are they always listening?
In: Technology
Yes, they are always listening. The companies that make these devices and software share limited information on what that means and they give assurances that “well, they’re sort of always listening for their wake up command, but you know, they’re not listening-listening, and even though the device is always connected to the internet, it’s not connected-connected, and even though it saves lots of info, it’s not always saving info, so you have nothing to worry about….” Whether you take them at their word is up to you.
The exact details of how they work is a secret and is subject to change. However what they are claiming is that there is a processor on the device which while not good enough to do full language processing is able to detect certain keywords. So in standby these devices will keep their microphones active and listening for these keywords but not store anything or send anything over the Internet. It is first when they detect these keywords that they change to active mode with an audiable hint and starts to send the sound to the datecenter where more powerful language processors are able to do more complex processing.
This is at least what they are claiming is going on. Research have shown that this is the case most of the time but not always.
They are always listening but not storing. They only are listening for their trigger phrases and ignoring everything else.
They are always listening, locally, for the wake up phrase. When they do, they start recording your request for upload to the voice recognition servers.
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