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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

+software

In response to a commercial that hijacks Google Assistant [arstechnica.com] (aka the Google Home [wikipedia.org] 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 [youtube.com] 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 [soylentnews.org]

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 [fastcompany.com] with a hardware or cloud update.

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