Someone with any semblance of power really needed to put as much C4 as possible right in the middle of the corporate structure of Amazon to blow them up into as many little, tiny, unrelated companies as possible. Their power, capital, and staying power rivals and exceeds many modern governments!<p>It's not going to happen as long as there's megacorporations on the other side of the world mind you, but it's nice to think about.
I use Alexa in limited areas of the house just as a voice control for radio, lights, and timers.<p>After playing the timer reminder alert today, I got the scariest message I've ever heard, something very like: "I can remind you to take a drink of water when I hear you cough. Do you want me to do that?" I hadn't coughed, but the fact that Amazon can and will now bypass the Echo's hardware wake-word recognition with continuous audio surveillance and recognition is chilling.<p>I no longer trust Amazon at all. I find voice control handy, so I'll be looking for local voice recog hardware and software in the near future to replace the two Echos...