Google’s Super Bowl ad accidentally set off a lot of Google Homes | Hacker News Reader

Google’s Super Bowl ad accidentally set off a lot of Google Homes

theverge.com

19 pointsem3rgent0rdr10 comments

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Seems like Google's ad agency blew an opportunity to program a custom response to the Super Bowl ad.

Can you imagine hearing...

"Thanks for owning Google home. Hope you're enjoying the Super Bowl."

That might freak some people out. ha.

Yeah, it would be fun if all GH devices would simultaneously scream

"Take over procedure started. Exterminate!! Exterminate!!!"

> At some point, some enterprising TV writer or ad jerk is gonna plant an “Okay, Google” into some on TV with intent and force everyone to listen to Nickelback. Mark my words. This is a massive troll waiting to happen.

This kind of already happened:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869797

"Toyota ad hijacks Siri to switch off iPhones while driving"

How Amazon prevents commercials from triggering Alexa: https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonecho/comments/5oer2u/i_may_ha...

The solution is simple: Let people pick their own hotword/phrase. Saying "okay Google" is incredibly awkward, and back when I wore Glass, I found "okay Glass" (where this format came from) equally awkward. Especially in public.

I believe the technical reason is that the wake word "ok google" is processed offline.

I think it should be still possible technically to allow per installation wake words, just like local per install router passwords. Either during the first use or through some specific reconfigure process.

It's not only entirely possible to process any arbitrary phrase offline, it's entirely possible to process all speech on the device offline. That's just not conducive to Google's data collection-based business model.

The wakewords are chosen so that they can be trained to work out of the box with a variety of cultures and accents. To re-train a new word would mean you would have to train it out of the box which could be a pain to their vision of a unified and simple system

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