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Windows XP is Listening

Posted by timothy on from the this-ought-to-freak-you-out dept.

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."

6 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. Don't Leave a Word doc open in supend mode by josquint · · Score: 1, Troll

    Kind of an insight into your computer's subconscious, perhaps.

    Geez.. leave a word processor open when the computer goes to 'sleep' mode. Get to see all its crazy dreams!

    "NOOO not WINDOWS!!! AHHH... I'M FALLLLING!!!! must.... install.... li... nu..x"

  2. Food for thought. by YoPt · · Score: 1, Troll

    Speech Recognition......or........Listening Device?

    /paranoia off

  3. Re:A couple of million XP-users.... by linzeal · · Score: 0, Troll

    They are going to write windows xp as a word macro, huh?

    --
    An Education is the Font of All Liberty
  4. Re:Just like Sega... by phyxeld · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'm really not trying to troll, but is this really worth being an entire thread on Slashdot?
    ...
    now an operating-system configuration issue caused by user-error is cause for concern?

    If major distributors ship with this feature enabled (which I have not yet confirmed; the article appears to be down), then this is indeed a large (newsworthy) problem.

    And in any case, it's awfully funny. ;-)

    --
    __
    Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
  5. Another reason not to buy XP by Dr.+Bent · · Score: 0, Troll

    I've written two applications with the Microsoft Speech Recognition and Text-To-Speech engines, and that has taught me enough to know that turning it on by default is a REALLY bad idea. Of course, M$'s speciality is turning things on by default that shouldn't be on, so this does not really suprise me.

  6. Why do we care? by Jayson · · Score: 2, Troll

    Why do we care about some random unimportant Microsoft bug? Worthless stories like this crowding out other news are what make people think that /. has turned into a purely anti-Microsoft forum.