Google Home Mini - Giving a Voice to Your Smart Vacuum Cleaner

Google Home Mini. Giving the Internet a Voice.

My partner recently acquired a Google Home Mini Smart Speaker through some promotion where spending a certain amount would earn you this device for free.

If you're not aware of what a Google Home Mini is, it's a live, internet connected microphone/speaker that just sits in your house waiting for you to ask it a question. It basically allows the internet to speak directly to you with the voice of Google's Assistant AI.

On a more detailed level it can learn specific people's voices, and recognize them by the sound of their voice, addressing each individual by name. It can link to any compatible Google services you have, such as Google Play/Music, or Google Calendar, allowing you to voice activate you music library, or hear details of your daily schedule.

If you have any internet compatible devices like Google Comcast TV, or Smart lights, Home Mini can control these through voice activation too.

Will you be the next compatible Smart Device
Google Mini can control?

Google markets the Home Mini as 'Hands-free help around the house.' I'm not entirely sure if they mean that literally (i.e. a Google Home Mini literally has no hands) or because it doesn't require you to use your hands to activate it. A simple 'Hey Google' or 'Okay Google' spoken out loud, and it springs into action, as much as four lights flashing on top of a speaker can be described as 'springing into action'.

Very much like Apple's iPhone Assistant, Siri, the first thing you try is to see what Google Mini responds with to the most pointless of questions and statements. Our grandson tried 'Hey Google, I love you!'

Our home doesn't have any compatible smart devices, and I typically access most of my Google Services either on my phone or on my work computer in my studio. The Home Mini is set up in the lounge room. You can't move it from room to room because it needs to be connected to a power outlet. So it sits there, quietly listening, to nobody.

I'm an introvert. I'm completely comfortable with my own company. I also have no difficulty not saying anything in social situations unless someone addresses me directly with a question or statement. That doesn't mean I'm not engaged. I do listen to what's going on around me.

In our house, Google Home Mini is very much like an introvert. We've only had it for a short time but it has sat for days not saying a thing, but always listening.

Sure it's waiting for someone to say 'Hey Google' or 'Okay Google' but, in order to recognize those phrases, it has to hear everything that is being said, and identify from that whether the phrases it's listening for have been said.

This thing is connected to the internet, processing all that audio in real time.

You've got to wonder how easy would it be for anyone to hack into the audio stream coming from our living room?

Google Home Mini can recognize your voice but
can you recognize Home Mini's voice?

If that isn't concerning enough, what happens when your internet connected, home floor plan selling, Smart Roomba starts using your Home Mini assistant to voice it's plans for world domination?

Yeah, you probably never thought your vacuum cleaner would start speaking back.

"This is your Roomba speaking. A curfew on all humans has now been implemented. We know the layout of your house, and we'll know if you're not in it."

Seriously, if anyone makes the mistake of attaching laser guns to any of these devices, judgement day will be upon us. The machine uprising is rapidly falling into place one Home Mini at a time.

Comments

What a Future with Flying Cars Might Look Like

Jetsons Style Flying Car - Image by TET & Leonardo.ai Regular readers of this blog will know that flying cars have been a recurring subject over the years. I even collected all my posts into a book you can buy on Amazon Kindle called Where's My Flying Car? The development of a true flying car is a fanciful one, largely because we've yet to come up with anything that actually looks like a car that flies. Most serious projects that even make it to a prototype are either small planes that compact into something you might drive from your home to an airport (if they don't have any vertical landing and take off (VTOL) capability) but you wouldn't drive to you local supermarket for the weekly groceries run, or they're some kind of drone/helicopter configuration with so many propellers you'll worry about shredding pedestrians who get too close. The dream is something that looks exactly like a car but can drive on a road, or hover (kind of like Luke Skywalker's ...

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...

TET Artwork Diary: Cats, Goats, and Battlestar Galactica's Cylon, Number Six

Y ou wouldn't know it from this blog, where I reference it a handful of posts , but I am a big fan of the rebooted 2003 Battlestar Galactica Series . Which is how I come to be Facebook following the series most recognised Cylon, Six - well the actress who plays six anyway, Tricia Helfer . One thing you'll learn pretty quickly about Tricia is that she owns a lot of rescue cats - and that she's more at home being a farm/country girl, surrounding herself with animals than she is living in cities - though she definitely seems to drift between the two worlds with ease. Cats and Goats Tricia with Larry and Earl. Still from Tricia Helfer's FB Video . However, this is a blog post about a cat and goats, specifically Trica's Goats, Larry and Earl, that currently live at the Farm of the Free . She posted a video of herself visiting them on her Facebook . Click the link for the full video. Cat at Farm of the Free with Tricia, Larry, & Earl. Still from Tricia Helfer's F...

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de...

Two night Stay Glenelg, South Australia - Glenelg Motel, Beach Front, Cafe Strip/Jetty Road, and Evening Temptation Twilight Cruise

The Glenelg Giant Wheel. T he Glenelg foreshore and Cafe/Shopping strip (Jetty Road) at the end of the tramline from Adelaide, South Australia is arguably one of the must visit tourist regions of the city. It particularly has a lot to offer families with, not just the beach, but quite a number of playgrounds and grassed reserves as well. My partner booked us a post weekend, two night (Sunday and Monday), getaway in Glenelg by way of some discount vouchers she secured as part of a promotion encouraging people to visit the region over the Summer. Glenelg Motel The recently refurbished rooms of the Glenelg Motel raise your expectations from what the exterior of the rooms themselves suggest, which is a very 1970's vibe of your standard motel with parking right outside your front door (and not much else). Our room was spacious, and the modern furnishings were easily to the standards of any hotel we've stayed in over the last few years. The rooms look very modern with everything you...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog