TV News Broadcast Accidentally Activates Alexa, Initiates Orders (cw6sandiego.com)

ShaunC writes: In San Diego, TV news anchor Jim Patton was covering a separate story about a child who accidentally ordered a doll house using her family's Echo. Commenting on the story, Patton said "I love the little girl, saying 'Alexa ordered me a dollhouse.'" Viewers across San Diego reported that in response to the news anchor's spoken words, their own Echo devices activated and tried to order doll houses from Amazon. Amazon says that anyone whose Echo inadvertently ordered a physical item can return it at no charge.
Meanwhile, Engadget reports that a team of Twitch streamers has convinced one Google Home device to answer questions from another, and they're livestreaming the surreal conversation.

Comments

Dilbert predicted this

[Anonymous Coward]

Much as I think Scott Adams has turned batsh!t crazy recently, he did predict this way back in 1994

http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-04-24

Re:Dilbert predicted this

[93 Escort Wagon]

Dilbert has made him rich - so the correct term is "batshit eccentric".

Re:Dilbert predicted this

[Darinbob]

Problem is too many people just believe the made up stuff from Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and the like, and will believe the most bizarre rumors about Obama. As in that he's actively working to remove borders between the US, Canada, and Mexico, or that there was literally zero immigration between the 30s and the 50s. They don't have the evidence to back this up but they do believe whatever these people say on the air. So it's no wonder that people think Obama was raised by communists, is a muslim, was born in Kenya, etc, because American no longer bother to use their brains, it is a vestigial organ. Obama has deported more people than any other president and yet so many are firmly convinced that he's trying to get illegal immigration to increase. What's even more bizarre is that someone who's solidly right wing conservative can deny these conspiracy theories and then get shouted down for being a liberal who's trying to steal their guns, they're stuck to a viewpoint that you must be 100% in agreement with them or else you are an enemy. And they'll defend all this by saying "all mass media lies" which is their way of saying that all evidence must be ignored and rely only on your gut instincts. I've never seen America so weird before, and I lived in the 60s.

Re:Well that's a hell of a security hole.

[silverkniveshotmail.]

It doesn't even work that way, if you say, "Alexa, buy an iPad" it reads a long description for the most popular result for "iPad" then asks if you're sure.

Re:How has he turned crazy?

[SuperKendall]

Now we have these devices (Alexa, Siri, Google's forgettably named thing #6), that can listen in on everyone at home, and Trump (the product of election hacking by Putin) soon to control the agencies that can hack those devices.

And Trump is the crazy one.... Riiiiiiight

Not that they cannot and will not hack those devices. It's just that they will use that ability in a targeted manner, not to actually spy on everyone all the time.

Do you think Trump would have any issue with NSA (or Russian FSB for that matter), hacking an Alexa in Paul Ryan's

Yes actually I do - it's not like Trump is Hillary.

Re: Trump didn't win, landslide or otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

In California, where the Democrat candidate got those 3,000,000 extra votes, anybody can get a driver's license, legal US citizen or not. Anybody in California can show up at the polls with a drivers license and vote.

There are considerably more than 3,000,000 illegal aliens in California.

Yet people act like the Republicans 'gamed the system.'

FALSE NEWS

[cdwiegand]

Anyone with an Alexa knows when you start an order it lists matching products and asks for verification.