MIT Technology Review: New smartphones will ‘listen to everything all the time’
(Click here to view the infographic)
The Moto X, the new smartphone from Google’s Motorola Mobility, might be remembered best someday for helping to usher in the era of ubiquitous listening.
Unlike earlier phones, the Moto X includes two low-power chips whose only function is to process data from a microphone and other sensors—without tapping the main processor and draining the battery. This is a big endorsement of the idea that phones could serve you better if they did more to figure out what is going on (see “Motorola Reveals First Google-Era Phone”). For instance, you might say “OK Google Now” to activate Google’s intelligent assistant software, rather than having to first tap the screen or press buttons to get an audio-processing function up and running.
This brings us closer to having phones that continually monitor their auditory environment to detect the phone owner’s voice, discern what room or other setting the phone is in, or pick up other clues from background noise. Such capacities make it possible for software to detect your moods, know when you are talking and not to disturb you, and perhaps someday keep a running record of everything you hear.
Chris Schmandt, director of the speech and mobility group at MIT’s Media Lab, relates how “one of his grad students once recorded two years’ worth of all the sounds he was exposed to—capturing every conversation. While the speech-to-text conversions were rough, they were good enough that he could perform a keyword search and recover the actual recording of a months-old conversation.”
“Devices of the future will be increasingly aware of the user’s current context, goals, and needs, will become proactive—taking initiative to present relevant information,” says Pattie Maes, a professor at MIT’s Media Lab. “Their use will become more integrated in our daily behaviors, becoming almost an extension of ourselves. The Moto X is definitely a step in that direction.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517801/the-era-of-ubiquitous-listening-dawns/
http://blog.kaspersky.com/the-perils-of-mobile-security/
Microsoft changed their Xbox One console policy after public outcry:
A Microsoft executive has confirmed that, contrary to earlier reports from the company, the upcoming Xbox One console will not require the Kinect sensor to be activated at all times after all. This change comes after a widespread backlash from gamers concerned about the privacy implications of an always-on camera pointed from the television back at the couch.
Microsoft's original announcement of the Kinect requirement came at an awkward time, as its privacy practices have been receiving a lot of attention over the past few months. The company was in the midst of an advertising campaign that used the tagline "Your privacy is our priority" when the Guardian published information connecting Microsoft and its product Skype with the NSA's PRISM program. Just days later, Bloomberg published a report that the company provides U.S. intelligence agencies like the NSA with advance information about its products' security vulnerabilities, which could in theory be used to get backdoor access to a person's computer.
This change isn't the first time Microsoft has responded to Xbox One criticisms with a real policy adjustment. Earlier this summer, Microsoft made a separate announcement in response to concerns about its plans for an expansive built-in DRM scheme that would have required a constant Internet connection—even to play offline—and restricted the way users could sell and trade games. After coming under heavy criticism from its competitor Sony and the gaming community at large, it lifted many of those restrictions completely.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/microsoft-reverses-another-anti-user-xbox-one-policy