just stand on the scale for a few seconds every morning, and I have stats synced that give me a good enough idea of my status (bonus for the added understanding of my hydration which calipers won't do). There's no cost or subscription for my scale aside from initial purchase (Withings aka Nokia Body Cardio), and it is regularly available for as low as $99 on sale. So after a couple years and hundreds of measurements the cost is negligible given the benefit.
If I had someone regularly accessible to do caliper measurements, I would have it done to compare regularly but still continue with impedance because it's so convenient to do and track.
It's still useless if the data is garbage, which it really is. I had DXA scans done every half year for the last few years, and I've owned a few smart scales in that time (first Fitbit, then Garmin). DXA has shown me consistently dropping bf% (17.8%, 15.0%, 13.1%, 11.2%) while the scales (taking monthly averages) are all over the place (10.1%, 11.1%, 11.6%, 10.0% for the same months the scans were taken in). Impedance can show you a ballpark (and we're talking a wide, 10%ish ballpark) of where you are, but honestly you're probably better off just looking in the mirror and comparing to images online.
I only mentioned calipers because they'd at least show you trends, which is where impedance seems to fail. Impedance is simply a poor way to measure bf%. Hydration might be a different story though.
I'd recommend you do yourself a favor and just spend the $100 annually to see where you're at.
I've had better experience with the Body Cardio scale. Though I haven't validated against other measures, I believe the body fat percentage is accurate enough based on my subjective opinion (it has not been generous to me like another poster's experience). Research has determined that impedance can be +/- 4% from actual in optimal conditions and my scale seems to fall close enough within that range.
Regardless, I use it for all the variables tracked. I look at body fat percentage but body weight is ultimately the value of concern. I don't agree $99 a year is a good value just for bf%, because I do agree that visual impression means more than a specific number.
The subscription cost for Amazon's service may be a great value (privacy concerns aside) if their photo algorithm is within a couple points of DXA or hydrostatic.
>The subscription cost for Amazon's service may be a great value if their photo algorithm is within a couple points of DXA
If it's accurate enough, I definitely agree. I'm looking forward to testing it out once it's available; since I'm one of those data nerds with actual ongoing DXA results, I'll be able to compare the two accurately. Although, pessimistically, I think if they had proven results within a few points they'd be a lot more quantitative in their marketing rather than the ambiguous language in the posts referenced above.
I can confirm that the Withings Body+ scale body fat measurement is also total garbage. For me it reads several percent lower than a DXA scan, basically just a vanity number for people who want to believe they aren't fat. The readings also fluctuate a lot based on how well hydrated I am.
I'm very intrigued by this because I have a bioelectrical impedance scale, one of the top of the market. I've generally found it to be extremely accurate. Amazon is saying this beats even those, which if it can do from just photos (with our without depth map?), that's impressive.
Yeah, the top ones generally are fairly accurate even from my experience, though the full body ones fare better than just the foot ones. Even if they are off by ~5%, it still can be good to track changes.
As an aside, for anyone who wants to track changes, I made an iOS shortcut which takes weight, waist circumference and neck measure and estimates body fat and muscle mass using the navy formula. It then logs weight, waist, body fat, muscle fat and bmi to apple health.
It is surely inaccurate, but directionally accurate. I only check weight and waist each day. Neck circumference changes slowly.
This uses imperial measures and is for men. You need to set the apple health data to imperial for weight and waist.
For women, you also need hip measures, and the calculations would differ a bit. If you’re interested in building this reach out and I can help modify this one.
Shortcut runs fast, and the two measures are quite quick to do daily.
I use it every day, so it definitely works! Dunno how to replicate on android, but maybe possible? Not familiar with the scripting/automation tools there. Or the health data integrations. But you could always log to a spreadsheet.
The state of the art [1] for body fat estimation using depth sensing is actually quite good (R2 value of 0.78).
The hard part will be accurately extracting the anthropometric features from the front/side/back images that Halo captures. There's a chance they would initially launch an iPhone only app and leverage the face scanning depth sensor.
Very creepy to know people are voluntarily going to purchase a device that tracks your emotions and have that be used to inform Amazon's ad or product recommendation targeting.
Lol, these self monitor systems can't even produce useful data in regards to heart arrhythmias, I would be surprised if they are any better at mood recognition given how complex mood is by comparison to heart function.
I have little respect for a people and society that thinks we all need/want the Borg’s hive mind guiding us our entire lives.
Talk about a failure to launch; a culture all about freedom tethering themselves to 5-6 companies product offerings.
It’s sycophantic addiction to slightly nuanced proclamations of being visited with special instruction from Sky Wizard, who said old guy is wrong, follow new guys idea of holiness
What a sad society when we’re so guilted it becomes too mean for family and friends to tell the unhealthy people in their lives just go for a 20 minute jog a few times a week.
