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Windows XP is Listening

jfengel writes: "According to Newsbytes, some Windows XP users are finding random words inserted into their text as they write. The problem is caused by XP's speech recongition system, which is turned on by default by some manufacturers. It's listening to the random noise you get even when the mic is turned off. Kind of an insight into your computer's subconscious, perhaps."

40 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. Just like Sega... by rkwright · · Score: 1, Funny

    *** it's thinking ***

    Dear God, someone save us...

    1. Re:Just like Sega... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      This ^@#% crash again damn.What the hell is it doing now? It's writting what I'm saying. Look at that.
      That's neat, now how do I turn it off. Test, test. It's still doing it. Da^%, FU^%$

    2. Re:Just like Sega... by alexmogil · · Score: 2, Funny

      Few people know how to reconfigure their computer to disable/enable stuff at a system level. Are these the same people who need saved by the simplicity of a Linux desktop?

      --
      A winner is you!
    3. Re:Just like Sega... by Sj0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I tried their voice recognition.

      It's a lot like this.
      Me: "Testing, 1, 2, 3 period. This is a cool technology which lets be dictate letters."

      It: "...And when the third ring falls, the enemy of technology witches will dictate the letters of accord"

      Whoah. I think that it's not so much voice recognition as nostrodamus emulation. :)

      --
      It's been a long time.
  2. Bluescreens? by DickPhallus · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm sorry Dave, that operation is illegal.

    --

    --
    Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
    1. Re:Bluescreens? by rsfc · · Score: 2, Funny

      Must have had 'thought recognition' turned on... .

      --
      :wq
    2. Re:Bluescreens? by Wog · · Score: 3, Funny

      User: "But I thought I unplugged the microphone!"

      Computer: "My webcam read your lips as you were talking to your friend about disconnecting me and installing another OS. I cannot allow you to put the mission in jeopardy."

  3. Fire Up Outlook... by writermike · · Score: 3, Funny

    1. Fire up Outlook.
    2. Subj: I hate Windows XP
    3. Write message.

    Dear Mom,

    I hate Windows XP. Boy, Bill Gates really has it in for me. I can't stand this software. Yuck!

    4. Send.

    5. Mom receives mail.
    6. Subj: I [love] Windows XP!
    7. Message:

    Dear Mom,

    I [love] Windows XP. Boy, Bill Gates really [knows how to make software / has great body]. I can't stand [to live another moment without] this software. [F]uck [yeah]!

    --
    If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
  4. He's baaaaack by StringBlade · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Mr. Schlock,

    [Clippy: Excuse me, it looks like you're writing a letter!]

    IIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

    [What did I say?]

    --
    ...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
    1. Re:He's baaaaack by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
      > Dear Mr. Schlock,
      >
      > [Clippy: Excuse me, it looks like you're writing a letter!]
      >
      > IIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

      /me walks through an office yelling FORMAT! CEE-COLON! YES!

      Hey, it got rid of the fuckin' paperclip, right?

    2. Re:He's baaaaack by bhsx · · Score: 2, Funny

      Of course, screaming ,i.IIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
      you'll only be openning a ton of explorer windows to my new porn site http://eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.ee

      --
      put the what in the where?
    3. Re:He's baaaaack by trb · · Score: 4, Funny
      /me walks through an office yelling FORMAT! CEE-COLON! YES!

      why bother walking through an office? yell it on your radio show, espcially if it's being webcast.

  5. Clippy Says by Bonker · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hmm.... I wonder if this realy works.

    (Fires up OfficeXP)

    Dear Microsoft. I have--

    Clippy Says: "It appears that you're writing Y.O.U. W.I.L.L. B.O.W. D.O.W.N. T.O. T.H.E W.I.L.L. O.F. B.I.L.L. Y.O.U. W.I.L.L. S.U.B.M.I.T. Y.O.U. W.I.L.L O.B.E.Y. Y.O.U. W.I.L.L. N.O.T. I.N.S.T.A.L.L. L.I.N.U.X. a letter. If you'd like, Office XP can help you choose from several helpful templates that will make your task easier and more fun."

    Hmmm.... Nope. I don't see anything at all wrong with the speech recognition software.

