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Have you ever wondered how often your smart speaker accidentally activates itself? A study from Northeastern University tried to find out.No one likes it when a stranger butts into their conversation.Especially when they interrupt with some astonishing non-sequitur.You're watching TV and chatting about the painfully demanding couple on House Hunters International when a distant voice pipes up: "The circumference of the Earth is 24,901 miles."MORE AT LINK It's Apple's Siri, of course. Or Amazon's Alexa. Or whatever you call your Google Home person.I suspect you pass off these apparent accidents as merely one of those things. Yet, as a new...

Microphones and cameras lurk everywhere. You may want to slip on some privacy armor.Last year, Ben Zhao decided to buy an Alexa-enabled Echo speaker for his Chicago home. Mr. Zhao just wanted a digital assistant to play music, but his wife, Heather Zheng, was not enthused. “She freaked out,” he said. Ms. Zheng characterized her reaction differently. First she objected to having the device in their house, she said. Then, when Mr. Zhao put the Echo in a work space they shared, she made her position perfectly clear:“I said, ‘I don’t want that in the office. Please unplug it. I...

If you're looking forward to watching President Trump's upcoming State of the Union address but don't know when it is, do not ask any Amazon Alexa devices. On Friday evening I experimented with an Amazon Echo (a second generation Echo Dot) in my house by asking it what I thought was a rather simple question. "Alexa, when is the next State of the Union?" I asked. "The next State of the Union will occur on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 9 p.m." Sorry, Alexa, but that is the wrong answer. The next State of the Union is actually on Tuesday,...

Introducing #Aisha (aka "Halalexa"), thew new #Sharia-compliant, fully Halal edition of Alexa! The ONLY version of the #Amazon Echo Muhammad would approve of! Just in time for Christmas (which is forbidden, BTW). RUN TIME: APPROX. 6 MIN. ***PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS NOT A REAL PRODUCT AND THIS VIDEO IS A SATIRICAL COMMERCIAL, FOR PARODY PURPOSES ONLY!

Those laser pointer lights could hack into your smart home voice assistant. University researchers say they were able to hack Alexa, Google Home, Siri and Facebook Portal by shining lasers at them. The light can trick microphones and make the devices react as if they are receiving audio. The study found light commands can be sent from 360 feet away, from one building to another. The light can also penetrate glass, affecting a device that is left near a window. In one case, a garage door was opened using a laser light. Researchers also say they can use light commands...

Sylvia Galva Crespo, 32, was killed by a spear to the chest at home in Hallandale Beach, Florida, north of Miami, in July, which her husband, Adam Crespo, 43, has portrayed as a mysterious accident. But police believe the Amazon Echo smart speaker devices in the home, known as Alexa because of the common “wake” word used to activate them, may have heard and recorded something relevant during the fatal altercation when the couple argued after a night out, the Sun Sentinel reported. Adam Crespo is charged with second-degree murder. When police were called to the home in July they...

Amazon AMZN, -0.08% is building a series of new devices where we can wear Alexa in our ears, over our eyes, around our fingers, and keep her (it?) in our pocket. As a result, Alexa can be affordably plugged into every room in our home, accompany us in our vehicle, become our hi-fi sound system, keep order to our daily meal planning and simplify Wi-Fi around the house. With this expanded offering, we are going to see Alexa adoption grow fast and Amazon’s consumer data grow even faster. Early in 2019, Amazon touted a vague but inspiring number of 100...

Amazon wants Alexa everywhere. The online shopping giant said Wednesday that it will soon start selling wireless earbuds, finger rings and prescription eyeglasses with its Alexa voice assistant built in. The goal: Get Alexa outside the home and wherever customers are. "You can have Alexa with you 24/7," said Werner Goertz, a personal technology analyst at Gartner.

Want a job at McDonald's? Just ask your smartphone. Starting Wednesday, McDonald's Corp. will let job seekers start an application by using voice commands with Amazon's Alexa or Google's Assistant. If users say, "Alexa, help me get a job at McDonald's," Alexa will ask which country they want to work in and play McDonald's catchy "I'm lovin' it" jingle. After that, users can share their phone number and get a link to continue the application process. Alexa also shares some facts about working for the company, such as how it can lead to jobs in other fields.

  (Mass Private I) It is hard to imagine a more intrusive home surveillance device than a faucet or toilet that listens to everyone’s conversations, but that is just what Delta Faucet and Kohler have done.Delta Faucet’s “Voice IQ” takes advantage of where lots of people like to congregate and turns it into an Alexa eavesdropping center.“Designed with the understanding that 20 percent of all WiFi-enabled homes are equipped with a connected home device, VoiceIQ Technology pairs with existing devices to dispense the exact amount of water needed, all with a simple voice command.”Delta lets Alexa decide how much water everyone...

