Collaborate Disseminate
A credible report explaining how Apple failed to capitalize on being first-to-market with Siri has triggered some fan fiction.
To access this post, you must purchase Premium Membership, Thurrott Premium – Yearly Subscription, Thurrott Premium – Monthl… Continue reading Siri Was Always Going to Fail (Premium)
Amazon expands Alexa’s capabilities by bringing new communication features to its app on tablets.
The post Amazon Brings Calling and Messaging to Alexa on Tablets appeared first on Thurrott.com.
Continue reading Amazon Brings Calling and Messaging to Alexa on Tablets
Cryptomining goes nuclear, YouTube for Kids gets scary, and TV ads have been given the green light to mess with your Amazon Alexa.
All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by computer security ve… Continue reading Smashing Security #065: Cryptominomania, Poppy, and your Amazon Alexa
Are the humble analogue transducers embedded in vast numbers of hidden sensors the next low-level technology in need of a security rethink? Continue reading Researchers warn of invisible attacks on electrical sensors
Sometimes a gadget like Alexa or Google Home is a solution looking for a problem. Then the problem you’ve been looking for hits you square in the face. I’ve confessed before that I have an oscilloscope problem. I also have a microcontroller development board habit. It appears now I have too many 3D printers. I recently finished building my latest one, an Anet A8 I picked up on Black Friday. While calibrating it, I found myself juggling a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and trying to operate the thing all at one time. I realized I had to come up …read more
It takes a surprising amount of planning and work if you want something to look old. [vemeT5ak] wanted the Echo Dot sitting on his desk to fit a different aesthetic motivated by a 1940s Canadian radio. Armed with Solidworks, a Tormach CNC, and some woodworking tools at Sector67 hackerspace, he built a retro-futuristic case for the Amazon Alexa-enabled gadget. Future and past meet thanks to the design and material appearance of the metal grille and base molding wrapping the wood radio case. The finishing touch is of course the ring of blue light which still shines through from the Echo …read more
Continue reading Amazon Echo Dot Upgraded to Retro Futuristic Look
[Zach Levine] wrote in to share a project just completed: a classic Furby packing a Raspberry Pi running Alexa: he calls it Furlexa.
The original Furby product wowed consumers of the 90s. In addition to animatronic movements, it also packed simulated voice learning technology that seemed to allow the Furby to learn to speak. It wasn’t like anything else on the market, and even got the toy banned from NSA’s facilities in case it could spy on them. Elegantly, the robot uses only one motor to move all of its parts, using a variety of plastic gears, levers, and cams …read more
So, your smart mirror has been running for a while, but Halloween is coming up and you want to come up with some cool Halloween stuff to display on the mirror. If you’re looking for ideas, check out [Ben Eagan]’s cool Haunted Smart Mirror which connects the mirror via a Raspberry Pi with Amazon Alexa and Phillips Hue lighting.
[Ben] points to another of his blog pages for those readers interested in the nuances of setting up Alexa with a smart mirror, while concentrating on communication with the Hue bridge and creating the setup for a new Alexa command in …read more
If you are looking around for a Halloween project, you might consider The Yorick Project from [ViennaMike]. As you can see in the video below, it marries a Raspberry Pi acting as an Amazon Alexa with an animatronic skull.
This isn’t the most technically demanding project, but it has a lot of potential for further hacking. The project includes a USB microphone, a servo controller, and an audio servo driver board. It looks like the audio servo board is controlling the jaw movement and based on the video, we wondered if you might do better running it completely in software. …read more
Continue reading Alas, Poor Yorick! He Hath Not Amazon Prime
What if your smartphone starts making calls, sending text messages, and browsing malicious websites on the Internet itself without even asking you?
This is no imaginations, as hackers can make this possible using your smartphone’s personal assistant l… Continue reading Hackers Can Silently Control Siri, Alexa & Other Voice Assistants Using Ultrasound
