INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Soon, Saint Louis University students won''t be able to avoid Amazon near ubiquitous smart speakers
The university announced this week a plan to outfit living spaces with 2,300 Echo Dots
The devices are set to be deployed by the time classes start, later this month
SLU is quick to note that it ''the first college or university in the country to bring Amazon Alexa-enabled devices, managed by Alexa for
Business, into every student residence hall room and student apartment on campus.& It certainly not the first to adopt Amazon smart
speakers, but it among the largest scale for this sort of deployment
While the product has become a mainstay in plenty of American homes, it does seem like an odd choice dorms and student campus
SLU has worked with Alexa for Business to create 100 custom questions, including, &What time does the library close tonight& and &Where is
the registrar office
Then, of course, there are the privacy concerns of having little cloud connected recording devices populating the
SLU is attempting to get out in front of that here
The company addressed those issues on a privacy page, writing,
Because of our use of the Amazon Alexa for Business (A4B) platform, your
Echo Dot is managed by a central system dedicated to SLU
This system is not tied to individual accounts and does not maintain any personal information for any of our users, so all use currently is
Additionally, neither Alexa nor the Alexa for Business management system maintains recordings of any questions that are asked.
The school
notes that students can also mute the microphone
Students can''t technically opt-out, but they can unplug the product and shove it in a drawer, turning it in at the end of the year
Just don''t use it as a hockey puck, because that&ll cost you
