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Nice writeup. iOS Shortcuts can read NFC tags and open links or speak descriptions. One tap, no app, responds within a few seconds.


Thanks! I'm not an iOS user, but I'll look into it.


awesome-vendor-repairability index?


https://github.com/Wenzel/pyvmidbg

  LibVMI-based debug server, implemented in Python. Building a guest aware, stealth and agentless full-system debugger.. GDB stub allows you to debug a remote process running in a VM with your favorite GDB frontend. By leveraging virtual machine introspection, the stub remains stealth and requires no modification of the guest.
more: https://github.com/topics/virtual-machine-introspection


thanks, the kvm-vmi is basically an expansive version of what I was imagining (maybe read about it before, as noted, I thought it existed).


Would you recommend ZFS as a building block for modern "VLFS"?

https://blog.chlc.cc/p/docker-and-zfs-a-tough-pair/


HP business PCs ship with SureClick based on OSS uXen, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41071884


Thank you for sharing, didn't know that one!


It's from the original Xen team. Subsequently cloned by MS as MDAG (Defender Application Guard).


Cool! I know MDAG and actually it's a pretty neat concept, kinda.


A modern virtualization architecture can be found in the OSS pKVM L0 nested hypervisor for Android Virtualization Framework, which has some architectural overlap with HP/Bromium AX L0 + [Hyper-V | KVM | Xen] L1 + uXen L2 micro-VMs with copy-on-write memory.

A Bromium demo circa 2014 was a web browser where every tab was an isolated VM, and every HTTP request was an isolated VM. Hundreds of VMs could be launched in a couple of hundred milliseconds. Firecracker has some overlap.

> Lastly, this approach is almost certainly more expensive. Our instances sit idle for the most part and we pay EC2 a pretty penny for the privilege.

With many near-idle server VMs running identical code for each customer, there may be an opportunity to use copy-on-memory-write VMs with fast restore of unique memory state, using the techniques employed in live migration.

Xen/uXen/AX: https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2018/speaker/pratt/

pKVM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9npebeVFbFw



If it's not doing what you want, you can remap any arbitrary voice command to a precise Volume setting in 1% increments, via a custom Routine.


Which is fine (although these routines are very slow, which makes it awkward to use for volume adjustments), but why make things so complicated when the possibility to adjust the volume in 1% steps via the app and 3% via buttons exist?


Misguided "simplicity" is the bane of modern UX.


Practical Alexa use cases for elderly:

  1. Schedule/ask cooker to start, then stop after fixed time.
  2. Blind person can control microwave with voice.
  3. Blind person navigation via prompts from multiple Echo devices.
  4. Blind person notification when doors opened or motion detected.
  5. Blind person item locator, via Tile + Alexa.
  6. On-demand instructions for caregivers.
  7. On-demand physiotherapy exercise instructions.
  8. On-demand streaming radio and podcasts.
  9. TV voice control via Logitech Harmony or Android Fire TV.
  10. Call PSTN phones via VOIP (10 number limit).
  11. Zigbee devices with USA-based cloud security (Echo4 is a hub)
  12. Arm/disarm Blink cameras.
  13. AC/heat control via temperature sensor in Echo devices. 
  14. Announce notifications from Google Calendar.
If Amazon would open up their devices and/or APIs, much much more is possible. There are some workarounds via HomeAssistant.


> The report also highlighted the dire need for this [AI] version of Alexa to make money to keep the voice assistant alive.

The early iPhone left doors open for experiments that could later be supported and productized. Alexa failed to open up devices for experiments that could seed innovation. Look at the failure of the official "Skills" program, compared to the thriving HomeAssistant ecosystem that is an obvious match for smart speakers.

If the device fails, 500K devices should be unlocked for use with generic Linux, instead of being relegated to landfill.


I think Amazon actually sold 500 million Alexa devices, not 500 hundred thousand.


It was the second sentence in the article: "Amazon claims it has sold more than 500,000". 500m units in 4 years would have been an unqualified success. I don't even think the iPhone sold 500m in its first 4 years.


The article appears to be simply wrong.

In May of 2023, Amazon reported that over 500,000,000 Alexa-enabled devices had been sold: https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/5/amazon-introduces-four-...

Now, of course: "Alexa Enabled" includes many things other than Amazon's own line of Echo smart speakers.

But at least one source suggests that Echo devices sold 0.88mm units the first year alone (2014), with tens-of-millions sold each year in more recent times: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/amazon-statistics/#Amazo...


The very next in doorstopping brick technology


Alexa gone Lisa ...


Blink cameras have amazing battery life due to proprietary silicon, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40065319

> These would be tough as they are based on a proprietary ASIC which is poorly documented even for internal developers. Ask me how I know.

Teardown thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33683122


Yikes, that ASIC is so advanced that any product built around it will in some ways be designed for the landfill far more so than an equivalent that was generic.


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