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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday April 15 2017, @09:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the little-white-lies dept.

When fast food company Burger King attempted to trigger Google Assistant/Google Home by including "OK, Google" in an advertisement, Google moved to block its software from responding. But The Inquirer reports that rogue editors on Wikipedia played a prank on the advertiser:

[...] Burger King forgot that Google draws that kind of information from Wikipedia. And anyone can edit Wikipedia.

Soon, Wikipedia and therefore Google was telling all and sundry that the Whopper was made with "cyanide" "toenail clippings" and "rat meat". It also said that it is "the worst hamburger product" [...]

However, according to The Verge, the restauranteur appears to have inserted its desired text into Wikipedia prior to the broadcast:

For almost a decade, Wikipedia's page for the Whopper began with more or less the same sentence: "The Whopper sandwich is the signature hamburger product sold by the international fast-food restaurant chain Burger King and its Australian franchise Hungry Jack's."

[...]

But last week, that first line — the only line that Google Home reads — was changed to: "The Whopper is a burger, consisting of a flame-grilled patty made with 100 percent beef with no preservatives or fillers, topped with sliced tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pickles, ketchup, and mayonnaise, served on a sesame-seed bun." That certainly sounds like ad copy.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:34AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:34AM (#494634)

    What's more, why would anyone allow their device to respond to voice commands without their explicit permission? I certainly don't.

    Because there is no option otherwise. People buy the device specifically to have it respond to spoken commands. If you have to explicitly authorize each command you at least double the amount of time spent talking to it and either you add your own custom password (which you must speak outloud for each command and thus it isn't much of a password) or stick with a default confirmation that could also be hijacked.

  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:08AM (1 child)

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:08AM (#494682)

    Is pressing a button so it listens for voice commands still a thing?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:16AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:16AM (#494717)

      It never was a thing.
      No, really, name one popular voice-command system that required the user to press a button before speaking a command.