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Skylake Has a Voice DSP and Listens To Your Commands

itwbennett writes: Intel's new Skylake processor (like the Core M processor released last year) comes with a built-in digital signal processor (DSP) that will allow you to turn on and control your PC with your voice. Although the feature is not new, what is new is the availability of a voice controlled app to use it: Enter Windows 10 and Cortana. If this sounds familiar, it should, writes Andy Patrizio: 'A few years back when the Xbox One was still in development, word came that Kinect, its motion and audio sensor controller, would be required to use the console and Kinect would always be listening for voice commands to start the console. This caused something of a freak-out among gamers, who feared Microsoft would be listening.'

5 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. an objective analysis by nimbius · · Score: 4, Funny

    Im sure plenty of slashdotters will invest time and effort in explaining how this can be manipulated by unscrupulous hackers and foreign intelligence agencies to undermine user security. Yet other slashdotters will wax prophetic on how the erosion of our freedoms at the hands of malevolent corporations will be our downfall

    I on the otherhand am offering a completely different take on this Skylake report. As a coincidental shareholder in the tinfoil industry I believe Skylake and other technologies will be a win-win for all parties involved: consumers, producers, and the spider people of Adramalech the dark Samarian god to whom children are sacrificed...remember, without your patented TIN FOIL helmet, Skylark will inform them of how many licks it took YOU to get to the center of the tootsie roll pop.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  2. Sure, this will sell like hot cakes! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We made a new processor! It's not any faster but it has an always on mic and exposes a remote-control interface you know nothing about. Oh and did I mention the random generator is biased? You'll love it"

  3. Re:Star Trek computer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I must admit I am having fun with the voice commands.

    I would say it is about 95%ish accurate in decoding what I say.

    However, if you get off script in what it knows it just takes the command and dumps it on the default search you have setup (google for me).

    'open steam' apparently means open some random game with steam in the name. Which is not what I wanted.
    'open weather' means open the built in weather app. Which is what I wanted.
    'will it rain' and it will give me a nice summary of the current weather and 'guess'.
    'shutdown the computer' apparently means open up firefox and google for it.

    It is also a 'slow cpu' drain. In the background the DSP audio service built into windows is always listening. So it is eating a bit of CPU (about .05%) just from ambient noise. Yesterday the one of the 3 cortana background apps decided to crash wildly. It kept crashing and restarting at a rate of about 30 times a second. No dumps or anything. Just a small 1-2% cpu usage. Reboot and it was all well but no indication of what was going on.

  4. Re:Star Trek computer by Locke2005 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sure, but the computer is Galaxy Quest was only listening to ONE person (Sigourney Weaver). In fact, her one and only job was to repeat any questions to the computer, then repeat the computer's response back to the questioner...

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  5. Re:Open source command interface? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Yes..all you need to do is

    sudo apt-get voicex-dev ./configure --prefix=/dev/sndxxx (use modprobe to find your microphone dev)
    recompile the kernel with mcdev support ./make; make install
    download and install language pack
    install and run the voicexd (using init or sytemd)
    modify the code to suit your cadence
    remake and reinstall

    Easy as pie