Source: The Verge
Smart assistants like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home make it easy to do things like add to a shopping list or play music with a simple voice command, but what about all those things you don’t want your device listening in on as it scans for activation words? A tool called Paranoid hopes to make it a little more difficult for Alexa or Google to spy. It connects to a smart speaker and prevents it from eavesdropping unless you tell it to. To disable the noise-blocking, say “Paranoid” before a device’s regular activation command.
Source: Digital Trends
A new Web browser extension from Microsoft, called Editor, aims to ensure that what you’re saying online is neither insensitive nor politically incorrect. Similar to an existing function in Microsoft Word, the AI-powered Editor will suggest an alternative to a gendered term: It may prompt you to type “police officer” instead of “policeman,” for example, or “person with a disability” instead of “disabled person.” The feature also flags potential plagiarism and works on popular websites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The increase in website hits across the Internet in March as social distancing and/or shelter-in-place orders swept the globe, according to tech research firm Omida.
Source: Forbes