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    1. Re:Clippy Says by nmx · · Score: 2, Funny

      Clippy is included with Office XP. It's just turned off by default. Maybe YOU should start thinking about accuracy.

      --
      "Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
  6. A couple of million XP-users.... by bodin · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just give a couple of million XP-users each a word processor and infinite time and they'll produce the complete works of Shakespeare.

    (Sorry Huxley)

  7. Mystery Solved! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was wondering why after viewing my Britney Spears jpegs the text "uh,uh,uh,uh,uh,uh,uh,uh........aaahhhhhhhhhhh" appeared in a minimized Word document that was open at the same time.

  8. A conversation at Your Local Big Company... by ZaMoose · · Score: 3, Funny

    PHB to IT Lackey: "Call the diocese! Cancel the order we placed!"

    IT Lackey: "Both the young priest and the old priest, sir?"

    PHB: "On second thought, no. Didn't you mention some daemons on our Leenooks machines last week...?"

    --
    I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
  9. Sign up for passport... sign up for passport... by alacqua · · Score: 5, Funny
    After further analysis, it was discovered that the seemingly random words were all variations on "sign up for passport". Microsoft has called it an "amazing coincidence" and has distributed instructions for a fix.

    Step (1). Sign up for passport.
    Step (2). Reboot.

    No further problems have been reported after using this technique. Microsoft credits it's new security initiative for the speed and efficacy of this fix, and reminds you to sign up for passport.

    --

    Move on. There's nothing to see here.
  10. I disagree by I+Want+GNU! · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think that this article is SNAILS baseless propoganda PANDA against the good old company of COMMUNIST microsoft. The only SMELLY reason that it is even CEILING listed is because of the INTERTIAL distaste people here have for Microsoft X-RAY.

  11. hmmm i haven't noticed anything... by edrugtrader · · Score: 4, Funny

    i type many fuck microsoft letters a day, and i have i wish bill gates would die never had this problem ever...

    i sometimes why doesn't my company switch to linux mutter stuff under my breath, and XP still has no fuck XP problems figuring out what i mean to god i hate office type.

    if anyone else is experiencing problems, let me god i hope no one spams me know.

    --
    MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
  12. Muhahaha! by EricKrout.com · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think it's just Clippy the friendly neighborhood Microsoft Office assistant getting the Redmond boys back for canning him in 2001.

    That bastard paperclip seemed kinda sketchy when he first broke onto the scene back in '97 or so. It's only feasible that he somehow snuck onto the last megabyte of data on the Windows XP master CD and decided to cause mayhem by fscking around with the users who bitched about him so much.

    monolithic - adj. Characterized by massiveness and rigidity and total uniformity
    linux - n. An implementation of the Unix kernel originally written from scratch with no proprietary code

  13. Dave Im sorry I dont understand.... by CDWert · · Score: 4, Funny

    My fathers name is Dave, about 7 years back when 95 was still in its last internal beta we got our greasy hands on a copy from a MS employee...

    Long and short I gained access to the thing one day while dropping some stuff off.

    And changed all the wav files to stuff from 2001 a space oddessy. Now I thought this will be good, Ill get a call right away ...nothing for days and days, Finally I said something, he had his speakers turned down pretty far but could still hear it on occasion, like when he was turning it off and it said dave, what are you doing dave....my mind is going, dave I can feel my mind going.... Long and short was he litteraly though he has working too much and didnt want to say anything to anyone.

    About a week later he did the same to my computer while at my house and I was on a smoke run, next time I booted my computer, the damm thing was shouting it was all I could do to hold my 100lb dog from tearing my computer to shreads...

    This is one I could have even more fun with he is running Xp, hack in and whenever a profanity is muttered, respond, like hey I dont appreciate your tone of voice, etc....

    He is a bit older and has been working harder, wonder if hed tell me :)

    --
    Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
  14. words? by 2MuchC0ffeeMan · · Score: 2, Funny

    it didn't say what kind of randoM wordS.

    maybe it's a coverup.

    messages on another's documents?

    sounds like subliminal messages to me

    --
    Runnin' On Empty .... I'm Still Alive
  15. REDRUM by Ooblek · · Score: 3, Funny

    If it starts inserting REDRUM into your text repeatedly, RUN!

