Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by sundvor » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:30 PM UTC

bherms wrote: post #114

evan_ wrote: post #55

I guess this ruins my get-rich-quick scheme: 1. Publish an album with 1000 short, quiet tracks and a very unique name to all of the online streaming services 2. Buy ads on late-night television with a very clear voice that says "OK Google, play album . Alexa, play album . Hey Siri, play album ." 3. Rack up the fraction-of-a-penny residuals as my songs play to people who've fallen asleep with the television on!

A (very awesome) band called Vulfpeck actually ran an experiment where they released an album called "Sleepify" that contained then 30 second silent tracks and asked all of their supporters to stream the album on repeat nightly. Their idea was to do this long enough to be able to fund a free tour. If I remember correctly, they ended up netting like $35,000 or something from this before Spotify removed the album.

Now imagine if they'd just put a tiny bit of soft white noise-ish ambience on low volume, and they might have had have a real, persistent hit on their hands.

(I have started using an air purifier next to the bed to mask noise in the house and it really helps my sleep).

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

#132

Post by khedoros1 » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:38 PM UTC

Mithaldu wrote: post #106

This is not just annoying, it is outright dangerous. If any of the viewers are doing anything important on their phones, the task switch interruption might have real effects on them, or cause them to lose data.

I feel sorry for people who buy always-listening devices that follow instructions without any form of authentication, too. They have absolutely zero blame or responsibility for anything that happens to them as a result of their choices, as combined with the amusing, non-malicious choices of another entity.

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

#133

Post by smhenderson » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:38 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #73

smhenderson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? Or are you just implying that they will quickly? I don't doubt you mind you, just genuinely curious what Google has to say about this. A quick search just turned up similar articles to the post with a statement that Google had nothing to do with ad and declined to comment.

It recognizes the ad now and doesn't respond to it. http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15277278/google-home-burge...

Thanks.

Wow, just under three hours. Wonder how that ranks among the shortest ad campaigns ever?

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

#134

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:38 PM UTC

LeoPanthera wrote: post #73

smhenderson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? Or are you just implying that they will quickly? I don't doubt you mind you, just genuinely curious what Google has to say about this. A quick search just turned up similar articles to the post with a statement that Google had nothing to do with ad and declined to comment.

It recognizes the ad now and doesn't respond to it. http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15277278/google-home-burge...

[deleted]

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

#135

Post by unethical_ban » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:41 PM UTC

victorhooi wrote: post #112

unethical_ban wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're no fun at parties then. You should be upset that someone querying those things can feasibly scare you about triggering some kind of investigation.

Sorry, being childish/petty != being fun. I get some people have their pet causes/conspiracy theories - but is doing this at your friend's place really the place to be getting on your soapbox? If you want to make a change - go run for office, or campaign for something. Don't just be a armchair jerk. I know plenty of people like this that have their pet causes (usually government surveillance, or the industrial-corpor…

I agree with everything you say! Except that making a joke at Alexa's expense is childish and immature.

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

#136

Post by awirth » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:42 PM UTC

Millennium wrote: post #4

To be perfectly honest, pointing people's smart home devices at a page that anyone can edit with a few mouseclicks does not strike me as a very smart PR move. This will not end well.

Yep, seems like this was a problem. It's semi-protected now, but not after a bit of a back and forth vandalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Whopper&offset=20...

Note that the edit in question stood (with a small edit to s/mayo/mayonnaise/ and remove some WP:PEACOCK language) for about a week.

There's also some interesting discussion on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Whopper

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

#137

Post by ChuckMcM » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:44 PM UTC

I was remarking at lunch today that for so long the goal of speech recognition was 'speaker independent' recognition and now that is a handicap.

Early speech input systems required an individual to read several pre-defined words, usually several times, in order to train the algorithm to understand their speech. And then the next person to use the system would have to do the same. This was considered a 'negative' because everyone wanted systems that anyone could use.

Now however, there is a tremendous need for your phone, or tablet, or commercial listening device, to be able to distinguish between who is talking so that different policies can be established based on the speaker. That will be the next killer feature in the voice wars I'm guessing.

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

#138

Post by ino » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:45 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #48

FFS... this is one of the rare occasions I'm almost ashamed to be a technologist. Creating cool new technology, only for it to lead to this kind of bullshit, is kind of disgusting. :-( Seriously, who the hell thought this was a good idea?

> Seriously, who the hell thought this was a good idea?

Voluntarily putting an always listening, internet connected device in your house, uploading data to the biggest advertising or commerce corporation, possibly man-in-the-middled by NSA?

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

#139

Post by khedoros1 » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:48 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #98

kalefranz wrote: post #95

This will probably only work once. Good for Burger King for thinking of it first, and getting all of the extra free publicity for it. Now any future stunts by other companies will just piss people off without the novelty upside.

It's not like I've eaten at BK in last 40 years. But this is the kind of thing that pushes a company into my "never do business with them ever" category. Currently only Comcast and AT&T have that distinction.

I think it's clever and kind of cute. Well, maybe not so clever. There's a speech recognition "format c colon return" anecdote that apparently dates to 1994, at a meeting of the Sacramento PC User's Group, and repeated in various forms many times since then.

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

#140

Post by R_haterade » Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 11:54 PM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #55

I guess this ruins my get-rich-quick scheme: 1. Publish an album with 1000 short, quiet tracks and a very unique name to all of the online streaming services 2. Buy ads on late-night television with a very clear voice that says "OK Google, play album . Alexa, play album . Hey Siri, play album ." 3. Rack up the fraction-of-a-penny residuals as my songs play to people who've fallen asleep with the television on!

Sleepify goes involuntary. I like it.