Google Home smart speakers are once again under the limelight and this is time is due to a privacy concern. As per a report, the Google smart speakers can secretly listen without using the wake words.
As per a report by Protocol, Google updated an unspecified number of Google Assistant-enabled devices to respond to auditory cues beyond the specified wake phrase. Google said that the whole thing was a mistake and it was quick to fix the issue. “A recent software update enabled these alerts on some of our speakers that didn’t have a subscription, but we’ve since rolled that back,” a spokesperson told Protocol.
The report highlights that the unspecified devices were able to detect “critical sounds” that are currently available for paid users of the Nest Aware home security subscription service. The service was announced in May and it can detect sounds like a smoke alarm or glass breaking, by sending an alert to the Home application. One can also listen to an audio clip or listen live within the Home App to confirm the alarm.
Meanwhile, Google introduced a new feature to KaiOS users in India. Google is bringing Google Lens to the millions of Google Assistant users on KaiOS devices in India.
The KaiOS software runs on popular budget phones like the Jio Phone and Jio Phone 2 in the country. Within Google Assistant, KaiOS users can now use Google Lens to read, translate and define words in the real world.
The Google Lens feature was introduced at Google I/O in 2019, and it has now been integrated into KaiOS phones with Google Assistant. With Lens, you can point your camera at text you see and translate it into more than 100 languages. Lens can even speak the words out loud in your preferred language.