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South Park Season Premier Sets Off Everyone's Amazon Echo
- koolba 9y agoI feel like I should get a writer credit for this episode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11724174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11724174
- psyc 9y agoI don't have a link, but an implementation of your project did make the rounds on YouTube and/or Twitch a while back.
- derekp7 9y agoThe fact that these voice response devices don't lock into a particular set of users' voices is a major problem. In fact, multiple times I've had a Google ad cause the phone it was playing on go do a web search triggered by that ad. Totally insane.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoFor Google Now that demand is reasonable but Amazon Echo is designed to be triggered by anyone in the room, not just a specific owner.
- skissane 9y agoMy wife and I read my four year old son story books at night before he goes to sleep. And multiple times while I am reading the story, Siri on my wife's iPhone has interpreted my voice as a command to do a web search for something–something totally unrelated to the story I am reading. Strangely, only my voice has ever triggered Siri in this way, when she reads the story Siri ignores her. (Not on my iPhone, first thing I did when I got it was turn Siri off.)
- jp57 9y agoThey should add a character named alexa, and have everyone address her by name and order her around.
- mkempe 9y agoDon't forget Siri. I still don't understand why these companies cannot let us choose a name for our listening devices. Computers can be named, phones too.
- c54 9y agoThe models listening for the initial hook of "okay google" or "hey cortana" etc are stored and executed locally on the device-- usually in a low power manner. This comes with a set of constraints: Certain activation phrases are more catchy than others, with hard consonant sounds and enough length for the alg to grab on to. Allowing users to pick any name opens this up to a high false positive rate, where the device would 'respond' to arbitrary inputs rather than specifically its name when called. Training models on new trigger words and then deploying them back down to the device is in its infancy, and voice detection has a long way to go (another example of this is the difficulty around responding to a specific person's voice, with its signature sounds etc). I could see this happening in the future as the tech improves.
- Taek 9y agoMy understanding is that these devices have ASICs which listen for their names, the actual pattern for the name coded into hardware, meaning that you can't easily select a new name. Voice recognition takes more CPU power than the devices have, especially if you are trying to prolong battery life, and I think the more complex commands are relayed to a server instead of parsed locally.
- makomk 9y agoLow-power DSP chip, I believe. For more complex tasks like voice recognition it generally makes sense to use something that at least resembles a general-purpose CPU.
- zaroth 9y agoI wonder if there is a low-pass filter on Alexa's microphone? Triggering your Alexa with ultrasonic commands outside of normal human hearing would be even more entertaining. Ads already embed ultrasonic chirps to some extent for tracking purposes.
- satysin 9y agoCheck out DolphinAttack Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21HjF4A3WE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21HjF4A3WE4 Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.09537.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.09537.pdf
- einrealist 9y agoMaybe that's what They tried in Cuba? ;)
- fotcorn 9y agoPeople are doing exactly this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15199233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15199233
- 5_minutes 9y agoThese creators are just great guys. Not only is this again a sign of them being on the edge of healthy creativity, but they're also the only show that just has all episodes for free to watch. There's a documentary on how they make each show "a la carte" each week, and never missed its deadline except once, but it's often been a close call of just a few minutes. Edit: "6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ-Un8JjUwo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ-Un8JjUwo
- Fej 9y agoNot free anymore. Hulu has the rights now and almost all of the episodes are locked behind their paywall.
- ethbro 9y agoI thought the only reasons they offered their content for free (ad supported) was that they were competing with a major piracy site dedicated exlusively to streaming their episodes.
- tehwebguy 9y agoEvery good show is competing with this
- leephillips 9y agoI read years ago that they explained that they placed the episodes free online because they were tired of going to pirate sites to get convenient access to their own stuff.
- eighthnate 9y ago> but they're also the only show that just has all episodes for free to watch. They haven't been free for years.
- 5_minutes 9y agoI can just watch them all for free. http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s13e04-eat-pray-queef#source=6154fc40-b7a3-4387-94cc-fc42fc47376e:25eebf82-ed8e-11e0-aca6-0026b9414f30&position=4&sort=!airdate http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s13e04-eat-pray-queef#... Perhaps they're blocked in the US?
- cjlars 9y agoAudio is a terribly insecure channel to accept commands through. You presume no one else has access to the device because it is physically locked in your house, but sound travels through walls and through speakers. Heck, you can even make a window pane into a speaker with some simple gear. It's no big deal when the worst case scenario is being served up a search result you don't need or listening to a song you didn't request, but you definitely wouldn't want to link voice recognition tech up to anything non-reversible like a stock trade or the lock on your front door.
- nomel 9y agoIn case anyone missed it, the commands don't have to be audible: From https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.09537.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1708.09537.pdf > DolphinAttack ... modulates voice commands on ultrasonic carriers ... to achieve inaudibility. By leveraging the nonlinearity of the microphone circuits the modulated ... commands can be successfully demodulated
- Sargos 9y agoYou can already order products on Alexa/Home. Home knows voices of specific users so it can accept or deny commands based on who is saying the words.
- krapp 9y ago
- s73ver_ 9y agoDidn't Google have this issue with a Burger King commercial? Shouldn't Amazon have learned from that, and tried to cut this kind of thing off?
- mgiannopoulos 9y agoTim Cook's voice (or someone else from the presentation) enabled Siri on my phone during the iPhone X event (watching over YouTube). I thought it was supposed to be locked to my own voice though?
- brianwawok 9y agoApparently you have the same voice as tim cook to a robot?
- microcolonel 9y agoCountdown to Stone and Park enduring a lawsuit under the CFAA.
- Steko 9y agoThe underlying problem is not being able to rename assistants.
- eric_h 9y agoIndeed - but it's a much more difficult problem than it seems at first glance (unless you're okay with an always on, always streaming to the cloud microphone).
- Steko 9y agoShould be done locally anyway, assistant should have some functionality (alarm, timer, calendar, etc.) when you're completely offline. Other comments indicate the assistant names are hard coded in ASICs but they certainly don't have to be.
- DonHopkins 9y agoI sure wish I was one of the lucky bastards who was selling Gomphocarpus Physocarpus on Amazon. They really hit the jackpot! https://www.amazon.com/GOMPHOCARPUS-PHYSPCARPUS-PLANT-HAIRY-ANNUAL/dp/B01HDSSNGO https://www.amazon.com/GOMPHOCARPUS-PHYSPCARPUS-PLANT-HAIRY-...