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Smart speaker

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The Google Home Mini smart speaker released in 2017
"Smart display" redirects here. For the touchscreen computer project by Microsoft, see Smart Display. For smart television displays, see Smart TV.

A smart speaker is a type of loudspeaker and voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant that offers interactive actions and hands-free activation with the help of one "hot word" (or several "hot words"). Some smart speakers can also act as a smart device that utilizes Wi-Fi and other protocol standards to extend usage beyond audio playback, such as to control home automation devices. This can include, but is not limited to, features such as compatibility across a number of services and platforms, peer-to-peer connection through mesh networking, virtual assistants, and others. Each can have its own designated interface and features in-house, usually launched or controlled via application or home automation software.[1] Some smart speakers also include a screen to show the user a visual response.

As of summer 2022, it is estimated by NPR and Edison Research that 91 million Americans (35% of the population over 18) own a smart speaker.[2]

A smart speaker with a touchscreen is known as a smart display.[3][4] It is a smart device that integrates conversational user interface with display screens to augment voice interaction with images and video. They are powered by one of the common voice assistants and offer controls for smart home devices, feature streaming apps, and web browsers with touch controls for selecting content. The first smart displays were introduced in 2017 by Amazon (Amazon Echo) and Google (Google Home/Nest)

Accuracy

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According to a study by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America released In March 2020, the six biggest tech development companies, Amazon, Apple, Google, Yandex, IBM and Microsoft, have misidentified more words spoken by "black people" than "white people". The systems tested errors and unreadability, with a 19 and 35 percent discrepancy for the former and a 2 and 20 percent discrepancy for the latter.[5]

The North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL) also identified a discrepancy between male and female voices. According to their research, Google's speech recognition software is 13 percent more accurate for men than women. It performs better than the systems used by Bing, AT&T, and IBM.[6]

Privacy concerns

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The built-in microphone in smart speakers is continuously listening for "hot words" followed by a command. However, these continuously listening microphones also raise privacy concerns among users.[7] These include what is being recorded, how the data will be used, how it will be protected, and whether it will be used for invasive advertising.[8][9] Furthermore, an analysis of Amazon Echo Dots showed that 30–38% of "spurious audio recordings were human conversations", suggesting that these devices capture audio other than strictly detection of the hot word.[10]

As a wiretap

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There are strong concerns that the ever-listening microphone of smart speakers presents a perfect candidate for wiretapping. In 2017, British security researcher Mark Barnes showed that pre-2017 Echos have exposed pins which allow for a compromised OS to be booted.[11]

According to Umar Iqbal, an Assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, research indicates that data from consumer interactions with Alexa was used to targeted advertisements and products to consumer with over 40% of transmitted data lacking proper encryption raising privacy concerns. [12] Furthermore data indicates that due to the Smart Speakers ability to always capture audio, it begins to pick up on external conversations from consumers not related to commands given to the smart speaker. Things such as other members in the household, consumers on the phone and even Tv audio can be picked up by these speakers and stored for future use by companies. [13]

Voice assistance vs privacy

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While voice assistants provide a valuable service, there can be some hesitation towards using them in various social contexts, such as in public or around other users.[14] However, only more recently have users begun interacting with voice assistants through an interaction with smart speakers rather than an interaction with the phone. On the phone, most voice assistants have the option to be engaged by a physical button (e.g., Siri with a long press of the home button) rather than solely by hot word-based engagement in a smart speaker. While this distinction increases the privacy by limiting when the microphone is on, users felt that having to press a button first removed the convenience of voice interaction.[15] This trade-off is not unique to voice assistants; as more and more devices come online, there is an increasing trade-off between convenience and privacy.[16]

Factors influencing adoption

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While there are many factors influencing smart speaker adoption, specifically with regards to privacy, Lau et al. define five distinct categories as pros and cons: convenience, identity as an early adopter, contributing factors, perceived lack of utility, privacy, and security concerns.[7]

Smart speakers also benefit from their instant integration into the life of the consumer. Some capabilities of smart speakers are but not limited to setting alarms, sending voice messages to other smart devices in the home, the ability to send messages for you, instant answers to basic questions for any subject such as mathematics, geography, history, science and literature, and the ability to create task lists that can pair with your phone to remind you later on. Although these tasks can be completed by a phone, consumers tend to lean towards smart speakers due to factors such as their range being much greater then that of a phone and the need to not have to physically interact with the speaker to get the voice assistant as with most smartphones, certain parts of the phone must be interacted with to activate the speaking assistant. [17]

