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Comment by jchendy | Hacker News Reader

That actually seems kind of dangerous. It could cause people to pull out their phones to check whether the ad actually turned airplane mode on.

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siri has itself trained to a single user's voice. I've never had anyone else's voice activate my phone with "Hey Siri". Admittedly, it usually takes me saying "Hey Siri" 3 times before it recognizes my voice, but I'm 100% certain a radio ad would get no response from my phone.

Just want to chime in and say that I can activate my girlfriends iPhone by saying "Hey Siri" in a girly sounding voice. It's trained to only her voice but I can trigger it. So it's not foolproof as you make it seem.

My wife's phone regularly (maybe once a month), starts listening in response to me saying something, which isn't even "Hey Siri", despite never training with my voice. My voice does not sound anything like my wife's.

So, I think the error rate is simply not low enough to make conclusive claims about what it might or might not do.

Better stock up on those tinfoils.

It happens to me many times a day. I've b come acutely aware of how much I question other people because it activates when I say "Are you serious?"

Siri is definitely not trained to a single voice. And yes, the car radio can turn it on. I've had a podcast discussion of Siri trigger it. It became such a joke that some podcasters have another phrase they say when they mean "hey Siri".

Since the iPhone 6S, Hey Siri is activated by a dedicated chip in the SoC. This enables low-power real-time detection of trigger words. Before, Hey Siri only worked with phones in the process of charging, because it was done with software, so a lot less efficient.

These voice-activated chips can be trained (as seen in a lot of other phones), but I'm not sure the software-powered Siri can be trained.

"Trained" is a bit of a joke with voice-activation. I've never seen it matter in practice.

I think Google does for android. I often ask "wake me up in 15 minutes". I've seen the phone write 50 and immediately switch to 15.

trained to a particular voice ~= trained to a user's preferences!

Doesn't "trained" in the context of voice recognition mean something more like "better able to understand your voice" and not "able to exclude other voices."

As a sample of the alternate term, Merlin Mann's assorted podcasts generally use "Ahoy Telephone."

It has only been a feature since iOS 9: http://9to5mac.com/2015/09/11/os-9-siri-voice-recognition-tr...

I have an acquaintance by the name of Siri, hilarity ensues.

Doesn't she say something about "okay, turning off" when that happens?

If you watch the video you see that the ad actually answers the warning prompt with "Yes" as well.

It would only work if the iPhone was plugged into power AND they had turned on the capability for Siri to be activated by voice, which is limited to when the iPhone is plugged in.

I know Android users might not understand this limitation, but there it is.

The iPhone 6s, and the Apple Watch, are always listening (if enabled) for "Hey Siri", even on battery.

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