Really loudspeakers?
Journalism in a new look: But why does it have to be the loudspeaker?
Next to my ear is an oversized ghetto blaster telling me a joke. It’s the Google Home Max, a bass-driven Smart Assistant. The biggest, the loudest in the series of all the assistants that unites the loudspeaker grille above all. It’s light chalk gray, computer toned, and rather clumsy compared to his Sonos speaker colleagues.
If you wouldn’t have known any better, the Google Home Max would be the last of the intelligent things in this room so inconspicuous it looks. Only when you say “Hey Google” do four colorful light points light up on the loudspeaker grille and signal the waiting for commands. The “I didn’t understand you” sounds so loud with the two double voice coil subwoofers and two custom tweeters that the table vibrates. The news jingle makes you feel like you’re in a club right in front of the system. The Google Home Max is the culmination of a development: the loudspeaker used to be the dust collector among electrical devices. It of all things is now smart?
We could have made smart tables, light vases or coffee cups. Smart assistants could have been soft and cuddly, like my pillow, they could have contained pastries or flowers. The beautiful smart wooden doll from Vai Kai has a secret compartment in the floor for the children’s treasures. The Japanese company Mui produces a smart wooden board that displays information about the Smart Home. And can be operated by touch. Even a smart back scratcher would have been nice.
But a loudspeaker that speaks is a disappointment in terms of the history of ideas. How do I explain all the beautiful things on my desk that they still have to wait with their smartness until the engineers are through with all these speaker shapes?
The ray of hope has arrived: a denim jacket. Google and Levis produce the symbol of freedom from pre-Internet times: the smart jeans jacket Commuter x Jacquard. That’s how I imagined it when I played walkie-talkie with my jacket sleeve in my youth.
Except I seem to be the only person in the world of journalism who believes so. The jacket would remind me if I forgot it. She cares about my phone. I don’t even have to communicate with her for that. It was not by chance that Google chose the name Jacquard for its technology. Jacquard is a traditional weaving technology. Connectivity is a new layer that is placed over and interwoven with a familiar object.
The jacket costs 350 US dollars. But I haven’t heard any editors say that the Newsapp will now be “Jackets friendly optimized”. What could a podcast for a denim jacket be like? How a news briefing? And how does the gesture “inform me” would look at all?
Everyone understands smart loudspeakers. Smart jackets almost nobody. To change that, I would even be willing to wear a denim jacket.
