I was about to close the Sunday paper for the day when I stumbled on a light bit about gadgets and I happened to notice this text jumping out at me on an unread page:
Although any white-noise machine can do the trick, I have found that a smart display, like the Google Nest Hub (about $90), combines several useful bedside gadgets in one box: an alarm clock, a digital picture frame and — above all, for me — a white-noise machine.
Wirecutter, The New York Times, 3/14/2021
Why it’s interesting
Not to overstate it, there’s no mention of cloud technologies or AI at all discussing the device, not to mention speech recognition, for a device whose only functional interface is voice.
It’s a gadget that does a number of things. This is the most notable aspect.
Why it’s important
I’m not sure whether something that’s “just a gadget” is a good thing or a bad thing. Just a couple of years ago it was hailed (by its maker, and the industry at large) as a sophisticated technological breakthrough that is the future.
Does that mean the future is here? Or perhaps, as I suspect, that the paper of record in the United States is normalizing speech as a totally average and uninteresting aspect of the device, which, as the overall discussion of products and functionality in the piece suggests, is convenience as invisible as a microwave.
Links
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/realestate/nine-tools-for-better-longer-sleep.html
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