Google plans to give you more control over the "Hey Google" sensitivity



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"Hey Google, what's the weather like?"

"OK, Google, what's the weather like?"

"YO GOOGLE ARE YOU LISTENING?"

If you've ever had a similar one-sided conversation with the Google Assistant, you may appreciate an upcoming update. In a blog post detailing changes to the privacy of the Assistant (more details about this in a moment), Google has announced its intention to add an option allowing you to adjust the Assistant's sensitivity to your voice:

We'll soon be adding a way to adjust the sensitivity of your Google assistants to prompts like "Hey Google" to help you better control unintentional activations or, if you prefer, help you more easily. particularly noisy environments.

And that's about all that society says. He did not specify when the adjustments will be made or nuanced, but it is still a welcome update. For example, if your voice-activated device is near an air conditioner or fan, it might be less likely to detect keywords. It's a similar story if you live in a big house and you often bark orders at Google Remote.

Although I did not have many problems with the assistant at home, I sometimes have to scream louder than I would have liked. I think the company currently avoids accidental detections, but as a person who uses voice commands quite frequently, I can afford if a "frugal" or an occasional "bugle" triggers the wizard.

The news was announced as part of a broader announcement about changes to the assistant's practices. Google (with Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.) has recently been criticized for its practices including the human examination of audio clips. Google said that only 0.2% of audio samples were listened to by language experts, and only by users who had opted for the Audio and Audio Activity parameter.

But until now, Google has mainly advertised this feature so that the wizard can better recognize your individual voice over time. The company said it plans to update the settings to emphasize more clearly that when you turn on AAV, it is possible for real humans to listen to your clips to improve the overall recognition of the assistants. As before, these snippets are anonymized and Google indicates that it will confirm your registration to the VAA service before using it for analysis purposes.

The company also announced that it would delete more of your data when it would become aware that the wizard had been inadvertently activated. In general, it plans to "significantly reduce" the amount of audio it stores, for example by removing all its associated with your account and dating back more than a few months.

As a reminder, you can delete your interaction with the wizard by following the steps described here. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see Google take steps to better manage voice data, as the use of voice assistants is expected to grow only in the coming years.

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