The Throbbing Hive with Wits' John Moe: 'Shhh! The TV!'
February 10, 2015
Every Tuesday at 7:30am Wits host John Moe stops into the Morning Show to share the latest news in Technology.
This week, John Moe chatted with The Morning Show's Steve Seel and Jill Riley about how your Samsung smart TV is listening to what you're saying.
The Samsung smart TV is one of these new TVs that has voice command: "Show me Downton Abbey, show me The Walking Dead" or whatever it is you want to watch. But The Daily Beast recently looked at the Terms of Service a little bit closer to find out it reads:
"Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition."
Apparently, these Samsung TVs have been sending your words to a third party which can convert them into text.
Moe on the Samsung smart TV privacy policy:
"What's really creepy here — among the things that are really creepy here — is that Samsung hasn't said who this outside agency is. We find this out only after these TVs have been out for a while. I read a couple of pieces saying 'Oh, hey, calm down; it's not that big of a deal.' I think it's a big deal. I'm convinced that it is."
Moe also shares a lighter story about how the people at Fox ADHD have created a "scientifically accurate" theme song for Barney, which contains — in song — all the grisly details of what would likely occur should an omnivorous Tyrannosaurus Rex be allowed to mingle unsupervised with children.
John Moe hosts Wits at the Fitzgerald Theater. Check out video, photos and archived audio from previous shows and buy tickets for the current season at the Wits page. John also hosts the Home Dunk podcast from Infinite Guest.