Enough investors in here to start a new effort in non-cloud closed systems?

[mwester]

My daily job involves people who work in SCIFs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility).  I acknowledge the reality that most people willingly trade their privacy for convenience and cost, but I also understand that there are those who either cannot or do not desire to do so.

 

This thread is disappointing.  The O.P. has strong opinions, but given that we do not yet understand the total impact of our diminishing privacy, it's far far too soon to be mocking those opinions.

 

I hope that some day in the future we WILL be in a position to laugh about "unfounded fears".  And I surely hope that those who are turning their homes into the private citizen version of a SCIF are wrong.  But I dare not discount their concerns.

 

Carry on, folks.  Mock me as well, if you all wish -- I'll be dumping the portal and Alexa as soon as the HASS project gets their non-cloud voice project functional, so perhaps I too am becoming one of those "1990" luddites you're all poking fun at!

 

I also hope that in 20 years, you'll all be proven right.

[asbril]

16 minutes ago, mwester said:

My daily job involves people who work in SCIFs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility).  I acknowledge the reality that most people willingly trade their privacy for convenience and cost, but I also understand that there are those who either cannot or do not desire to do so.

 

This thread is disappointing.  The O.P. has strong opinions, but given that we do not yet understand the total impact of our diminishing privacy, it's far far too soon to be mocking those opinions.

 

I hope that some day in the future we WILL be in a position to laugh about "unfounded fears".  And I surely hope that those who are turning their homes into the private citizen version of a SCIF are wrong.  But I dare not discount their concerns.

 

Carry on, folks.  Mock me as well, if you all wish -- I'll be dumping the portal and Alexa as soon as the HASS project gets their non-cloud voice project functional, so perhaps I too am becoming one of those "1990" luddites you're all poking fun at!

 

I also hope that in 20 years, you'll all be proven right.

Smiling is not mocking........ I understand his concerns. I am on the board of directors of a bank and cyber security is at the top of our concerns as well. There is no doubt that there are and will be serious cloud incidents.  My point is that I am also concerned about a nuclear war or incident and if I move to  Papua New Guinea there would be less risk of a nuclear issue. However life is not about avoiding risks alltogether but manage them to the best of our possibilities.

As such, when using Dropbox etc I select 2-step authentication. I also regularly backup my Dropbox data on a USB drive that I keep in a safe. That is managing the risks in the 21rst century. I could choose not to use the cloud at all, but the advantages (for me) by far outweigh the risks.

[Javi]

2 hours ago, mwester said:

My daily job involves people who work in SCIFs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_compartmented_information_facility).  I acknowledge the reality that most people willingly trade their privacy for convenience and cost, but I also understand that there are those who either cannot or do not desire to do so.

I think cost core issue.

You can already have an offline voice assistant especially in dominate languages such as  english.  The cost of voice to text parsing hardware/software is the reason most people dismiss these solutions as Amazon/Google almost give away the hardware. Before Alexa and Google Assistant existed I created a voice home automation voice parser using Google's offline models for any language supported by the offline models.  I tested in both English and Spanish.  This could be converted to use any offline model in any language, as long as the model can convert speech to text. Most of the app's sales, after Alexa was released in the US, were in Europe for users of Domoticz and EventGhost as Alexa did not yet support many of these languages.  While this was originally built on Android (my better skill set at the time), I was going to port it to the a voice hardware Ubi.  At about this time Alexa was released, and everyone moved on to Alexa.

So,  this can be done currently for a higher cost. Investors, in companies like Ubi, likely did not recoup their investment.