VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

Mike Harrison

I firmly believe jumping onto new technology before they've worked the bugs out is a mistake.

Samsung is warning buyers of its smart TVs who use the voice activation feature to avoid discussing personal information in front of the TV.

glittlefield · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 9:34 am Post subject:

Definitely a reason why I like my TVs as dumb as possible.
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Greg Littlefield
VO-BB Member #59

heyguido · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 9:47 am Post subject:

I am reminded of Detective Munch during his only guest appearance on the X-Files....

"Here's a tip: aluminum foil. It makes a lovely hat and it blocks out the government's mind-control rays."

I own one of these TVs. I also own a phone that responds to voice commands. They work. And they make my life much easier.

I remain unafraid. Ninja

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Don Brookshire
"Wait.... They wanna PAY me for this?"

glittlefield · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 9:53 am Post subject:

I told my phone "Ring when someone calls me". I haven't had to reprogram it in YEARS.
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Greg Littlefield
VO-BB Member #59

Lee Gordon · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 10:23 am Post subject:

I remember, years ago*, Woody Allen doing a comedy routine about his appliances being out to get him. I think he believed, at the time, that he was just being funny, not predicting the future.

*It had to be quite a few years ago if Woody Allen was still a stand-up comedian.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

Gregory Best · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2015 10:40 pm Post subject: RANT on privacy

I don't trust the cloud either. Don, you should not be affraid, but really concerned. Trained as a lawyer, raised in a small town in Mid-America, and a boomer I am quite fond of my freedom.

Is your convenience worth giving up your privacy? That is why I am not an early adopter either. I don't have an "I" anything. I listen to radio or CDs.

With the Samsung TV you can turn off speech recognition control. I don't want my devices allowing someone to spy on me or track me. Big brother and corporations remind me of stories like 1984 I read as a kid. We are growing too complacent as a society.

Did you see the 60 Minutes piece on hacking into to newer car computer system and taking remote control of many functions including braking and acceleration? Too much.
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Gregory Best

greg@gregorybest.com

Mike Harrison · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 10:22 am Post subject:

I appreciate the comments. I do want to clarify: my mistrust in the cloud is only from the standpoint of whether my data will be totally secure, accessible by no one but myself and anyone to which I have given access.

When I say I don't trust LinkedIn (another thread), it's because I believe – based on previous unexplainable "coincidences" and the results of web searches – there are (or at least have been) conscious attempts to access data – on my computer – that they neither have permission nor a right to access, and undoubtedly for their own gain.

That is all. Carry on.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

Gregory Best · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 11:14 am Post subject:

Mike, I agree. I don't feel the cloud is secure. Look at Anthem and all the recent hacks of data thought secure. I record on an XP computer that is not connected to the world. I've had to replace bank cards 3 times because of data breaches.

I choose not to live my life on the web. Big Brother (corporate america) is watching along with crooks and hackers. It bothers me that so few seem concerned about giving up their privacy.

Carry on.
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Gregory Best

greg@gregorybest.com

Mike Harrison · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:22 pm Post subject:

Thanks, Gregory.

In time, perhaps the cloud will be considered an absolutely safe concept. Many VO people have to sign non-disclosure agreements. I don't understand why anyone would sign such a legal document and then upload sensitive client information (in audio form) when its security is completely out of their hands.

In the late 1980s, I was working for the production company that produced the launch for EFIDAC 24 (the first 24-hour cold medication) and presented it to CIBA Consumer Pharmaceuticals' global sales team at a resort hotel in Orlando. Before we moved a stitch of equipment into the ballroom or checked into our rooms, CIBA had TWO different security teams sweep those areas for listening devices. Clients are dead serious about security.

I was taught to never buy the first model year of a car. Why? Because the automaker hadn't worked all the bugs out of it. Look at the number of recalls we have today.

Pictures of cats? I'd put those on the cloud, or recipes... but NOT my personal data or proprietary client information that doesn't even belong to me.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

heyguido · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:57 pm Post subject:

Annnnd...

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/10/8014109/samsung-says-tvs-arent-listening-to-your-conversations
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Don Brookshire
"Wait.... They wanna PAY me for this?"

Mike Harrison · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:09 pm Post subject:

Aha...

So, while the TV may not be constantly capturing audio, here's a sentence from the portion of Samsung's privacy policy on voice recognition:

heyguido · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:39 pm Post subject:

That 3rd party, by the way, is Nuance Communications, whose scientists and technologists are responsible for such modern wonders as OCR, voice recognition, and the IVR systems that pay the bills for many of us. They don’t scare me either.
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Don Brookshire
"Wait.... They wanna PAY me for this?"

Mike Harrison · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:41 pm Post subject:

Slight threadjack:

Well, maybe voice recognition and IVR, but optical character recognition eventually fell into the hands of Nuance only after having been developed for reading for the blind by Kurzweil, who later sold his company to Xerox which, in turn, later spun it off into another company which Nuance merged with. Xerox, of course, also at one time had in its possession the "point-and-click" technology but didn't know what to do with it, and that's where the two Steves saw it and developed it into the Apple GUI.

Many may think the phrases "spoken" by GPS and the like are recorded that way. Not so, I was told in early 2008, when I spent a week recording gibberish for a company since bought by Nuance. The written gibberish I read was tediously composed specifically to create sounds of the various letter combinations. Those combinations are stored as audio fragments which are assembled on the fly to form the things our GPS and other devices say.

Technology is certainly one area in which what goes around comes around.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.