Another reason for the adoption of smart speakers has been the use of smart speakers to help assist those with disabilities. While most technology is limited by it needs for the user to be able to physically interact with the device, smart speakers are not bound by these limitations and can serve as an excellent tool for those who are unable to use their arms or legs.[18]

Security concerns

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When configured without authentication, smart speakers can be activated by people other than the intended user or owner. For example, visitors to a home or office, or people in a publicly accessible area outside an open window, partial wall, or security fence, may be able to be heard by a speaker. One team demonstrated the ability to stimulate the microphones of smart speakers and smartphones through a closed window, from another building across the street, using a laser.[19]

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Virtual assistant Owned by Devices No. of users Languages (dialects) Notes
Alice Yandex
  • Yandex Station
  • Yandex Station Mini
  • Irbis A
  • LG Xboom AI ThinQ WK7Y
  • ELARI SmartBeat
  • Prestigio Smartmate Маяк Edition
 30 million Yandex devices in CIS (January 2019) Russian, Turkish Yandex Station went on sale in July 2018
AliGenie Alibaba Group Chinese Went on sale in August 2017
Amazon Alexa[20] Amazon 31 million Echo devices in U.S. (January 2018)[21] Summer 2019: English (US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia); French (France and Canada); German; Italian; Japanese; Portuguese (Brazilian) and Spanish (Spain and Mexico)[22][23][24]
Siri Apple, Inc. Summer 2019: Arabic, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish[24]
DuerOS Open Platform[25] Baidu Xiaoyu, RavenH, Aladdin ceiling-mounted smart speaker-lamp-projector[26][27] Chinese Xiaoyu went on sale in spring 2017.[25]
Clova Naver Corporation, Line Corporation Japanese and Korean Introduced summer 2017[28]
Google Assistant[20] Google Google Home series: Home, Home Max, Home Mini, Nest Hub, Nest Hub Max,[20] Nest Mini, Nest Audio, Nest Wi-Fi (point only) 14 million Google Homes in U.S. (January 2018)[21] Summer 2019: Danish, Dutch, English (U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, India and Singapore), French (France and Canada), German (Austria and Germany), Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish (Spain and Mexico) and Swedish[29][24]
Beijing LingLong, part of JD DingDong Mandarin and Cantonese for Greater China In cooperation with Chinese AI firm iFlytek. Went on sale November 2016.[30]
Microsoft Cortana Microsoft Harman Kardon INVOKE October 2019: English (US, UK, Canada, Australia and India); Chinese (Simplified); French; German; Italian; Japanese; Portuguese (Brazil); Spanish (Spain and Mexico)[31] Support for Cortana on the Harman Kardon INVOKE was officially discontinued on March 9, 2021.[32][33]
Safety Labs Sirona Safety Labs Inc Sirona.TV English (US, UK, Canada, Australia and India);
Xiaowei[25] Tencent forthcoming[25] Chinese
Bixby Samsung Electronics Galaxy Home [34]
Hallo Magenta Deutsche Telekom Hallo Magenta German
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Smart Speakers

