Was I hallucinating? Totally OT, perhaps relevant

[Kay C Lan]

On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 6:23 AM, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode
<use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>
> But there's no question that all voice-activated systems (Apple's Siri,
> Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Corana, Google's voice navigation) must listen
> at all times in order to be able to know when you call them by name.
>
What a timely thread. Wednesday I watched a TV show that was talking
about Siri, Alexa, Assistant and Corana. What I found most interesting
was that from this 'expert panel' they all agreed that Amazon was
years ahead of the game and that this wasn't so much a technology race
but an advertising trend, demographic, revenue game where Amazon had
the experience and data that covered all demographics and all
interests. I remember reading about how KMart in one of their early
studies into buyer habits and predicting future purchases got into
trouble from one angry parent because KMart had sent a flyer focused
on pre/early maternity to their 15y/o daughter. A couple of weeks
later the parent had to come in and apologise to the store manager as
it turned out his daughter was in fact pregnant. Everything we
search/buy/discuss/bookmark/hyperlink to is being monitored and this
is then used to determine what ads get peppered around our screens.
Amazon is currently King; not just at accurately predicting, but
actually turning those ads into actual purchases.

But the reason I find this thread so timely is that on Tuesday I went
for a road trip with my brother, 4 hrs out to a business meeting and 4
hrs back. One of the conversation included the fact that I'd recently
sleep in the back of my station wagon (estate car). I'd simply placed
a mattress in there, there was plenty of room and slept very nicely.

I typically use Firefox with the NoScripts extension; no cookies, no
javascript - so no ads, no distractions. Unfortunately every now an
then I come across a site that won't work enough for me to get what I
need so I typically just crank up Safari and copy the URL across. On
Wednesday I had to do that, and there up popped all those ads; USB
microscopes, robotic arms, Arduino boards, Pi's etc - unsurprisingly
based on my recent purchase of a USB Endoscope. What was surprising
was there in amongst them was ad for a wall to wall mattress with
cushioned side wings specifically to fit in the back of a station
wagon!

Now the USB Endoscope I researched and bought online so I know full
well I left a truckload of data points in my wake that the marketing
algorithms could quickly determine what other areas I might be
persuaded to make purchases. But the wagon mattress? I simply dragged
it out of the loft, threw into the back of the car, slept on it, and
put it back when I got back home. I had a 2 minute conversation about
it with my brother whilst hurtling down the road at well 'under' the
speed limit. The other 7hrs 58min was spent talking about a wide
variety of topics; politics and a current News item probably taking up
most of the time. I have an iPhone with Siri usually turned Off, but
after I recently upgraded to iOS11 I hadn't picked up that Siri had
been turned On - it's now back Off.

I'd like to think it was coincidence... but how many of you have EVER
seen an online advert for a mattress specifically for station wagons?

If the technology is there, I wouldn't put it past these revenue
hungry behemoths to softly play the well known jingle of your
favourite fast food outlet exactly 10min prior to the time you'd need
to order so that it arrives right on dinner time! If you happen to
have a Huawei phone, and so impractical for the local Dai pai dong to
deliver to your door, the next revenue stream is 'Alibaba' ;-)

Whilst I do not consider there is any conspiracy here, and this stuff
does not bother me and if fact can be quite helpful occasionally, I
will continue to leave Siri Off and run NoScripts with Firefox.