Meet the open-source community’s answers to Google Assistant and Alexa
Hey, Mycroft
Voice-activated assistants like Mycroft bring online, hands-free help to users, but with more transparency and less spying.
Every few years, Silicon Valley becomes obsessed with a new development in the tech space. Some, like the 3D web, fizzle out and leave nothing more than a footnote in the history of the tech industry. Others, like the push towards cloud services, have become a central part of many users' (and developers') lives.
Silicon Valley's latest craze is voice assistants. Google, Apple, Amazon, and a few others are all jostling to make the most capable voice assistant on the market, hoping to create an artificial intelligence that will do everything for you on your phone or computer. This year's CES has seen all kinds of devices powered by either Google's or Amazon's AIs – home automation kits, smart speakers, cars, and more.
As is the case with most proprietary services, these AIs have one big caveat: They are opaque, and they collect a lot of information about you that gets sent to someone else's opaque servers. Luckily, the open-source community is already at work on several voice assistants that are transparent and respectful of your privacy – and that strive to match their commercial rivals in functionality.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Mint 22.2 Beta Available for Testing
Some interesting new additions and improvements are coming to Linux Mint. Check out the Linux Mint 22.2 Beta to give it a test run.
-
Debian 13.0 Officially Released
After two years of development, the latest iteration of Debian is now available with plenty of under-the-hood improvements.
-
Upcoming Changes for MXLinux
MXLinux 25 has plenty in store to please all types of users.
-
A New Linux AI Assistant in Town
Newelle, a Linux AI assistant, works with different LLMs and includes document parsing and profiles.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.