Video calling apps listen when the microphone is off, according to a study
25/04/2022A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) has determined that video conferencing applications can continue accessing audio data even if the user has disabled the microphone. To demonstrate this, they have studied the most popular video conferencing applications and have analyzed the behavior of the mute button until they has determined that all the applications that they has tested whether the microphone was open or closed, occasionally collected raw data and delivered it to the servers of their services. In their research they have worked with binary analysis tools to see how the audio was transferred from the application to the audio drivers of the computers and then to the network. They aslo have created, through machine learning models ( 'machine learning'), a classifier of daily activities that, with 82% accuracy, has determined which activities users were doing while their microphones were, theoretically, silenced. In relation to this, the authors of this work recall that beyond muting the microphone, you can turn off the microphone of a device through the settings menu, a safer option to limit access to confidential information and sensitive data. All the conclusions of this study will be known next July in the Privacy Improvement Technologies Symposium.
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Google Maps will use AI to update store hours
14/04/2022Google Maps will update the hours of more than 20 million businesses around the world in the next six months. To do this, they will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a self-developed machine learning model, which identifies shop hours that are not updated. Through this system, the AI will update the hours according to itsel predictions based on parameters such the last update of the shop's profile, the hours of nearby stores and the busiest hours in that location. In addition, the algorithm will take datas from Google Business, information from the store's website, if it has one, and images from Street View. In some countries, Google will also use Google Duplex conversational AI technology to make calls with the quality of a human voice to the stores and confirm their opening hours. In this list of countries, France will be the only European country where the telephone verification will be carried out. The rest of the countries are Argentina, Australia, Chile, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and the United States.
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