I remember when I was considering a Moto X, I was confused by that always-listening feature. First, I figured it would kill the battery, plus it raises interesting concerns for a phone to constantly be processing speech. This solution makes much more sense. Follow up questions, for fun and (not) profit.
I read that the Moto X can be trained to your voice. (Actually, they said that it's not responsive unless you say the keywords in the exact way you trained it, which fits with the fact that they use an ASIC for detection.) But if ASICs are hardware-based, how can they be "trained" that way?
Does using an ASIC mean that it's like a clapper switch of the old days, just with a little fancier functionality? Then that seems to sidestep any privacy concerns.
Challenge: Say you were a journalist tasked with explaining to those who aren't techno-literate why they shouldn't shun friends who own a Moto X for fear of spying and stuff. (Assuming the answer to question 2 above is yes.) You have 100 words.
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bstan
ASICs are hardware-based, but that doesn't mean they are just hardware (we could say the same for phones or laptops - they are hardware-based as well). They can be reprogrammable and flexible to an extent as well. System-on-chips are actually considered ASICs.
ASICs can get pretty fancy. In regards to privacy concerns, I think it would depend on how the ASIC is implemented/its intention of use. If it only transmits information to the CPU when the spoken phrase matches the one set by the user, I don't really see any issues with privacy. But they can definitely be designed to be something worrisome (maybe like storing voice and sending it to the CPU whenever the user does something to engage the CPU).
The 'always listening' feature of the Moto X is like a machine (the ASIC listening) that only comes to notify you (the CPU) if it hears something you told it to listen to (the phrase you set). It has no memory and doesn't tell you anything other than the fact that it heard the phrase it's supposed to listen to.
I think the Snapdragon 800 has a dedicated chip to listen and process audio without touching the CPU. Here's another set of chips that have the same functionality. The site talks a bit more about hardware and background.
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sluck
Apple also includes the M7 coprocessor in order to collect data from the sensors, including while the phone is asleep, so that it can have data available to applications when the phone wakes up again without using the full amount of power (and battery) needed to run the full processor.
I remember when I was considering a Moto X, I was confused by that always-listening feature. First, I figured it would kill the battery, plus it raises interesting concerns for a phone to constantly be processing speech. This solution makes much more sense. Follow up questions, for fun and (not) profit.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
I think the Snapdragon 800 has a dedicated chip to listen and process audio without touching the CPU. Here's another set of chips that have the same functionality. The site talks a bit more about hardware and background.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.
Apple also includes the M7 coprocessor in order to collect data from the sensors, including while the phone is asleep, so that it can have data available to applications when the phone wakes up again without using the full amount of power (and battery) needed to run the full processor.
This comment was marked helpful 0 times.