Smart loudspeakers are a novel concept, however the arrival of Amazon’s Echo Show and Home of the Google speakers to the market has placed these devices at the center of the attention of a large number of people throughout the world, since they allow In addition to listening to music, audio books and podcasts, control any intelligent device, including domestic calls.
Giving instructions
So using the versatility of the personal assistant that includes smart speakers, Alexa in the case of Amazon or the Google Assistant can, using our voice, give instructions to any of the appliances that we have connected to smart plugs; You can also switch off and on or control the brightness of the lights, of course if they have an intelligent switch.
Intelligent speakers are extremely versatile
Speakers are for many a dream come true, ask the assistant to put their favorite songs and adapt the light to the needs of the moment, it is something really wonderful, however this technology also presents its dark side, and that as users we have the feeling that the personal assistant always listens to us and is aware of everything we say.
What can be a threat to the privacy of information, to which we are all entitled, something that is enshrined in all legislations, something that often gives the feeling of a bit of paranoia, but we must remember what happened, as for example that private conversation recorded by an Echo Show and ended up being shared randomly and by mistake with a contact.
Are the voice aids really spying on us?
Smart speakers use the capabilities of voice aides, in fact they include the assistant of the corporation that makes them; are activated when we use an established phrase such as Ok Google or Alexa for Amazon voice assistant, once activated the voice assistant starts the transfer of data from the device, in this case the speakers to a remote server or cloud server.
How does the recording work?
It is worth noting that this happens because the data processing is not done in smart devices such as the Echo Show speakers, it occurs in remote servers that are responsible for processing the information and archiving it for a time, apparently indeterminate, this raises a series of questions such as: What data are transferred to the servers ?, what do companies do with them ?, or what can we do about it ?.
In the case of Alexa, the Amazon voice assistant, once activated by voice or when you press any activation button, starts recording, in this case through the Echo Show speakers, the recordings go to the remote servers from Amazon.
The company ensures that any user can access said recordings through an application included in the Alexa assistant; You can also do it through a web address provided by Amazon, from any of these two variants it is possible to erase those recordings.