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Amazon Primed: Ring Ineffective, Alexa Winning, IP Infringement...Win?

This article is more than 4 years old.

Alexa is slaying the competition according to a new eMarketer report. As more and more speakers are sold, there comes a tipping point and that is about to happen as smartphone users really start to rely on Siri, Alexa and others. Until then we have speakers to help us whether we in the car, at home or on our wrists. One area to watch - languages. Alexa is weaker in this area than competitors per eMarketer. Non-English Amazon’s products don’t support as many non-English languages as their competitors, the report finds.Over time, we’ll see slowing growth in the number of smart speakers as people turn to voice assistants built into other things within homes, vehicles and on-the-go,

Amazon per eMarketer.

Amazon, which already holds a dominant position in the US smart speaker market, will continue to maintain this leadership through 2021, with approximately 70% of total US smart speaker users expected to use an Amazon Echo device, according to our latest estimates. This year, 69.7% of US smart speaker users will use an Echo, down slightly from 72.9% last year. By comparison, 31.7% of smart speaker users will turn to Google-branded devices, and 18.4% will use other smart speaker brands, including the Apple HomePod, Harmon Kardon Invoke and Sonos One. These percentages add up to more than 100% because some smart speaker users use more than one brand of speaker.

eMarketer

IP Infringement is a huge issue for Amazon and one the company needs to get a handle on before consumer trust scores dip and those with the power to fine Amazon get really annoyed. Tamebay has details on what Amazon is doing in this area to help all parties. Titled ‘Amazon Utility Patent Neutral Evaluation Procedure’, Amazon is hoping to stop multiple malicious and frivolous IP complaints. The system isn’t half bad and doesn’t stop future legal action.

Now, Amazon.com have been trialling a new Amazon Utility Patent Neutral Evaluation Procedure. It gives the option for the merchant who wants to defend themselves to stump up $4,000, the US patent owner does the same, and Amazon pass the case to a neutral evaluator who will look at the merits of the claim and the defence and rule if the case went to court if the complaint would be upheld. If they rule for the seller they get their $4,000 back and their listings remain live on Amazon. If they rule for the Patent owner they get their $4,000 back and the listings are taken down by Amazon. The evaluator gets paid $4,000 by the loser and there is no no process for appeal or reconsideration of the decision. This could be a viable way to put a stop to frivolous or malicious IP complaints as under the neutral evaluation procedure, if either party declines to deposit $4,000 to participate then the other automatically wins. If you’ve filed a dodgy IP infringement notice and you’re not willing to stump up $4,000 because you know it’s a malicious complaint that you’ll lose that resolves the matter for good as far as Amazon are concerned.

Tamebay

CNBC has a killer piece about Ring and how - according to +40 police department interviews - the technology isn’t having much impact. In fact, the technology is costing police time as it searches through racoon trash thefts and minor neighbour wars. “We don’t have any research data showing that Ring has a correlation to a reduction,” Jodee Reyes, a spokeswoman for the Carlsbad Police Department, told CNBC. Ouch. As Ring just announced a slew of new products at CES this year, time will tell if paranoia - or utility - will win out.

Thirteen of the 40 jurisdictions reached, including Winter Park, said they had made zero arrests as a result of Ring footage. Thirteen were able to confirm arrests made after reviewing Ring footage, while two offered estimates. The rest, including large cities like Phoenix, Miami, and Kansas City, Missouri, said that they don’t know how many arrests had been made as a result of their relationship with Ring — and therefore could not evaluate its effectiveness — even though they had been working with the company for well over a year. Ring’s rise also comes at a time when reports of property crimes, including package theft and burglaries, are already in steep decline across the United States.

CNBC

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