Amazon has announced the official launch of the Echo Show 5 on June 26. It is a 5.5-inch display, which takes its name from its dimensions. It features a practical front-facing camera shutter for more security, unlike previous models. Along with the product announcement, Amazon is announcing new privacy for the web and for Alexa, as part of a larger effort to address customer concerns.
Amazon, like other major American tech companies, has come under fire in the past for certain data collection practices. Its virtual assistant Alexa , in particular , has been the subject of scrutiny . Users are wondering how much of their lives Alexa is recording and where the recorded snippets of conversations go.
Amazon has also introduced the Alexa Privacy Hub , an online service for all privacy settings related to Alexa. There, anyone who wants to learn how the Echo Show 5 and Alexa work, as well as the privacy terms, will be able to do so .
A new feature for Alexa is the ability to delete voice recordings. This wasn't the case on previous Echo Shows. In the past, deleting recordings required digging into settings.
Now, a voice command will suffice, for example, telling Alexa to delete everything said now, in the last hour or day. The bad news is that by day, the settings do not mean a period of 24 hours. Recordings that have been recorded after you told Alexa to delete everything said will be preserved, unless you tell Alexa to delete everything you said again.
The truth is that, as we saw earlier, with older devices there was the option to delete recordings. It was certainly more time-consuming and perhaps not preferred by many. However, it is worth noting that that process gave the option to delete recordings from one hour, up to the entire history.
So having talked about all of this, we just have to wait for the release to determine whether the new features are actually useful.
