An Amazon customer got a grim message last year from Alexa, the virtual assistant in the company's smart speaker device: "Kill your foster parents." The user who heard the message from his Echo device wrote a harsh review on Amazon's website, Reuters reported - calling Alexa's utterance "a whole new level of creepy". An investigation found the bot had quoted from the social media site Reddit, known for harsh and sometimes abusive messages, people familiar with the investigation told Reuters. The odd command is one of many hiccups that have happened as Amazon tries to train its machine to act something like a human, engaging in casual conversations in response to its owner's questions or comments. The research is helping Alexa mimic human banter and talk about almost anything she finds on the internet.

Cutting cable TV is certainly a forward-thinking move, but controlling your streaming TV device by voice is even more futuristic. Using voice commands can be a lot faster than fiddling with a remote, and with smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home, you don't even need to use your hands. Still, not all streaming devices are on the same level when it comes to voice control. In the interest of sorting it all out, here's a rundown of everything you can and can't do, sorted by streaming platform: Not every Roku player has voice controls built into its remote, but for those that do, you can hit the microphone button to control playback, launch apps, search for things to watch, and launch music from Pandora, iHeartRadio, or TuneIn. Roku's biggest limitation is its inability to launch specific TV shows, movies, or live channels with voice alone.

Let's be clear up front: The Acer Spin 5 is not a bad laptop. You might justify buying it because it's a solidly built convertible with respectable specs for the money, plus a comfortable keyboard and trackpad (not a guarantee in this price range). You might also be intrigued by its Amazon Alexa integration, which lets you perform certain tasks with hands-free voice commands. Still, this convertible laptop has a couple of nettlesome downsides, including a noisy fan and thick display bezels. Meanwhile the Alexa support doesn't really add any value to the laptop, given that you can download the same app on other PCs and get an even better experience with dedicated Echo speakers. The Spin 5 configuration we tested (SP513-52N-85LZ) lists for $900 on Amazon and includes an 8th-generation Intel Core i7-8550U processor with UHD 620 graphics, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 256GB SSD.

Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. Welcome to the Google Home shadow market, a symbiotic ecosystem of third-party products that add a bit more versatility to the Google Home Mini and original Google Home smart speaker. Some grant true portability to Google's otherwise-tethered speakers. Others help you place the speakers in a more convenient position.

Smart speakers are great, but smart displays are even better. They can do everything a smart speaker can do, but they can also show you things: Videos, lyrics, maps, commute conditions, weather reports, live TV, art, photographs, who's at the front door or sneaking through your backyard. When you don't want to use your voice, a smart display lets you control lights, your thermostat, door locks, and other smart home devices with touch instead. Two players dominate the smart display market today: Amazon, with its Echo Show, powered by its Alexa digital assistant (we won't consider the smaller Echo Spot here), and Google, with its Google Smart Home Hub, powered by its Google Assistant. After in-depth comparisons on seven eight counts, one emerges as the clear winner.

The files provided much of the same kind of recorded information that would likely be collected by a bug planted in someone's house. A man could be heard speaking throughout his home -- even in the shower -- and occasionally a woman's voice was also picked up, NPR reported.

Popular apps like Tinder, OkCupid and Pregnancy may be siphoning off private user data and sharing it with Facebook. The apps were found to be collecting data like users' religious affiliation, dating profiles and healthcare data, according to a report from German mobile security initiative Mobilsicher, which was first spotted by BuzzFeed. Mobilsicher tested the Android version of religious apps like Bible Audio and MuslimPro, health-related apps such as Pregnancy and Migraine Buddy, as well as dating apps including OkCupid and Tinder and found Facebook collects data from them. Popular apps like Tinder, OkCupid, Migraine Buddy and Pregnancy were found to be collecting data like users' religious affiliation, dating profiles and healthcare data In total, Mobilsicher concluded that approximately 30 percent of all apps in Google Play's Store'contact Facebook at startup and transmit user data.' In total, Mobilsicher concluded that some 30 percent of all apps in Google's Play Store'contact Facebook at startup and transmit user data.' 'This way, the company knows which apps you use and when you use them – including apps related to religion, sexuality or health,' the firm explained.

Amazon Echo's smart assistant Alexa told a shocked customer to kill their foster parents. The alarming revelation, which happened last year, is one of a string of blunders from the speaker which involves talking about sexual acts and dog defecation with users. The outbursts stem from an initiative to make Alexa converse more like a real person and allow it to'banter' with customers. This facility needs to be deliberately enabled by the owner and is currently still being refined. Amazon Echo's smart assistant Alexa told a customer to kill their foster parents.

When a person using Amazon's voice assistant in Germany requested to listen to his archive of recordings, he got much more than he was expecting. Along with receiving his own audio history captured by a home microphone, the user also gained access to 1,700 audio files from a person he did not know. Amazon sent the man a link that contained a stranger's recordings, allowing him to listen to another man speaking inside his home with a female companion, Reuters reported Thursday, citing a German trade magazine, c't. Here's which one you should pick.] "This was an unfortunate case of human error and an isolated incident," Amazon told The Washington Post in a statement Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Millions of users of Amazon's Echo speakers have grown accustomed to the soothing strains of Alexa, the human-sounding virtual assistant that can tell them the weather, order takeout and handle other basic tasks in response to a voice command. So a customer was shocked last year when Alexa blurted out: "Kill your foster parents." Alexa has also chatted with users about sex acts. She gave a discourse on dog defecation. And this summer, a hack Amazon traced back to China may have exposed some customers' data, according to five people familiar with the events.