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Alexa is always listening but not continually recording.
But listening for wake words is harder than you might think.
Echo hardware isn’t all that intelligent.
Without the internet, any request or question you ask will fail.
This is because your commands are sent off to the cloud for interpretation and decisions.
For this reason, the company employs a wake word to get the smart speaker’s attention.
The Echo Dot, for instance, has seven.
The latter is especially helpful for wake word detection.
You see this in action whenever you use the wake word.
Stand to the side of an Echo or Echo Dot and say the wake word.
Now, move several steps to the side and say the wake word once again.
Notice the light-blue lights follow you.
Knowing where you are, helps the machine focus on you better andtune out noises coming from elsewhere.
Imagine you had a three-second cassette and a tape recorder.
Suppose after it reached the end, the tape looped back around to the beginning over and over.
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That’s what an Amazon Echo does.
It records continuously but wipes everything it just recorded at the same time.
Related:What Are Algorithms, and Why Do They Make People Uncomfortable?
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The idea is to cover every inflection and accent, but also the context.
The directional mics also assist with that goal.
With every word the Echo hears, it runs audio through layers of algorithms.
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Each layer is designed to rule out false positives, looking for sound-alikes or context clues.
If one layer check passes, the word goes to the next.
But even when a match occurs, Amazon still runs more complicated checks.
That’s because Amazon also does a cloud check.
The company runs the audio through similar pattern matching algorithms used to identify the wake word.
Once that exact instance is fully cataloged, it’s added to a database.
Additionally, Amazon checks for instances of the wake word spoken simultaneously.
Not every company submits audio to Amazon, so the company came up with a novel backup solution.
Despite all the checks, false positives do still occur.
