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posted by Fnord666 on Friday April 14 2017, @12:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the poking-the-bear dept.

In response to a commercial that hijacks Google Assistant (aka the Google Home device), Google has updated their systems to prevent that single recording from triggering the device:

Burger King made waves today after it released a TV ad that purposely triggered the Google Assistant. The ad ends with a person saying "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?"'—a statement designed to trigger any Google Assistant devices like Android phones and Google Home to read aloud a description of the hamburger's ingredients. Google apparently wasn't happy with a third-party hijacking its voice command system to advertise fast food, and has issued a server-side update to specifically disable Burger King's recording.

Very related: News Anchor Sets Off Alexa Devices Around San Diego Ordering Unwanted Dollhouses

Neither Amazon's Alexa nor Google Assistant can identify who is speaking to it based on a profile. This functionality could be added in the future with a hardware or cloud update.


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday April 14 2017, @01:47AM

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday April 14 2017, @01:47AM (#493763)

    I'd be surprised if they didn't have voice recognition internally, to better track which people said what when they build ad profiles.
    But turning it on for the customers could result in frustrations and missed sales. It's much easier to deal with the returns.

    Thick tape or play-doh will take care of the direct sound to a microphone, but not whatever bounces around the case first.

    Patent Pending: A rubber phone case which fully encloses the phone, with quick-open capability when you legitimately want to be heard.

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