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Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

nytimes.com

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Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#121

Post by hughw »

StringyBob wrote: post #33

Do these people have no idea how much they are annoying their own customers? I just bought a google home (it's only just been released here), and if it either plays me adverts, or other adverts (ab)use it - I will return it to the store without hesitation. This was not sold as an ad-supported service. To take an extreme position - Google should take Burger King to court via the computer fraud and abuse act - they've…

> Google should take Burger King to court via the computer fraud and abuse act

It certainly is unauthorized use of a computer... not a stretch at all.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#122

Post by lancefisher »

alphapapa wrote: post #75
lancefisher wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.

Never reason based on meaningless aphorisms. This particular one leaves you completely vulnerable to trivial deception. Want to get away with something evil? Just pretend to be dumb, make it look like you don't know what you're doing, then people on the Internet will defend you as "merely incompetent, not evil." Besides, did you even read the article? Burger King is doing this on purpose! Says so in the first paragra…

>Asked whether he was concerned that consumers might find the spot invasive, he said, “We think about our guests’ perception and their perspective on how we interact with them, but on balance we felt this was a really positive way to connect with them.”

This paints their president as clueless about positive ways to connect with customer. FWIW, I don't think the president should be evil or incompetent.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#123

Post by ashark »

jlarocco wrote: post #77
tokenizerrr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freely available speech to text is garbage compared to what the big players are doing. Additionally their activation words usually trigger a special microcontroller extensively trained to listen for such a phrase, and then the more expensive processing kicks in.

And it will stay that way without more people working on the freely available stuff...

The free spy-economy option weakens or kills privacy-respecting community and commercial options yet again. This won't stop until this crap is illegal.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#124

Post by cestith »

oh_sigh wrote: post #17
derekp7 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's needed is an array of microphones on these devices, so they can reject anything (using triangulation) coming from the TV.

Or from any human standing in front of the TV. A better system would be for advertisers or shows to embed an ultrasonic signal in their shows which say the magic words, which google home/alexa watch out for. Of course, that would only prevent unintentional triggerings, so it wouldn't help in the circumstance where the tv show/advertiser actively wants to annoy you.

Then you're depending on the cheap 2w speaker built into the TV to reliably and accurately produce a 20 KHz signal.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#125

Post by cestith »

jlgaddis wrote: post #108
breakingcups wrote: post #16

Isn't this technically an unauthorized use of my device?

I don't necessarily agree with this argument but... it seems that by intentionally purchasing and installing in your home a device explicitly designed to respond upon hearing the phrase "OK, Google, ..." one could argue that you have authorized it to do exactly that. Perhaps you didn't intend or expect it to be co-opted by a Burger King commercial, but "unauthorized use" (in the legal sense) might be a bit of a stret…

I buy lots of gadgets that take input. That doesn't mean any time someone else is in the same room they have the legal right to activate them and tell them what to do. Audio, mouse, keyboard, touchscreen, digitizer, light pen, or SSH session makes no difference.

Aaron Swartz certainly didn't break into anything. He just used a system he had authentication to in an unauthorized manner.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#126

Post by jerf »

problems wrote: post #80
crowbahr wrote: post #11

Just another reason not to watch cable I guess. I can't believe that those ad execs really believe that people want intrusions like that. That they'd want the TV to hack their Home into advertising to them. That's just bullshit. Google should change the autoresponse for burger king. "Hey Google what is a whopper?" "A whopper is a tall tale which clever executives want to sell you but really tastes of cardboard"

Honestly, I'm glad they did it - it proves the risk these types of devices pose. Better people stop using it over shit like this than worse...

How insecure is the Internet of Things?

Burger King's ad executives can hack it. Non-interactively.

I mean, does that not say it all in a nutshell or what?

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#127

Post by khedoros1 »

eric_h wrote: post #92
cr0sh wrote: post #57

There's a way to prevent this, but I doubt any of the major players will do it: Allow the owners of the device choose their own "activation words". Leave the default "branded" activation sentence as-is, but allow the user to customize it as they see fit. This won't happen, of course, because of the whole "branding" thing (like the user is going to forget which service they are using?). This just hammers another nail…

I really just want to be able to activate my devices' voice control by saying "Computer". Siri/Alexa/Google just don't have the same Star Trek ring to them ;)

Alexa's activation words: Alexa, Amazon, Echo, Computer. The last was added a couple months ago, I think.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#128

Post by khedoros1 »

maaaats wrote: post #66
cr0sh wrote: post #57

There's a way to prevent this, but I doubt any of the major players will do it: Allow the owners of the device choose their own "activation words". Leave the default "branded" activation sentence as-is, but allow the user to customize it as they see fit. This won't happen, of course, because of the whole "branding" thing (like the user is going to forget which service they are using?). This just hammers another nail…

Or just activate it from known/trained voices?

I think that recognizing the speaker is a separate, but also difficult, task from recognizing the content of speech.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#129

Post by pauloday »

eric_h wrote: post #92
cr0sh wrote: post #57

There's a way to prevent this, but I doubt any of the major players will do it: Allow the owners of the device choose their own "activation words". Leave the default "branded" activation sentence as-is, but allow the user to customize it as they see fit. This won't happen, of course, because of the whole "branding" thing (like the user is going to forget which service they are using?). This just hammers another nail…

I really just want to be able to activate my devices' voice control by saying "Computer". Siri/Alexa/Google just don't have the same Star Trek ring to them ;)

Pretty sure you can do that with Alexa. There's one in my office, and my co-workers use "computer" as the wake up phrase.

Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer

#130

Post by pbhjpbhj »

obstinate wrote: post #49
gooseus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is something that I would have assumed would have been brought up in that conference room where this idea was initially pitched... isn't it somebody's job at most companies to ask the "Are we sure this isn't illegal?" question when someone suggests some bullshit that nobody has ever tried before?

Perhaps it was. Some person on HN said something might be illegal. That does not mean the company's legal team came to the same conclusion.

Also the legal team would have probably put a price on it. The C-graders can then know they'll make enough to still pay themselves big bonuses, through the publicity of the court case, etc., and conclude that the personal risk to them is non-existent [go U-S-A!] and so it's worth doing any way.
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