Amazon Launches Surveillance System, Calls it “A Hands-Free Camera and Style Assistant”
April 27th, 2017
Hey all you dumbshits who expose SMB to the Internet on unpatched Windows boxes: Your new, “hands-free camera and style assistant” is here. *wink* *wink*
Via: The Verge:
Amazon today announced a new device for the Echo family: the Echo Look, a “style assistant” camera that helps catalog your outfits and rates your look based on “machine learning algorithms with advice from fashion specialists.” Imagine it as a smart mirror of sorts — you can talk to the Echo Look to take full-length photos or short videos to check out your outfit from seldom-seen angles.
The Echo Look first leaked as a “security camera” back in March, and the photo matches exactly with what Amazon has announced today. The device comes with a built-in LED light, a microphone, and a base mount for you to attach it to the wall or leave it freestanding. It will also work with a companion app that has a Style Check feature to compare two outfits and rate which is better. As an aside, the Amazon iOS app offers a similar feature under the Programs and Features menu, if you don’t want to buy the Echo Look. The Echo version of the feature gives you a percentage rating of outfits based on a mix of algorithm and stylist opinions, while Outfit Compare on the Amazon app picks which outfit of the two it likes better.
Like the original Echo speaker, you can ask Alexa on the Echo Look to read you news, play music, or get traffic estimates. Amazon says it will continue to add Alexa skills for the Echo Look as well.
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And while it’s not designed to be a security camera, it does seem like it has enough components to double as one that could periodically snap photos while you’re away from home. We’ll check out the hardware on this more when we are able to snag a review unit. For now, if you do decide to buy it, it’s probably best to not get dressed in front of it.
