Burger King made headlines yesterday when it began running a 15-second television ad made to intentionally activate Google Home speakers and Android phones within earshot.

The simple commercial involves someone posing as a Burger King employee who leans into the camera to ask the question "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?" – a request designed to prompt Google virtual assistants nearby to start reading the burger's Wikipedia entry. To the relief of many, Google quickly moved to prevent its Home speakers from responding to the ad by registering the sound clip and disabling the trigger.

burger king
Voices on TV have been inadvertently triggering smart speakers for months now, but the ad represents the first attempt by a company to purposely hijack users' devices for commercial gain. One likely reason Burger King chose to target Google Home rather than iPhones is that unlike Apple's Siri, the virtual assistant cannot be trained to recognize a particular user's voice, which highlights one of the main issues with connected smart speakers currently on the market.

As it stands, Google Home can only be used with a single Google account at a time, and lacks the ability to differentiate users by their voice patterns. Google has said its ultimate goal for Home is to be able to identify different people in the same room – and hints of multi-user functionality have briefly appeared in the Google Home app – suggesting some sort of voice identification feature is likely coming.

Likewise, Amazon is known to be working on a similar system that would allow its Echo range of smart speakers to distinguish between individual users based on the sound of their voices. According to sources, Amazon's feature would work by matching the person speaking to a pre-recorded voice sample, or "voice print", to verify the speaker's identity. Currently, Echo users can set up multiple profiles and jump between them, but the user must say "switch accounts" or use the Alexa app to do so.


Last May it was rumored that Apple will launch an Echo-like speaker with Siri integration, enabling users to play music, get news headlines, and more, without needing to interact with their iPhone.

According to one source, Apple's speaker could process many typical iPhone Siri commands. For example, users may be able to ask the device to read e-mails, send text messages and tweets, and stream content from Apple Music. Apple is even said to have considered integrating map information into the speaker, allowing the device to notify a user when it's time to leave the house for an appointment.

However, all of these capabilities would require Siri to know exactly who it is interacting with – a feat which, in a communal setting, could pose significant technical challenges for a company high on privacy. In this sense, the appearance of an Apple smart speaker may ride on Apple's ability to make user voice recognition as secure as biometric authentication features like Touch ID.

On the other hand, Apple could bring in biometric features to augment the speaker's user identification system. Indeed, some of Apple's speaker prototypes in testing are said to include technology related to facial recognition, potentially aided by Apple's acquisition of Faceshift and Emotient, which may help the device act based on who is in a room or a person’s emotional state. How secure such systems would be in these scenarios remains unclear, however. According to rumors, Apple's smart speaker-esque device could release later this year.

Top Rated Comments

JCoe13 Avatar
85 months ago
Pretty creative move. Too bad Google already stopped it.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Abazigal Avatar
85 months ago
So the voice actor for the ad can no longer use the "Okay google" hotword on his google devices?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mwcfc1905 Avatar
85 months ago
When google get a request asking about the whooper it should respond with information about the big mac!
that would help stop this
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
adamneer Avatar
85 months ago
Nice. Because 1 obnoxious form of advertising at a time isn't enough for corporations anymore, so they naturally come up with ways to use their ads to prompt other ads. Soon enough, modern life will simply be an Inception of advertising. We'll need to spin a top to figure out whether or not someone's trying to sell us something.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Aston441 Avatar
85 months ago
I LIKE that my friends can use my Echos, so they can switch around the lighting, music etc.

I'm the only one that knows the code to initiate the self-destruct sequence, so I'm not seeing the security issue here?

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
oneMadRssn Avatar
85 months ago
I LIKE that my friends can use my Echos, so they can switch around the lighting, music etc.

I'm the only one that knows the code to initiate the self-destruct sequence, so I'm not seeing the security issue here?



https://www.xkcd.com/1807/
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

Multi Display CarPlay 1

All-New Apple CarPlay Launching Later This Year With These 5 New Features

Friday September 29, 2023 11:29 am PDT by
At WWDC 2022 last year, Apple previewed the next generation of CarPlay, promising deeper integration with vehicle functions like A/C and FM radio, support for multiple displays across the dashboard, personalization options, and more. Apple said the first vehicles with support for the next-generation CarPlay experience would be announced in late 2023, but it has still not shared any additional...
BMW Logo iPhone 15 Pro

Warning: BMW Wireless Charging May Break iPhone 15's Apple Pay Chip

Sunday October 1, 2023 6:14 am PDT by
If you have an iPhone 15 and drive a BMW, it might be best to avoid charging the device with the vehicle's wireless charging pad for now. Over the past week, some BMW owners have complained that their iPhone 15's NFC chip no longer works after charging the device with their vehicle's wireless charging pad, according to comments shared on the MacRumors Forums and X, formerly known as Twitter. ...
iPhone 15 Pro lineup

Apple to Address iPhone 15 Pro Overheating Issue With iOS 17 Update

Saturday September 30, 2023 9:28 am PDT by
Apple plans to release an iOS 17 update to address a bug that may contribute to the reported iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max overheating issue, according to a statement the company shared today with MacRumors and Forbes reporter David Phelan. Apple also says some recent updates to third-party apps have overloaded the system and contributed to the overheating issue. The report notes that...
iphone se 4 modified flag edges

iPhone SE 4 Details: Action Button, USB-C Port, Face ID, and More

Wednesday September 27, 2023 1:34 pm PDT by
Significant changes are expected to arrive with Apple's fourth-generation iPhone SE, in terms of both design and hardware, MacRumors has learned. The iPhone SE 4, known internally under the codename Ghost, is expected to receive a new design derived almost entirely from the base model iPhone 14. According to our sources, the iPhone SE 4 will use a modified version of the iPhone 14 chassis...
iPhone 16 Side Feature

iPhone 16 and 16 Pro: Preliminary Weights and Dimensions

Friday September 29, 2023 12:34 pm PDT by
MacRumors has obtained preliminary information on the weights and dimensions planned for the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. The information corroborates previous reports suggesting that the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max will feature larger displays. iPhone 16 and 16 Plus Current information suggests that the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will maintain the same...
iOS 17

Everything New in iOS 17.1 Beta 1

Wednesday September 27, 2023 1:57 pm PDT by
Just a week after releasing iOS 17, Apple has seeded the first beta of iOS 17.1 to developers. iOS 17.1 adds some features that Apple promised were coming to iOS 17 in the future, plus it refines and improves some existing features. This guide covers everything new in the first iOS 17.1 beta. Apple Music Favorites You can favorite songs, albums, playlists, and artists in the iOS 17.1...
CarPlay SharePlay

CarPlay Not Working for Some iPhone 15 Users, Possibly Because of USB-C Cables

Friday September 29, 2023 2:27 pm PDT by
CarPlay is not working as expected for some iPhone 15 users, an issue that is likely linked to the transition to USB-C. There are multiple complaints from MacRumors readers and Reddit users who are unable to get CarPlay to work with their new devices. Cable type and available port options are a common theme in the CarPlay reports, with many of the functionality problems linked to USB-A to...