“Amazon Alexa users can now choose whether human reviewers listen to recordings of their exchanges with the AI assistant,” reports VentureBeat, citing an Amazon spokesperson. To ensure people don’t listen to voice recordings collected following each exchange with Alexa, go to Settings, tap the Alexa Privacy link, then choose Manage How Your Data Improves Alexa. Users can also delete their voice…
Tag: voice
Facebook Insists No Security ‘Backdoor’ Is Planned for WhatsApp
An anonymous reader shares a report: Billions of people use the messaging tool WhatsApp, which added end-to-end encryption for every form of communication available on its platform back in 2016. This ensures that conversations between users and their contacts — whether they occur via text or voice calls — are private, inaccessible even to the company itself. But several recent posts…
Apple Stops Letting Contractors Listen To Siri Voice Recordings, Will Offer Opt-Out Later
Apple says it will temporarily suspend its practice of using human contractors to grade snippets of Siri voice recordings for accuracy. The move follows a report in The Guardian where a former worker detailed the program, claiming that contractors “regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex” as part of their job. The Verge reports: “We…
Amazon Is Going To Kill Your Dash Button
Amazon said Thursday that it will turn off the capabilities of all its Dash buttons worldwide on August 31st. “The decision follows Amazon’s move in February to stop selling new buttons,” reports CNET. “At the time, the company let folks with existing Dash buttons continue to order stuff with them, but an Amazon spokesperson said usage “has significantly slowed” since then,…
Now Calling Balls and Strikes: Robot Umpires
An anonymous reader shares a report: Baseball’s future has arrived in the Atlantic League, a collection of eight independent professional teams that span from New Britain, Conn., to Sugar Land, Texas. Last week marked the introduction of the most significant innovation: an automated strike zone, shifting responsibility for calling balls and strikes from a person to an emotionless piece of technology…
Amazon Just Brought Prime Video To VR Headsets
An anonymous reader quotes Variety:
Oculus VR headset users just got one more video service to watch in their virtual living rooms: Amazon’s Prime Video service went live on Oculus Go, Quest and Samsung Gear VR headsets with a dedicated Prime Video VR app Wednesday. In addition to access to the entire Prime Video catalog, Prime Video VR will also feature select…
Is The Internet Making Us Better Writers?
The New Yorker reviews linguist Gretchen McCulloch new book Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language For McCulloch, the primary feat of the digital writer has been to enlist typography to convey tone of voice. We’ve used technology to “restore our bodies to writing”: to infuse language with extra-textual meaning, in the same way that we might wave our hands…