The News

Can Amazon actually get people to use their smart speakers for anything other than timers and playing music?

Amazon has beefed up its Alexa smart home products to make them capable of using its new generative AI features. The Verge has the best wrap-up of all the hardware upgrades, but the takeaway is that everything is getting faster and better screens.

The more interesting thing is the features that Amazon claims its Alexa+ — which is now being rolled out to more existing Alexa owners (Verge) — can do via these smart devices. On top of new integrations with various other platforms that you can order from your speaker, Alexa+ uses “a 13-megapixel camera on new Echo Show devices, audio, ultrasound, Wi-Fi radar, accelerometer, and Wi-Fi channel state information” to register and respond to things happening in your house. An example that was given was ambiently recognising that a dog hasn’t been fed by midday, and bringing it up with someone when they come into the room.

The Sizzle: By all accounts, the Alexa+ rollout to existing devices has not gone well (Wirecutter). As previously Sizzled, everyone wants to integrate these new generative AI features into smart phone devices, but no one has done it successfully yet. And yet… Can I say that the “ambient AI” stuff, if it works, finally feels like we’re getting somewhere with this technology? The biggest problem with Alexa and smart home assistants at the moment is that most owners have no idea how to use their features. If AI has the capability to prompt you with context relevant information and decisions, we could be cooking.

You may have noticed a lot of “ifs”. If, if, if. Good luck following through, Amazon! I won’t be first in line to get these devices.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Government think tank didn’t think about the consequences of letting AI companies steal copyright data before backing it

The Productivity Commission has no idea how giving AI companies free reign to train on Australian copyrighted material without paying will affect anything, but that hasn’t stopped it from suggesting it (The Guardian). A parliamentary inquiry yesterday heard that the government’s in-house think tank hasn’t modelled or asked anyone in the creative industry about how a data mining exemption would affect them before recommending it. While saying that Australia’s copyright laws are “not fit for purpose in the age of AI”, the head of the commission Stephen King said Australia is not getting the benefits if AI models are being trained on copyrighted material overseas.

The Sizzle: I’m going to resist the temptation to get sucked into a discussion about “what is productivity, anyway”, and just say that King and the Commission are misrepresenting what is happening with AI training and copyright around the world. There is no major country, to my knowledge, that has greenlit AI training on copyrighted material. At best, these companies are existing in grey legal areas and regulatory paralysis. Meanwhile, AI companies are playing everyone against each other, whispering that “you could be left behind” as they become the most valuable companies on earth. I’m actually open to the idea of copyright reform — but not on the terms of “let us do this or else”.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

How much would someone need to offer you before you helped a hacker into your company?

A BBC reporter humoured a request of cybercriminals who wanted him to break them into the broadcaster’s systems (BBC). Joe Tidy says he was propositioned by an pseudonymous character who offered him 25% of whatever money they were able to hack, and claimed to have had success with insider attacks in the past.

After playing along for a while, the supposed hacker started bombing him with multi-factor authentication requests when Tidy stopped co-operating. Once he told the BBC, Tidy was locked out of its systems as a precaution. Then he got another message.

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Australia:

Rest of the world:

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

This One Weird Trick that gets you out of traffic fines (self-driving)

Last week, officers in San Bruno, California, pulled over a car for the routine traffic infringement of making an illegal U-Turn. It was then that they discovered that it was a Waymo vehicle with no driver. Police subsequently realised that they couldn’t issue a ticket because “our citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot’”, according to a Facebook post from the department. So, they instead contacted the company to let them know

There is apparently legislation in train that would let police issue tickets to self-driving vehicles. But until then? Sounds like crime is legal as long as you’re a self-driving car. Cool!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

🤖 We love robots at the Sizzle but this newsletter has always been and will always be written by humans for humans.

🗣️ Have any feedback, a tip or just want to chat? Send me an email or Signal message. I promise to reply!

💬 Want to hang out with other Sizzlers? There’s a subscriber-only Slack server and forum if you want to procrastinate and chat about tech-related news.

🌐 The Sizzle is on Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn if you’re feeling social.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the Beehiiv customer portal.

🎁 Make someone's day and gift them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.

💔 Don’t want this any more? I won’t take it personally. There’s a unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email or here’s a guide.

🦺 The Sizzle has been tested to meet and exceed ISO 3533 standards.

Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.