Virtual Assistants are great, but at what cost?

Siri, Alexa, Cortana, Ok Google – they’re all very cool. They give a great experience overall, and make it easy to ask for things quickly without having to type. For instance, I occasionally start driving before remembering to start a playlist, and it’s much safer to Say ‘Hey Siri, play my Fun playlist’. She rarely fails me, and I never once had to look at the screen.

The thing about it, is these tools are always listening. That’s a bit scary considering everything you say or ask for is passed up to the private server farm of the company that owns the technology. So everything you’re saying is being passed up to their servers. Even when you’re not specifically talking to the device.

There is an open source alternative that keeps the information and control with you, however, MyCroft.