THE NEW ALEXA PLUS
The new “Alexa Plus” can make reservations, summarize documents, and hold a conversation without your having to keep saying “Hey Alexa.”
It’s available in an “early access” program to owners of the Echo Show smart speaker. Once you have it on an Echo Show, it becomes instantly available in the free Alexa app on your phone, the Amazon Fire tablet, the Echo Dot and even in email.
I started it by testing it on a document, the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” from Gutenberg.org, a free book site. Because Alexa Plus only accepts text in certain formats, I click the “simple text” version, copied it and emailed it to alexa@alexa.amazon.com. I was careful to skip the intro about Gutenberg.org, as well as other unimportant stuff. When Alexa emailed a summary, I opened the free Alexa app on my phone and fired off questions.
That’s how I learned that everyday items can be used in sabotage. “What everyday items?” I asked. “Matches, pebbles, hair, salt and nails,” she said. “How would you use hair?” I asked. “It can be placed into locks to prevent them from turning or into small machinery to disrupt its operation.”
Later I copied 14,000 words from Charles Darwin’s book, “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals” and got a summary by email. When I asked Alexa for Darwin’s most surprising finding, she said that a dog reverses its body language when it wants to convey the opposite emotion. For example, to indicate friendliness, it moves its ears, tail and posture in a way that’s the exact reverse of its pose for hostility.
I’ve been using Alexa for reminders, timers, weather reports, jokes, news reports, general questions and NPR’s Planet Money. When I found out about Alexa Plus, I tapped the microphone button in the Alexa app and asked how I could send her a document to summarize. If you have a question about Alexa Plus, just ask her.
Or him. Alexa Plus comes with eight different voices. So one of the first things I did was say “Hey Alexa, change your voice.” I then chose “Masculine #4: Calm.” He sounds cool, competent and helpful without overdoing it. He doesn’t gush.
AI Beats Tariffs
Here’s a new way to get around tariffs. I learned about it in a new book called “The Zero Marginal Cost Society,” by Jeremy Rifkin.
Instead of shipping physical parts across borders, which are subject to tariffs, you can send digital design files over the internet to be 3D printed on demand in another country. That way, they not only escape import duties, they don’t have any shipping costs or packaging waste. It’s called “additive manufacturing.” Instead of shipping a fully assembled item, businesses can send the blueprint for individual parts, which are then printed locally.
According to 3Dprint.com, this approach is already being used to make everything from aerospace components to medical devices. It’s a huge boon for capitalism, which is all about innovation and efficiency, and yet, ironically, Rifkin’s book talks about “the eclipse of capitalism.” He thinks the 3D printing approach is more collaborative. But collaboration is the heart of capitalism. If two sides don’t agree to a transaction, it won’t take place. Capitalism thrives when it’s not thwarted. It’s all about cooperation, not force. Only the government can send you to jail for not agreeing with it.
Bring Back the Boombox
Why pay $500 for a boombox that plays cassettes when you can get one from Amazon for $42? Because the $42 boombox does a lousy job at recording music onto tapes. Also, it just doesn’t sound as good.
Unlike the boomboxes of the 1980s, the GB-001 from Rewind allows you to hear the lyrics without being drowned out by bass, according to The Verge. It can even play tapes that use an older noise reduction system. For birthdays and holidays, you might want to use it to record music onto tapes, so you’ll have something to place in a gift box.
The GB-001 offers 10 hours of playback through speakers when playing a tape, or up to 15 hours if you’re streaming music, and up to 28 hours if you use headphones. It’s about 20 inches long and seven inches high.
But if you don’t care about recording music or a lighter bass sound, check out the $42 “Waterproof Portable Bluetooth Speaker” from HWWR on Amazon. It gets great reviews for playing tapes and streaming music. It gets lousy marks for copying tapes into a digital format. But it might be just right for music at the beach or campsite.
Fast Router, Slow Cable
A techy friend just bought a new “Cat 8” cable to connect his computer to his router/modem. It immediately gave him a big boost in internet speed.
My router/modem is relatively new but I just discovered I’m using a Cat 5 cable to connect it, which came out 24 years ago. This means that every time I’ve gotten a new router, the AT&T or Xfinity rep didn’t bother changing the cable. So I’ve just ordered the gold-plated “DbillionDa Cat8,” which is under $6 from Amazon. My internet speed is fast already, but it will be even faster.
Internut
“My first day with Unitree’s Go2 Pro robot dog.” Search on that phrase to see a video clip about a robot that even goes to the dog park.