Home Voice Assistants - I'm Sorry, I Can't Help You With That.

The other day I was halfway through watching a movie, Altered States (1980) and, without any prompting from me, our Google Home Mini Assistant pipes up, "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that."

Good to know.

I don't know what it thought the question was? I hadn't said anything at all, and I'm pretty sure no one within a movie released in 1980 said 'Okay Google'.

The movie itself is about altering reality by somehow projecting thoughts into existence but I'm pretty sure I wasn't thinking 'Okay Google' at any point during the film.

Perhaps, after weeks of nobody asking it a question, our Home Mini just wanted to give a voice to the depression it must be developing as a result of not actually being helpful with anything at all?

"I'm sorry, I can't help you with that."

Voice assistants are trendy right now but they're really just a stepping stone to autonomous robots. Machines that you can speak to as if it was a living, breathing, intelligent entity.

Sure I could deck my home out with all sorts of things that my voice assistant could turn on and off for me but that's not nearly as cool as having your personal chef robot help you cook almost anything.

These robot arms have been personally trained by a real Master Chef.
It works through a touch screen user interface.
Image: Moley Robotics

Sonny from I Robot.

Because, really, that is the end goal, creating machines that can understand us well enough to be controlled through voice commands.

Ultimately I think it's creating fully sentient machines/beings in our own image but short term, an android assistant along the lines of Sonny, from the movie I Robot is a more achievable goal.

Home voice assistants aren't really there yet. Along with Home mini, I have Cortana on all my computers, and Google assistant on my smartphone. My partner has Siri on her phone. We don't use any of them for actual assistance.

Occasionally I might give one of them a shot but they nearly always make an easy job much harder. I have to consciously try and speak the words clearly so the voice assistant will understand them the first time. (If you've got a voice assistant you'll know the struggle of trying to get any kind of help if it doesn't actually recognize the words). Once you get into an 'argument' over what you know you said but the assistant can't understand, you may as well have just used a keyboard.

That's not even the kicker. If your voice assistant does start giving you an answer, you can't quickly scan for just the bit you need. You have to listen to that computer voice drone on, and on, or you have to cut them off because you've just realized, it would have been much simpler to have used a keyboard and screen in the first place.

Until a voice assistant is placed inside a machine whose only purpose is to assist with whatever task the voice assistant has been instructed to do you'll be hearing this quite a lot:

"I'm sorry, I can't help you with that."

"Yeah I know. That's why I never asked in the first place."

Skateboard Trick Tips: Two Ways to Ollie North (Ollie One foot)

You have to be quick to see my Ollie Norths! Ollie One Foots, otherwise known as the Ollie North, is one of those skateboard tricks you learn and then tend not to do very much as more interesting trick challenges grab your attention. However it does look really cool if you learn how to kick your front foot well past the nose of your skateboard. Still shot from Braille Skateboarding's Ollie North tutorial. I was inspired to make my video below, showing two different techniques to achieve a successful Ollie One Foot, when I not only saw that Braille Skateboarding's Tutorial used a different method to the one I had learned but also, when I looked at various other video tutorials, I discovered yet another technique, with no one using the method I had originally learned. Braille's method is to simply Ollie and drag your front foot past the front of your board. The second method I came across in several video tutorials is to Ollie, drag your front foot and tap your

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

Review: FP Footwear FINO Skate Shoes

FP Footwear FINO Skate Shoes I first saw FP's FINO skate shoes in a video by YouTube channel, Braille Skateboarding, titled, THE FIRST EVER NON NEWTONIAN FLUID SKATE SHOES!? As someone whose feet hurt and bruise relatively easily just from the basic tricks of skateboarding (Ollies, Pop Shuv-its etc.) the 90% absorption of impact energy selling point seemed like an ideal solution for minimizing my injuries. A day later I placed an order through FP's website . Ordinarily I wouldn't mention Customer Service but I can't let the lack of communication on my order slide. FP's website says to expect delivery within 7-14 days of your order. After close to two weeks, my order was still marked as being processed. I sent an email asking for any kind of update, to no response. A day or two later my order was marked as completed but still no signs of shoes in my mail? About two weeks later (just over a full month of placing my order) the shoes arrived. I'm sur

Why Your Backside 180 Ollies Suck (Probably, if they're like mine)

Backside 180 Ollie by TET I've been doing backside 180 ollies on my skateboard for almost as long as I've been skateboarding. It's not really that hard a trick to learn, except it is, if you want to do them well. Usually, when I'm practicing my backside 180 ollies on flat, my first attempt will be my best, and then my technique will kind of deteriorate from there. Except for that one jaggy attempt where I successfully land the backside 180 ollie then continue to pivot on my back truck another 180 degrees. Which is only a cool trick if you actually meant to do it. Recently I spent an entire driveway skate session working on my backside 180 ollies. My goal was to get them higher, rotate my body more effectively, and to bend my back leg more (a common problem for most people is not really bending the back leg as you ollie). You can watch my session and decide if I made any progress in the video below. The thing is, I know everything I'm doing wrong with my backside 180

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (2023) No Spoilers

If you've enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 1 and Volume 2 then Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 will not disappoint. I would almost go so far as to call it the best in the series... except seeing the first movie for the first time is still one of my best memories of the MCU. While it's not essential to the story if you didn't see the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special on Disney+ it does kind of lead into and set up where the Guardians are at in Volume 3 quite nicely. In this installment Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is still not coping with the loss of his timeline's Gamora (Zoe Saldada) when suddenly the team is attacked leaving Rocket (Bradley Cooper) in a very bad way. From then on it's a race to save Rocket as we learn quite a bit about his origin in the process. This movie is slightly darker than the first two and, if you're concerned about the animal cruelty that is causing some people to not want to see the film again, keep in mind, it's j

Movie Review: Bullet Train (2022) No Spoilers

I honestly don't understand why Bullet Train didn't do well in theaters? It's basically a live action, bonkers, cartoon but it's fun, has witty dialogue, quirky characters, and plenty of action. It's definitely underrated as something that very much reminds me of a cross between a Guy Ritchie and Edgar Wright film in terms of how it's written, filmed, and edited. The plot centers around unlucky assassin, Ladybug (Brad Pitt) who is hired to retrieve a briefcase containing a ransom from on board a Japanese Bullet Train. Unfortunately he's not the only one after the case. Confusion and mayhem ensues. The only thing that really bothered me is that the movie seems almost devoid of regular people on the train and at any of the stations. Those that are present, including the staff of the train, seem to be blissfully unaware of what is happening around them despite the interior of the train becoming increasingly more damaged and the body count climbing. The further

Can You Learn Skateboarding Basics on a Cheap Skateboard?

$20, Mambo 31" x 8", Department Store Skateboard. Over the years I've watched many high profile YouTube skateboarders repeatedly create videos where they purchase a cheap, department store skateboard, ride it like they would their regular professional skateboard, until it breaks (usually within an hour or so), and claim that as a reason for steering clear of these products. Inadvertently what they're doing is creating less demand for cheap skateboards, meaning it's less likely department stores will stock them, resulting in no easy way for first time skaters to 'test the waters' to see if skating is really for them. Even worse, parents looking to get their children into a new sport, may not even see skateboarding as an option as they browse through the department store sports section. At the time of writing, Australian department stores have shelves filled with many different brands of scooters, alongside a small shelf or two of skateboards (and

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog