Great now I need an ad blocker for my google home device
What's needed is an array of microphones on these devices, so they can reject anything (using triangulation) coming from the TV.
Or just change the default wake up command.
Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
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Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#62I think this is technically a violation of the CFAA right?
Not really. A criminal offense would only apply if the smart device can be construed as a 'protected computer' involved in interstate commerce; a civil complaint is only possible if the plaintiff suffers one or more of an enumerated list of 'loss' [1], neither of which appears to be a good fit for the interaction without a serious stretch.
[1] https://ilt.eff.org/index.php/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act_(...
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#63When someone shows me their new Alexa or Google Home, I ask it to add ingredients to make thermite in to its shopping cart. Then I ask it to look up flights to Syria.
I'm sure you think you're trying to prove some point, but really you're just being a jerk. If someone I'd invited into my home did this kind of thing, they'd be un-invited pretty fast.
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#64There'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…
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.
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#65How is this not a felony under the CFAA?
I'm not really a lawyer, but you could try to figure it out by reading this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#66There'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?
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#67I guess I'm the only person who thinks this is hilarious, and not particularly worse than any other advertising.
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#68Just 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"
"I can't believe that those ad execs really believe that people want intrusions like that." They know that they don't. I am starting to believe that these companies do shitty things on purpose (Looking at that Pepsi ad with the Kardashian girl) knowing full well the amount of outrage and free publicity it will get.
Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence.
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#69Smart move. But this is something that is only cool for the first few attempts, after that it'll get really annoying really fast. Good foresight by Burger King to jump on this before anyone else. But I hope everyone stops doing this really soon too.
It's potentially a lot worse for Amazon/Google than it is for Burger King. I bet a lot of people will reconsider purchasing these devices based on just this one incident. Most people might not react as strongly but if this happened to me I'd immediately unplug the device and throw it away. Actually I might just go ahead and smash it to bits too. Just thinking about the possibility of it happening makes me quite angry.
Re: Burger King TV Ad Asks, Hoping Google Home Devices Answer
#70FYI a Burger King marketing exec modified the entry on Wikipedia to be more "Ad-like", initially using the name, "Burger King Corporation" before that was banned for having a promotional name.
Then the ad guy came back using his online screenname, and re-added the promotional introduction before it was reverted several times (along with an author from The Verge editing it, probably the edit that changed the wording to something like "[it] tastes like cyanide", but can't be too sure)
It was then astroturfed by some pro-Burger King sockpuppets (unsure of this but their changes all switch to the wording that the Burger King ad guy used), before finally being locked for disruptive editing.
Furthermore, the Wikipedia article itself now has a section about the attempted astroturfing by Burger King, and another Wikipedia user came back in and cited NPOV problems with the _original_ pre-ad wording (e.g. usage of the word "signature") so now the wording in the article is even more generic and less favorable to the Whopper than when it first started.