Amazon is introducing its new "Alexa Answers" program, which will let anyone provide answers to questions Alexa can't answer. Users can sign up to answer questions and earn "points" each time Alexa shares on of their answers. Users can browse questions that Alexa doesn't have answers for to find ones that match their areas of expertise. According to Fast Company, Amazon will employ human editors as well as use algorithms to vet the user answers. Users can also up vote and down vote answers to help editors weed out erroneous answers. The system is reminiscent of Yahoo Answers or Quora,...

Amazon is still working on a robot that will roam around homes... A prototype of the robot, codenamed “Vesta,” ... is capable of moving around on its own using built-in cameras, according to the report. A similar report last April revealed that Amazon is interested in creating home robots that might be able to provide access to the company’s Amazon Alexa voice assistant no matter where you are. Amazon has continued to invest in robotics and in June introduced new warehouse robots including the Pegasus and Xanthus. Amazon typically holds big product reveal events at its Seattle headquarters in September....

A New Mexico man was taken into custody after an Amazon Echo device called the police during an alleged domestic violence incident.Police say 28-year-old Eduardo Barros got into a physical altercation with his unidentified girlfriend following an argument at a Tijeras residence just outside of Albuquerque on July 2.    Barros, who is also accused of threatening to kill the women while in possession of a firearm, allegedly asked her if she had contacted law enforcement.“Did you call the sheriffs?” Barros reportedly questioned.An Amazon virtual assistant plugged into the home’s landline interpreted the question as a command to call police, Bernalillo County...

NEW YORK — Amazon met with skepticism from some privacy advocates and members of Congress last year when it introduced its first kid-oriented voice assistant , along with brightly colored models of its Echo Dot speaker designed for children. Now those advocates say the kids’ version of Amazon’s Alexa won’t forget what children tell it, even after parents try to delete the conversations. For that and other alleged privacy flaws they found while testing the service, they’re now asking the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday to investigate whether it violates children’s privacy laws.

An Amazon user in Germany was accidentally sent 1,700 audio recordings of someone he didn’t know after he requested his own data file, exercising his rights under the EU’s GDPR. A magazine listened to the files and was able to put together a detailed picture of the other user and his personal habits. They worked out which devices he owns, which music he likes, and who his girlfriend is, and even listened to him in the shower. They tracked down the victim, who confirmed it was he and said that Amazon had not informed him about the leak.

Last week we saw bitcoin, the great hope of cryptocurrency, skyrocket to over $13,000. It was in the vicinity of $3,200 as recently as December. Why? Maybe it was Facebook’s new venture into creating its own digital currency, Libra — although, if that were to be successful, how it would offer any type of validation of bitcoin is beyond me, and a whole lot of smart people on Wall Street. In fact, it might spell the beginning of the end for bitcoin. There are almost no major Wall Street investors of substance with meaningful track records who have invested in...

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. — A Pasco County deputy was shot overnight while responding to a call in New Port Richey that turned into an intense gun fight. Pasco deputy shot in leg overnight in New Port RicheyDeputy was responding to domestic violence callDeputy is expected to recover, suspect in custody According to authorities, the deputy responded to a home in the 7300 block of Humboldt Avenue just before 12:30 a.m. when several shots were fired. The deputy was shot in the leg and the suspect barricaded himself in the home.  The suspect, identified as 62-year-old Terrance J. Peterson, remained in...

It’s worth noting that even in the Jetson’s future world of flying cars a driver was still required. That’s because the Jetsons lived in a world where technology may have advanced but the fundamental elements of human nature remained the same. Which is to say most humans like to be in control. Driving gives us that sense, we can’t control the other idiots on the road but we can control how we maneuver around their stupidity. And that may be why we may actually be closer to the flying car than the driverless car. Warning: the images in your rearview...

Would you let a stranger eavesdrop in your home and keep the recordings? For most people, the answer is, "Are you crazy?" Yet that's essentially what Amazon has been doing to millions of us with its assistant Alexa in microphone-equipped Echo speakers. And it's hardly alone: Bugging our homes is Silicon Valley's next frontier. Many smart-speaker owners don't realize it, but Amazon keeps a copy of everything Alexa records after it hears its name. Apple's Siri, and until recently Google's Assistant, by default also keep recordings to help train their artificial intelligences.

The worst fears of privacy advocates were confirmed this week after a Bloomberg report noted that Amazon employs thousands of specialists to decipher private conversations picked up on different types of Echo speakers. Of course, these devices use an automated assistant named “Alexa” to respond to requests for information, to play music, to turn off the lights and perform countless other tasks. All of this interaction with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) device is supposed to make life easier, not allow for a sophisticated spying operation.  This bombshell news should alarm every one of the millions of Echo users worldwide. In a...