{"id":36321,"date":"2019-03-29T14:23:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T14:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36321"},"modified":"2019-03-29T14:23:40","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T14:23:40","slug":"alexa-needs-to-mind-her-own-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36321","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Alexa&#8217; needs to mind &#8216;her&#8217; own business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=Alexa%20%23smarthome%20%23electronicdevice&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/adev_echo_dvph_blk_fam_rgb.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-36322\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/adev_echo_dvph_blk_fam_rgb-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/adev_echo_dvph_blk_fam_rgb-300x211.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/adev_echo_dvph_blk_fam_rgb-768x540.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/adev_echo_dvph_blk_fam_rgb-1024x720.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/adev_echo_dvph_blk_fam_rgb.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s come down to this, ladies and gentlemen:\u00a0My wife and I have to <em>whisper<\/em> whenever we mention the name of an electronic presence we have brought into our home.<\/p>\n<p>You know to &#8220;whom&#8221; I refer. &#8220;She&#8221; is &#8220;Alexa,&#8221; the smart-home gadget that performs certain tasks for us on voice command. &#8220;&#8216;Alexa,&#8217; turn off the lights. Play music. Lock the front door.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As for the &#8220;play music&#8221; command, we can instruct &#8220;her&#8221; to play rock music, gospel music, country music . . . whatever genre we choose. Weird, yes? I think so.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m now waiting for the technology that allows &#8220;Alex&#8221; to tuck us in at night.<\/p>\n<p>We find ourselves awakening &#8220;Alexa&#8221; when we mention &#8220;her&#8221; name in casual conversation. &#8220;She&#8221; tells us &#8220;she&#8221; doesn&#8217;t understand what we&#8217;re saying. &#8220;She&#8221; asks for clarification. When we give &#8220;her&#8221; none, &#8220;she&#8221; goes quiet.<\/p>\n<p>Now, though, &#8220;Alexa&#8221; is responding to the sound of &#8220;her&#8221; name when the TV commercial blurts it out. I refuse to turn the volume down whenever one of those &#8220;Alexa&#8221; commercials airs. So there.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, this smart-home technology is rather fun. It gives us a chuckle or two during the day when we instruct our device to do something we used to do manually. You know, things like flipping a light switch. Sheesh!<\/p>\n<p>Now in this brave new world into which we have entered, we are forced to whisper the name of an electronic gadget.<\/p>\n<p>Surely, &#8220;she&#8221; won&#8217;t take us hostage in our own home. Will &#8220;she&#8221;?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=Alexa%20%23smarthome%20%23electronicdevice&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s come down to this, ladies and gentlemen:\u00a0My wife and I have to whisper whenever we mention the name of an electronic presence we have brought into our home. You know to &#8220;whom&#8221; I refer. &#8220;She&#8221; is &#8220;Alexa,&#8221; the smart-home gadget that performs certain tasks for us on voice command. &#8220;&#8216;Alexa,&#8217; turn off the lights. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36321\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;Alexa&#8217; needs to mind &#8216;her&#8217; own business<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8397,8521,8520],"class_list":["post-36321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment-news","tag-alexa","tag-brave-new-world","tag-smart-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36323,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36321\/revisions\/36323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}