Viability of using a Pyra as a hybrid/main computer?

[Arctic20]

The search bar, apart from finding programs and recent documents, works as a calculator (2+2=4), currency exchange value (50eur = 59.66 USD, same for GBP, CAD, JPY), etc.

If everything is minimized, i just type and it shows up, or Alt+F2 to launch it.

And those are just a few features that i don't see on other desktop operative systems.

Windows 10's "hey cortana" feature is amazing though. No typing, just natural talking. It will search the web for stuff and it's not just limited to local. You can also about calculation and exchange rates on top of the entirety of the internet at your voice. For example I was trying to find the folder for a game I was playing and I just asked cortana where the steam games file is located and got the answer.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

but Plasma 5 (aka KDE) is better for people coming from the Vista, 7 era.

I'm not sure about that, some may as well just go "thank god, finally something that actually makes sense!" when encountering XFCE. KDE is still and always was pretty overwhelming in its configurability, that's not necessarily something good. On the other hand, the Whisker menu they use for Xubuntu is pretty much how the new Windows start menu in the post-XP era should always have been like...

Windows 10's "hey cortana" feature is amazing though. No typing, just natural talking. It will search the web for stuff and it's not just limited to local. You can also about calculation and exchange rates on top of the entirety of the internet at your voice. For example I was trying to find the folder for a game I was playing and I just asked cortana where the steam games file is located and got the answer.

...and if you knew how Cortana actually knows this stuff you would go to your trash bin and throw up just right know. Everything you say is being sent to a web server for processing because it would take too much space and CPU power to do so locally - all of these "smart" voice assistants work like this. There are quite some horror stories of people who wanted to earn a quick buck and ended up as some kind of "quality assessment" guy that would process actual voice snippets from such systems... the Orwell nightmare fuel type. Always be skeptical towards things that claim to make things easier for you by looking random stuff up online.

 

[Arctic20]

...and if you knew how Cortana actually knows this stuff you would go to your trash bin and throw up just right know. Everything you say is being sent to a web server for processing because it would take too much space and CPU power to do so locally - all of these "smart" voice assistants work like this. There are quite some horror stories of people who wanted to earn a quick buck and ended up as some kind of "quality assessment" guy that would process actual voice snippets from such systems... the Orwell nightmare fuel type. Always be skeptical towards things that claim to make things easier for you by looking random stuff up online.

Fortunately I know that some guy at microsoft isn't specifically looking at me, one person out of millions of people who use win 10. I'm all for privacy but let's not make a common regularly used feature a bigger deal than it actually is. The second you log on the internet you are exposing your IP address to people who could look you up and find out where you live. That's quite a bit worse than a question like "where can I buy puppy food?" being saved to a server.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

'm all for privacy but let's not make a common regularly used feature a bigger deal than it actually is.

There's a saying among German privacy solicitors: Data that is being recorded will always be misused, it is just a matter of time. This should never be downplayed to being harmless. Without trying to bring up Godwin's Law - many bring up an historic fact: Do you know why the Nazis' Jew hunt was by far the most efficient in the Netherlands?

 

[Silent-Hunter]

mycroft.ai is local, and it can do some pretty nice stuff. Which just lends credence to the idea that Microsoft et al must be doing something sinister, why else would they send the voice to their servers and not just do the processing locally?

 

[canseco]

I'm not sure about that, some may as well just go "thank god, finally something that actually makes sense!" when encountering XFCE. KDE is still and always was pretty overwhelming in its configurability, that's not necessarily something good.

By default it's pretty simple, and preferences menu has gotten a lot better to find things with a search bar included too.
For me is an advantage to be able to configure everything, even if i end up mostly using the distro defaults.

Windows 10's "hey cortana" feature is amazing though.

There's Mycroft on Linux and it integrates very well with a Plasma widget, but i like having some privacy.

 

[Caine]

Fortunately I know that some guy at microsoft isn't specifically looking at me, one person out of millions of people who use win 10. I'm all for privacy but let's not make a common regularly used feature a bigger deal than it actually is.

The battle for privacy is not about ensuring that privacy is not violated but it is about ensuring that privacy can not be violated.

 

[Binky]

Fortunately I know that some guy at microsoft isn't specifically looking at me, one person out of millions of people who use win 10.

I'm not sure that matters. In the last decade or two, it has become possible to abuse data on a grand scale, even without human intervention.

Although most of the privacy concerns are easy to dismiss (There's little evidence of dangerous abuse of tracking data (so far)) - the benefits are weak too (Why should I talk to my computer?).

Perhaps the scariest thing is the irreversibility of data collection. Big companies will hoard all the data on me that they can.
Is that currently a serious problem? No.
Might it become a serious problem? Yes.
Do I trust Microsoft, Facebook, etc? Absolutely not!