91–100 of 191 posts
Edit: I'd personally rather give my assistant a name I pick, than keep saying 'OK google'.
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 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!
I wonder if it's possible to trigger one of these smart speakers from its own output. If so, the last track on your album could be the command to "play album ".
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure the sort of person who's OK with an always-listening device in their home would find this particularly invasive.
I am and I would. I don't care if a computer is passively listening for a prompt — the computer has no consciousness and it doesn't do anything I'd even notice. I do care if somebody is trying to make my device do something without my OK.
The issue is recorded conversions from your home being made available to the government: https://www.inc.com/joseph-steinberg/amazon-alexa-recordings...
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.
When 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.
You should be upset that someone querying those things can feasibly scare you about triggering some kind of investigation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think the SWAT team cares if it is the owner who is a terrorist or the owner "associate"?
Their door only gets kicked in if the intelligence analyst or counterterrorism agent reviewing the material isn't able to tell it's an obvious joke, which I find unlikely.
"Comrade Stalin, I heard you collect political jokes."
"Yes, I do, comrade."
"How many have you collected?"
"Three and a half labour camps' worth."
If you want an uninteresting life, expect that the police have no sense of humour.