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BBC to launch digital voice assistant
The BBC is planning to launch a digital voice assistant next year, the corporation has announced. It will not be a hardware device in its own right but is being designed to work on all smart speakers, TVs and mobiles.
The plan is to activate it with the wake-word Beeb, although this is "a working title", a spokesman said. BBC staff around the UK are being invited to record their voices to help train the programme to recognise different accents.
[...] [The BBC] said that that having its own assistant would enable it to "experiment with new programmes, features and experiences without someone else's permission to build it in a certain way". "Much like we did with BBC iPlayer, we want to make sure everyone can benefit from this new technology, and bring people exciting new content, programmes and services - in a trusted, easy-to-use way," said a spokesman. "This marks another step in ensuring public service values can be protected in a voice-enabled future."
Do Brits understand Brits?
Also at TechCrunch, The Verge, 9to5Google, Engadget.
(Score: 2) by jb on Wednesday August 28 2019, @12:34PM
I'm generally against any type of spying device...
...but it occurs to me that it might be quite fun to buy four of these, one each with Welsh, Scots, Irish & Yorkshire accents, then set one up in each corner of the garage and try to get them to argue amongst themselves.
Worst case it should at least help to pollute the spy database; best case it might produce comedy gold!