Instead we all look away from being humans to such folks, and wait for someone like Apple or Bezos to engineer fancy gadgets those unhealthy people can use to have a robot voice to tell them how to behave instead.
Really standing on your own two legs by pushing away real people for rich daddy.
What a bizarre psychological story this society has created. “Screw you if I can’t make a dime off you.”
Basically you take some pictures of yourself and they build a 3D model, then use a neural network to analyze and predict bf%.
They claim "is as accurate as methods a doctor would use" and "we tested accuracy using Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA)" but they're not saying exactly how accurate it is compared to DXA, so I suspect the number isn't great.
Cue promos with smiling Amazon warehouse workers attesting to Halo's success and helpfulness.
On deeper inspection one of them is determined to have a near undetectable facial tic that could be seen to signal SOS in Morse code. She fails to appear in later promos.
Was really hoping to get periodic pulse oximetry on this. Otherwise, only the Tone feature seems interesting. I think I’ll pass on this. Monthly subscription doesn’t seem worth it for that.
The body fat tracking is based on 4 smartphone selfies that you take, and neural nets. Maybe they got good looking accuracy numbers on their in house test set, but I am extremely skeptical that this will be at all accurate in practice.
Also, they had a hardware device designed to take pictures of your body called the "Echo Look" which they canceled not too long ago. Seems strange to introduce new body scanning features soon after that failure.
"Once you’ve opted-in by creating your voice profile, Tone will run passively and intermittently in the background so you don’t have to think about it. Throughout the day, it will take short samples of your speech and analyze the acoustic characteristics that represent how you sound to the people you interact with. This gives you a simple way to reflect on your interaction and communication throughout the day."
Aka "Look, Amazon found a reason it needs to record your voice all the time. For science."
Where does it say transcribing? To me it sounds like it is processing voice on device into emotion markers and only the emotion markers are send to amazon. So the actual voice information would never leave the device. I do think anything else would not be possible legally because you'd need to have consent from every stranger you have a discussion with, moreso what about trade secret meetings. I can't fathom Amazon would go that way.
It doesn't. However for the last nine or more years (since work on Echo began), transcription has been far and away the #1 way Amazon processes speech - not "emotion markers" or whatever else you are dreaming up. I don't see "emotion markers" mentioned or described, and "it sounds like they are doing something else" is not really a strong argument if you're trying to guarantee that they aren't transcribing it.
Not just "your" (customer's) speech but anyone else you're talking with. Piece by piece we are accepting more and more of this kind of invasion of privacy.
Also how is this ompatibe with laws where both parties must consent to a recording being made. Perhaps Amazon would argue this isn't actually a recording because... reasons.
> This gives you a simple way to reflect on your interaction and communication throughout the day.
This sounds like a great way to cause social anxiety. It's also a very poor excuse for data harvesting. People are going to love it, this thing is going to sell like crazy.
>> This gives you a simple way to reflect on your interaction and communication throughout the day.
Isn't trying to overthink every communication you had throughout the day going to be unhealthy rather than being helpful? People who are people pleasers are on the risk of being addicted to this thing.
Yep, that's exactly what social anxiety is: you stress out over how you have interacted with people over the day and their perception of you because of your interactions. It's a genuine mental illness, and shit like this is how you contract it.
This device is intended to help with social anxiety issues.
In real-time, while you're currently interacting with someone, it can offer a helpful "WARNING! YOU SEEM ANXIOUS. CALM YOURSELF. OTHERS MAY CURRENTLY BE PERCEIVING YOU AS ANXIOUS."
Unless the microphone is extremely directional, this means that the device will also take short samples of what everyone around you is saying. I assume Amazon's lawyers have passed on this, but it sounds sketchy to me especially since Amazon doesn't mention it.
118 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 181 ms ] threadGadgetbridge looks better in terms of privacy, but for some reason I'd chosen Notify and Fitness for my mi band 4 and some xiaomi body scales. Probably because it had more features than gadgetbridge.
[0]: https://gadgetbridge.org/
I will definitely try Gadgedbrige again when there are less active covid cases in my city so I can continue working out outside.
My main sport activites are free weight lifting and longboarding (long distance, 10+ km, no trick like on skateboard).
In my current app I really like trend charts, especially weight trend (and recommendations on how to lose more weight based on my activity). Do not remember if they were present in Gadgetbridge when I last checked. But I don't like that the app I use now is slow on my old android (looks like unoptimized react native app).
Reminds me of Radiohead's "fitter, happier, more productive self".
~Mindset tracking is pretty sensitive data, and to pay for the privilege to give something so personal away feels less than optimal. I would feel better about it I guess if there were a guarantee that no one would ever receive my data, ever, after Amazon, but even then...
