Would You Put an Amazon Camera in Your Bedroom?

Introducing the new Echo Look
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 26, 2017 5:48 PM CDT
Would You Put an Amazon Camera in Your Bedroom?
Amazon's new Echo Look takes photos and videos of you and rates the success of your outfits, fashion-wise.   (Screenshot)

Amazon wants you to install a WiFi-connected camera in your bedroom, bathroom, or wherever you regularly get dressed. You read that correctly. CNBC reports the idea of the newly announced Echo Look was so weird the site originally thought it was a joke. Amazon is billing the Echo Look as the "style assistant" to the original Echo's virtual assistant, according to the Verge. Basically the Echo Look lets you take top-to-bottom photos and videos of yourself in various outfits, store them in a "personal lookbook," and send them to friends to get fashion advice, Motherboard reports. It will also rate how you look in various outfits using "machine learning algorithms with advice from fashion specialists."

But the Echo Look, which will cost $200 when it's released, raises some questions. CNN wonders who Amazon's "fashion specialists" are and how artificial intelligence can judge individual fashion tastes. And Amazon says all photos and videos of users will be stored indefinitely—unless the user specifically deletes them. It hasn't said if it will sell those images and videos to third parties. Amazon may also use your photos to recommend clothing based on your outfits. And Motherboard points out the obvious fact it's a potentially hack-able Amazon camera in your bedroom or bathroom. The Verge adds it's "probably best not to get dressed in front of it." (Meanwhile, Elon Musk wants to link brains to computers in four years.)

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