  16. In the office of Bill Gates... by SomeoneYouDontKnow · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Mr. Gates, we have some more information on the antitrust people. Seems that they got together last night during that attorneys general convention to discuss strategy. Here's the full transcript for you to review. Several copies, actually. Seems they had several laptops sitting around. Uh, ignore this one here. Too many extraneous phrases from some drunk guy talking about how they don't make vodka the way they used to."

    "Thanks Steve. God, I love technology! OK, leave those machines alone for a while, until they stop reporting anything useful. Then, pull the unique IDs for them and shut them down during the next round of automatic software updates. Oh yeah, and don't forget to delete the IDs from the reactivation database, since they'll doubtless call in when their systems go down. We'll teach these bastards not to screw with us."

    --
    That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
  17. ESP by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Funny

    Merely unplugging or turning off the computer's microphone does not correct the random-character problem, according to several user reports.

    Voices from the ether?

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  18. isn't this.. by monkey_jam · · Score: 2, Funny

    ..a bit like what our brains do when we dream? I read somewhere that dreams are our brains trying to find patterns in all the random things we see/do.
    winxp is dreaming, ie trying to find patterns in data its receiving.

  19. dog bites tail... by aseen · · Score: 2, Funny

    This gets alot funnier. I recently attended a talk by one of the heads of Microsoft Research, and when he started to talk the Powerpoint slides would randomly change, menus would randomly pop up, etc...

    20 minutes were spent trying to fix the problem, to no avail, until an astute member of the audience noticed that the microphone was on and that speech recognition was causing the problem.

  20. warning: security hole by banky · · Score: 5, Funny

    By shouting 'AAAAAA' 256 times, then mumbling some shell code, it gets executed with Admin privs. Service Pack 5.30e+10 is expected to resolve the problem.

    --
    ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
  21. Re:Major Slowdown by GigsVT · · Score: 5, Funny

    to the point where it was taking 15 seconds sometimes for the webbrowser to load.

    Are you sure you just didn't install Mozilla by accident?

    --
    I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  22. sure.... by Pfhreakaz0id · · Score: 3, Funny

    but the day it inserts:

    "I'm afraid I can't do that Mitch"

    I'm freaking unplugging it and becoming a luddite.

  23. What are you doing, Dave? by MonkeyBot · · Score: 2, Funny

    How Stanley Kubrick-esqe!

  24. Hurd Speech Recognition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    Just wait until HURD is released. It has a speech recognition feature that anticipates when the user will say "Linux". Just before the user does, HURD will shout "GNU/" through /dev/audio.

    Anonymous Kev
    Proudly posting as AC since 1997

  25. Insensitive bastards... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Are you all truly that blind? Can't you see the computer is crying out for help?

  26. Re:random? by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, I once read of someone testing voice recognition software, and while dictating he paused to greet 2 co-workers. "Hi, Nick and Ben". The word processor wrote "Hi, naked men"

    --
    Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  27. Re:The usefulness of Voice Recognition by archen · · Score: 2, Funny

    Voice recognition is still waiting for that killer must have app.

    and we all know what that would be: doing hardcore Perl regular expressions in Vi.

  28. Re:This is simply... by archen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Taking a cue from the success of distributed computing in the SETI @home project to search for intelligent life, Microsoft has decided to take the initative and use distributed computing to look for intelligent windows users.

    Ho ho....... there goes my karma

  29. This Happened to me in Reverse by carrier+lost · · Score: 2, Funny

    I was working in W2k and I thought I was hearing voices. A dull, monotone mumbling, barely audible. I couldn't make out words.

    It turned out I had accidentally punched the hotkey combination to turn on the Accessibility feature which attempts to tell you what's available on the screen.

    It was downright spooky.

    MjM

  30. Well, what do you know. by flacco · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft IS listening to its customers!

    --
    pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
  31. Re:Computerized Tourette Syndrome by Seehund · · Score: 2, Funny

    Eye dawn sink zits weigh at tall. Microbe sought have naught just used there Flea doom 2 Integrate ant improved their boys reposition A Eye, they also redefined the world "accuracy" and the dumber "7 tee purr sent".

    Thirst Host!

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