The question is, how much is Amazon paying me for my data? Oh, nothing? Yeah, nope.
I feel sad. Let Amazon make it all better(orders gin).
Frankly, I am horrified and I only began to process this information.
Might we interest you in augmenting your information-processing capacity with one of our many EC2 instance types? There's one for every workload!
Privacy of course is a concern but they seem to have addressed this but the test will be of course how it really plays out over time.
On the other side, how these giant companies will handle our data, and how this data will be used by, for example, health insurance companies, is the sinister aspect of any innovation in this direction.
It's a good example of "free market" trending to dystopian societies with huge disparities, whereas a good, simple, targeted government intervention (in terms of regulation, etc) could go a long way.
The downside in not-capitalism: You're forced to wear it. It doesn't work. Your family is brought in for questioning when you try to take it off.
https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-hea...
What benefit does Amazon derive from having such comprehensive biometric data about Amazon consumers? They're offering this device at a significant loss vs. the investment that goes into it.
> The innovative Tone feature uses machine learning to analyze energy and positivity in a customer’s voice
Will they start charging people more for a product category when Alexa overhears that they're talking about it excitedly? Will they 'invite' you to install a Nielsen ratings integration that lets them listen for content and measure how you feel about it? If your pulse rate jumps during a Clorox bleach ad, will you start seeing ads for the Amazon Basics product that competes with it?
> Body scan images are automatically deleted from the cloud after processing, so only the customer sees them.
> Speech samples are always analyzed locally on the customer’s phone and automatically deleted after processing
"Processing" permits them to train models and transmit training outcomes that are derived your body data, as they only commit to deleting the raw data, not the training outcomes that result from it. They can claim correctly that the raw data cannot be extracted from the processed results.
Amazon level of privacy (expect none)
Requires pictures of you to provide body readings
This may be good for some buy this is a serious no go for me.
https://youtu.be/xfqaZ8_Z5aA
As far as privacy, I'm more trusting of Amazon than a small startup personally.
There is no privacy in home, and that's exactly what you want, to track our every tap, thought and utterance when using Alexa or any of your spyware.
> Health data is encrypted in transit and in the cloud
I feel PR pieces like this have given up even trying, and they only add that entire section reluctantly. I'd respect technologists more if they just openly admitted that this data is tracked, collected, processed and used for ads or other metrics and possibly collected by law enforcement or other purposes.
I mean, there was huge backlash against Ring cameras for working with the police, so absolutely nobody can trust anything that even remotely connects to the internet.
What they should say:
Truly private and encrypted: All data is stored locally, on device, and will never be transmitted via the internet. Using a free, open source application, you can transfer all the data to your own, secure offline storage. No data will be transmitted to Amazon, the cloud, or any other third party. Not even us can access your data.
But, as we know, that is never going to happen as far as Amazon is concerned, they want to track every second of your life in billions of datapoints; how often you blink, how many steps you take, your every interaction within the world.
They won't be happy until as much of our lives is being recorded by them as possible.
Fuck Amazon.
I don't mean to be rude; I just don't think that "simply not use" is going to work.
Narf!
The most important question is, are you willing to trust amazon with all the data? I sure af don't
I think traditional home/gym scales use electrical impedance to measure this like this Inbody one. [2] They also claim to have been validated by studies. I would rather want these devices to become more portable and affordable.
[1] https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-hea...
[2] https://inbodyusa.com/products/inbody770/
In my personal experience I have found impedance ones to be fairly accurate(~10%, BF range 10-16) and for most people the accuracy of full body ones is good to have a general idea about their body. Probably when you reach sub 10 levels, accuracy matters more.
Btw, here is the link to studies they give: https://inbodyusa.com/studies/
DXA is definitely less convenient, but there's no real reason to test your bf% daily (just like weighing yourself daily isn't productive, you need to look at average changes over time). Considering the amount of time it takes to significantly change your bf%, twice a year testing would be plenty.. and would probably cost you the same amount as this subscription service.
However, for relative changes over time when consistently measured, impedance works just fine (trending upward or downward).
I'm very skeptical of their claim that the photo measurements are more accurate than other means, but perhaps they've done massive validation of their methods and have achieved adequate reliability and validity.
Agreed, but for change over time it's just as accurate as skin calipers... which don't require an investment or subscription service.
In my view, impedance evens out with calipers because of the convenience of impedance measurements over time. I just stand on the scale for a few seconds every morning, and I have stats synced that give me a good enough idea of my status (bonus for the added understanding of my hydration which calipers won't do). There's no cost or subscription for my scale aside from initial purchase (Withings aka Nokia Body Cardio), and it is regularly available for as low as $99 on sale. So after a couple years and hundreds of measurements the cost is negligible given the benefit.