See also

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References

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  1. ^ smart speaker Archived 2019-04-10 at the Wayback Machine, techtarget.com, May 2017
  2. ^ Landis, Devon (2022-06-12). "NPR & Edison Research: Smart Speaker Ownership Reaches 35% of Americans". NPR. Archived from the original on 2024-12-02. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
  3. ^ Brown, Rich. "Echo Show, Nest Hub, Facebook Portal and more: How to pick the best smart display in 2019". CNET. Archived from the original on 2019-07-08. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  4. ^ Faulkner, Cameron (9 October 2018). "How Google's new Home Hub compares to the Echo Show and Facebook Portal". The Verge. Archived from the original on 2019-12-06. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  5. ^ Metz, Cade (2020-03-23). "There Is a Racial Divide in Speech-Recognition Systems, Researchers Say". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2022-10-13. Retrieved 2020-04-22.
  6. ^ Bajorek, Joan Palmiter (2019-05-10). "Voice Recognition Still Has Significant Race and Gender Biases". Harvard Business Review. Archived from the original on 2020-04-25. Retrieved 2020-04-24.
  7. ^ a b Lau, Josephine; Zimmerman, Benjamin; Schaub, Florian (1 November 2018). "Alexa, Are You Listening?: Privacy Perceptions, Concerns and Privacy-seeking Behaviors with Smart Speakers". Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 2 (CSCW): 102:1–102:31. doi:10.1145/3274371. S2CID 53223356.
  8. ^ "Amazon hands over Echo 'murder' data". BBC News. 7 March 2017. Archived from the original on 6 January 2020. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
  9. ^ "Amazon patents 'voice-sniffing' algorithms". BBC News. 11 April 2018. Archived from the original on 14 December 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
  10. ^ Ford, Marcia, and William Palmer. "Alexa, are you listening to me? An analysis of Alexa voice service network traffic." Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (2018): 1-13.
  11. ^ Greenberg, Andy (1 August 2017). "A Hacker Turned an Amazon Echo Into a 'Wiretap'". Wired. Archived from the original on 3 June 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019 – via www.wired.com.
  12. ^ Iqbal, Umar (2024-12-03). "Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Alexa Echo Smart Speaker Ecosystem" (PDF). umariqbal.com. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-09-24. Retrieved 2024-12-03.
  13. ^ Malkin, Nathan (2019). "Privacy Attitudes of Smart Speaker Users" (PDF). Sciendo. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies.
  14. ^ "Sarah Mennicken and Elaine M. Huang. 2012. Hacking the Natural Habitat: An In-the-Wild Study of Smart Homes, Their Development, and the People Who Live in Them. In Pervasive Computing. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 143–160". doi:10.1007/978-3-642-31205-2_10. S2CID 3480089. Archived from the original on 2022-10-13. Retrieved 2019-02-26. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  15. ^ Christoffer Lambertsson. 2017. Expectations of Privacy in Voice Interaction–A Look at Voice Controlled Bank Transactions. Ph.D. Dissertation. KTH Royal Institute of Technology
  16. ^ "Rao, Sonia (12 September 2018) "In today's homes, consumers are willing to sacrifice privacy for convenience". Retrieved 25 February 2019". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2 March 2019. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  17. ^ Kowalczuk, Pascal (2018-10-10). "Consumer acceptance of smart speakers: a mixed methods approach". Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.
  18. ^ Mauldin, Laura (2022-09-10). "Cripping in America: Hacking an ableist world". JSTOR.
  19. ^ "Lasers can silently issue 'voice commands' to your smart speakers". 5 November 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2019-11-06.
  20. ^ a b c d Best, Smart Speaker (11 April 2021). "Best Smart Speaker". wired.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2021. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
  21. ^ a b Bishop, Todd (January 26, 2018). "New data: Google Home faring better against Amazon Echo, grabbing 40% of U.S. holiday sales". GeekWire. Archived from the original on December 6, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2019.
  22. ^ "AVS for International". developer.amazon.com. Amazon. Archived from the original on 13 June 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  23. ^ Barrett, Brian. "THE YEAR ALEXA GREW UP". Wired. Archived from the original on 14 July 2019. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  24. ^ a b c "Language Support in Voice Assistants Compared". Globalme. Archived from the original on 3 September 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  25. ^ a b c d Horwitz, Josh (5 July 2017). "China's tech giants are racing to popularize their versions of the Amazon Echo". Archived from the original on 2018-03-19. Retrieved 2018-03-19.
  26. ^ "Baidu launches three new smart speakers that don't need Alexa or Google Assistant". 8 January 2018. Archived from the original on 2018-03-21. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  27. ^ Bonnington, Christina (16 November 2017). "Baidu's New Smart Speaker Looks Like Nothing Else on the Market". Slate. Archived from the original on 19 March 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  28. ^ "LINE to Introduce Clova Virtual Assistant for Korea and Japan - Voicebot". www.voicebot.ai. 3 March 2017. Archived from the original on 2018-03-19. Retrieved 2018-03-19.
  29. ^ "Change your Google Assistant language". Google Home Help. Archived from the original on 22 February 2019. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  30. ^ Bateman, Joshua D. (22 November 2016). "Behold China's Answer to Amazon Echo: The LingLong DingDong". Wired. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  31. ^ "Cortana's regions and languages". support.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on 22 January 2020. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  32. ^ "Cortana service on the Harman Kardon Invoke". support.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on 2022-05-15. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  33. ^ "Harmon Kardon Invoke Statement". HARMAN Newsroom. Archived from the original on 2022-09-21. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
  34. ^ Ingraham, Nathan (9 August 2018). "Does Samsung's Galaxy Home stand a chance?". Engadget. Oath Inc. Archived from the original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2018.
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