This is a pretty cool experiment. As someone that recently worked on an app that was doing speech to text in near and far field, calling this a $10 echo is like calling a Honda Civic a $15K Ferrari. I'd love to see the video of the author speaking to this microphone from 10' away, or even 5' away in a room with no padding.
The Echo's ability to do voice to text is like nothing that's ever come before it based on my experience building, and speaking with a consultant in the field that worked on the Echo team.
I totally agree, hence my comments about artistic license in the title!
One of the issues right now is that people kinda assume that Echo and Alexa are the same thing hopefully as more 3rd party devices come to market using Alexa the difference will emerge. I'm thinking of doing a follow on post explaining the differences.
Also there's not really a generic name for the type of appliance that the Echo is like smartphone, tablet, browser etc. I wonder if echo will become like hoover in years to come?
The Echo's ability to do voice to text is like nothing that's ever come before it based on my experience building, and speaking with a consultant in the field that worked on the Echo team.