If I had someone regularly accessible to do caliper measurements, I would have it done to compare regularly but still continue with impedance because it's so convenient to do and track.
I only mentioned calipers because they'd at least show you trends, which is where impedance seems to fail. Impedance is simply a poor way to measure bf%. Hydration might be a different story though.
I'd recommend you do yourself a favor and just spend the $100 annually to see where you're at.
Regardless, I use it for all the variables tracked. I look at body fat percentage but body weight is ultimately the value of concern. I don't agree $99 a year is a good value just for bf%, because I do agree that visual impression means more than a specific number.
The subscription cost for Amazon's service may be a great value (privacy concerns aside) if their photo algorithm is within a couple points of DXA or hydrostatic.
If it's accurate enough, I definitely agree. I'm looking forward to testing it out once it's available; since I'm one of those data nerds with actual ongoing DXA results, I'll be able to compare the two accurately. Although, pessimistically, I think if they had proven results within a few points they'd be a lot more quantitative in their marketing rather than the ambiguous language in the posts referenced above.
It is surely inaccurate, but directionally accurate. I only check weight and waist each day. Neck circumference changes slowly.
This uses imperial measures and is for men. You need to set the apple health data to imperial for weight and waist.
For women, you also need hip measures, and the calculations would differ a bit. If you’re interested in building this reach out and I can help modify this one.
Shortcut runs fast, and the two measures are quite quick to do daily.
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/fb69f71fc1c54cb09191b3610cf...
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MBPF2HW
The hard part will be accurately extracting the anthropometric features from the front/side/back images that Halo captures. There's a chance they would initially launch an iPhone only app and leverage the face scanning depth sensor.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0603-x
Does it matter if the V1 is totally accurate or not? Safe to assume it will get better over time. The point still stands.
Talk about a failure to launch; a culture all about freedom tethering themselves to 5-6 companies product offerings.
It’s sycophantic addiction to slightly nuanced proclamations of being visited with special instruction from Sky Wizard, who said old guy is wrong, follow new guys idea of holiness
What a sad society when we’re so guilted it becomes too mean for family and friends to tell the unhealthy people in their lives just go for a 20 minute jog a few times a week.
Instead we all look away from being humans to such folks, and wait for someone like Apple or Bezos to engineer fancy gadgets those unhealthy people can use to have a robot voice to tell them how to behave instead.
Really standing on your own two legs by pushing away real people for rich daddy.
What a bizarre psychological story this society has created. “Screw you if I can’t make a dime off you.”
Basically you take some pictures of yourself and they build a 3D model, then use a neural network to analyze and predict bf%.
They claim "is as accurate as methods a doctor would use" and "we tested accuracy using Dual-energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA)" but they're not saying exactly how accurate it is compared to DXA, so I suspect the number isn't great.
On deeper inspection one of them is determined to have a near undetectable facial tic that could be seen to signal SOS in Morse code. She fails to appear in later promos.
The dystopia deepens.
Also, they had a hardware device designed to take pictures of your body called the "Echo Look" which they canceled not too long ago. Seems strange to introduce new body scanning features soon after that failure.
"Once you’ve opted-in by creating your voice profile, Tone will run passively and intermittently in the background so you don’t have to think about it. Throughout the day, it will take short samples of your speech and analyze the acoustic characteristics that represent how you sound to the people you interact with. This gives you a simple way to reflect on your interaction and communication throughout the day."
Aka "Look, Amazon found a reason it needs to record your voice all the time. For science."
Facebook must be fuming.
BTW, pretty sure Facebook and Google are already listening to speech and serving ads off it, just not admitting to it.
And that of others who happen to be around, presumably.
Also how is this ompatibe with laws where both parties must consent to a recording being made. Perhaps Amazon would argue this isn't actually a recording because... reasons.
This gave me a good laugh.
> This gives you a simple way to reflect on your interaction and communication throughout the day.
This sounds like a great way to cause social anxiety. It's also a very poor excuse for data harvesting. People are going to love it, this thing is going to sell like crazy.
Isn't trying to overthink every communication you had throughout the day going to be unhealthy rather than being helpful? People who are people pleasers are on the risk of being addicted to this thing.
In real-time, while you're currently interacting with someone, it can offer a helpful "WARNING! YOU SEEM ANXIOUS. CALM YOURSELF. OTHERS MAY CURRENTLY BE PERCEIVING YOU AS ANXIOUS."
Problem solved. Thanks, technology!
Unless the microphone is extremely directional, this means that the device will also take short samples of what everyone around you is saying. I assume Amazon's lawyers have passed on this, but it sounds sketchy to me especially since Amazon doesn't mention it.