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Google AI Privacy Software Hardware Technology

Google Home Now Recognizes Specific Users' Voices, Gains Support For Multiple Accounts (phonedog.com) 48

Posted by BeauHD from the full-potential-reached dept.
Google has issued a long-awaited feature for Google Home: support for multiple users. In an update rolling out today, up to six people will be able to connect their Google account to a Google Home, and the unit will try to distinguish each person's voice from the other users connected to the device. Therefore, each person will be able to get access to their schedule, playlists, and more. PhoneDog reports: Support for multiple users is rolling out in the U.S. now and will be available in the U.K. in the coming months. To know if the feature is available to you, launch the Google Home app and look for a card that says "Multi-user is available." You can also click the icon in the upper right corner, find your Google Home, and select "Link your account." From there, you'll train the Google Assistant to recognize your voice so that it knows it's you when you're talking and not the other people with connected accounts. You'll say "Ok Google" and "Hey Google" twice each.
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Google Home Now Recognizes Specific Users' Voices, Gains Support For Multiple Accounts More

Google Home Now Recognizes Specific Users' Voices, Gains Support For Multiple Accounts

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  • One question (Score:4, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday April 20, 2017 @07:23PM (#54273145)

    Is the "Burger King" user pre-installed?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      More like, was the Burger King ad campaign done in collusion with Google as stealth advertising for this new Google Home feature which must have been in development at the time.

  • Does anyone stop to think that Google could be a front for the NSA or other government entities and that many of these Google
    projects could involve ulterior motives ?

    Not that a government capable of things such as the Tuskegee Study or MK-Ultra or the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
    could possibly have evil intent, of course.

    • Of course not. Our government would NEVER lie to us!

    • Does anyone stop to think that Google could be a front for the NSA

      No. Why would they risk the (currently theoretical, but may someday happen) Congressional oversight on data use. As a private company, they have way more ability to abuse your data. And, if they ever wanted the NSA to fuck up your life, they could instead forward selected bits to them.

  • This discriminates against identical twins. Lawsuit pending. This is not a serious post.
  • The home is a place where brothers and sisters with really similar voices can live together. Since some parents have trouble distinguishing their children's voices, Google will have a hard time there.

    • Ohhh wow, I bet Google never thought of that! You should email them right away and let them know.

      • Ohhh wow, I bet Google never thought of that! You should email them right away and let them know.

        I never thought they could be unaware of the challenge. I am just skeptical about their chances of doing something that really works here.

    • Yeah, I've noticed that my mom and my aunt sound a lot alike.

  • Does it work if your voice changes due to having a cold? Does it work if you whisper? If you yell? Just curious.

    Sure I could probably google these questions but the tech is too new and does anyone else feel like its harder and harder to get the right info from google nowadays? For example I don't want results from 2011 at the top of the list when i'm searching for new tech stuff!! Eh I'm probably just bad at googling. Theres probably a shitload of google search commands that I dont know about. meh :|

  • I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that.

    • ...and no more "Hey Google - call an ambulance as this guy's having a heart attack" either.

      We're really at version 0.9 of this sort of tech. First they need to distinguish between a few known voices per device. Then they need to distinguish *every* voice, and not sorry which device those voices were heard on. Then they need to be able to act intelligently for any unknown voices - of course, one man's 'intelligent response' is another's 'complete bollocks'. After all that, they need to actually be able to do

      • ...and no more "Hey Google - call an ambulance as this guy's having a heart attack" either.

        We're really at version 0.9 of this sort of tech. First they need to distinguish between a few known voices per device. Then they need to distinguish *every* voice, and not sorry which device those voices were heard on. Then they need to be able to act intelligently for any unknown voices - of course, one man's 'intelligent response' is another's 'complete bollocks'. After all that, they need to actually be able to do something useful - really useful like "Hey Google, hold my calls unless they're important" - a human can do that quite easily, but it'll be a while before computers can. When they can though, we might be at v1.0. It's okay, I can wait ;-)

        Based on the product road map you've laid out, they would currently be closer to 0.1 than 0.9. Voice recognition has been around a long time. Cloud computing has just helped make it "smarter" by allowing multiple recognition engines to be run in parallel, with the most confident engine's interpretation being selected.

  • I'm surprised this is a new feature for the Home. Although it's not fool proof. It recognizes my older son as me most of the time.

  • If the Google Home doesn't identify a command as coming from any of the voices it "knows", does it ignore the input or does it follow the command anyway?

    It should do the former, but I'm betting on the latter.

  • The Echo has a code you use for different accounts and the Google Home (GH) just uses your voice.

    The Echo is really more of a computer interface and has you do the work and the GH is intelligent and far more human in how it does things.

    Really love the voice authentication with the GH as it makes so many use cases now possible.

    For example, in our home I prefer some of my kids to be unable to lower the AC thermostat. Now I can have some able to when they ask the GH in the kitchen and others are not able to.

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