Tech

Reviews Of The New HomePod Reveal The Tech Media Has Work To Do In Appreciating Accessibility

Published

2 years ago

February 1, 2023

The advent of the second generation HomePod brings with it yet another opportunity to acknowledge the smart speaker’s accessibility to people with disabilities. Besides ecosystem-centric amenities like Handoff, Apple supports a bevy of accessibility features in the device; they include VoiceOver, Touch Accommodations, and much more. This is an important distinction to point out, as I’ve done in this space before. This column is precisely the forum for it.

It’s important to mention because, quite frankly, most reviewers fail to do so.

As a lifelong stutterer who has always felt digital assistants—and by extension, smart speakers—are exclusionary due to its voice-first interface paradigm, it disheartens me to see my peers in the reviewer racket continually undervalue the actual speech component of using these devices. It’s understandable—it’s difficult, if not downright impossible, to consider a perspective which you cannot fully comprehend. Yet there is room for empathy—and really, empathy is ultimately what earnest DEI initiatives are meant to reflect—with regards to how privileged it is for the majority of journalists (and their readers) to effortlessly shout into the ether and have Alexa or Siri or the Google Assistant swiftly spring into action.

Look no further than the embargoed HomePod 2 reviews that dropped earlier this week ahead of the product’s general availability starting on Friday. Every single one of them, whether in print or on YouTube, focuses solely on the sound quality. While perfectly sensible to do so, it’s cringeworthy to watch everyone utter not a single word about the speaker’s accessibility features or how verbally accessible Siri may be to someone with a speech delay. Again, expertise is hard—but empathy is not. Put another way, there are very real and very important characteristics of Apple’s new smart speaker that largely go ignored because it’s presumed (albeit rightly so, given how language models are typically trained) that a person is able to competently communicate with the thing. The elephant in the room is there’s far more to tell concerning the HomePod’s story. It’s counterintuitive to most, but it isn’t all about sound quality or smarts or computational audio or ecosystem.

Of course, the responsibility rests not on the tech press alone. Smart speaker makers in Apple, Amazon, Google, Sonos, and others all have to do their part on a technical level such that using a HomePod is a more accessible experience for those with speech impairments. Back in early October, I reported on tech heavyweights Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft coming together “in a way that would make Voltron blush” on an initiative with the University of Illinois to help make voice-centric products more accessible to people with speech disabilities. The project, called the Speech Accessibility Project, is described as “a new research initiative to make voice recognition technology more useful for people with a range of diverse speech patterns and disabilities.” The essential idea here is current speech models favor typical speech, which makes sense for the masses, but which critically leaves out those who speak using atypical speech patterns. Thus, it’s imperative for engineers to make the technology as inclusive as possible by feeding the artificial intelligence the most diverse dataset possible.

“There are millions of Americans who have speech differences or disabilities. Most of us interact with digital assistants fairly seamlessly, but for folks with less intelligible speech, there can be a barrier to access,” Clarion Mendes, a clinical professor in speech and hearing science and a speech-language pathologist, told me in an interview ahead of my report from October. “This initiative [the Speech Accessibility Project] lessens the digital divide for individuals with disabilities. Increasing access and breaking down barriers means improved quality of life and increased independence. As we embark on this project, the voices and needs of folks in the disability community will be paramount as they share their feedback.”

Astute readers will note what Mendes ultimately expresses: empathy!

It should be stressed the thrust of this piece is not to throw my colleagues and friends under the bus and denigrate their work. They aren’t unfeeling people. The thrust here is simply that, as a stutterer, I feel extremely marginalized and underrepresented when I watch, say, MKBHD hurl rapid-fire commands at Siri or another without trouble. By and large, the smart speaker category has long felt exclusionary to me for the speech issue alone. The uneasiness doesn’t go away just because Apple’s HomePod line sounds great and fits nicely with my use of HomeKit. These are issues Apple (and its contemporaries) must reckon with in the long-term to create the most well-rounded digital assistant experience possible. Software tools like Siri Pause Time, a feature new to iOS 16 that allows users to tell Siri how long to wait until a person stops speaking to respond, is limited in its true effectiveness. The problem is, it sidesteps the problem rather than meet it at the source. It puts a band-aid on something that requires more intricate treatment.

All told, what the new HomePod reviews illustrate so well is the fact the technology media still has a ways to go yet—despite making big strides in recent times—in truly embracing accessibility as a core component of everyday coverage. The expectation shouldn’t be to ask mainstream reviewers to suddenly become experts at assistive technologies to assess stuff; that’s unrealistic. What is highly realistic, however, is to carry an expectation that editors and writers would seek the knowledge they don’t have. It’s conceptually (and practically) no different than an outlet investing in other social justice reporting—in the AAPI and Black communities, for example, especially important nowadays given recent events.

If reviewers can endlessly lament the perceived idiocy of Siri, it isn’t a stretch to acknowledge the adjacency of Siri’s lack of gracefulness in parsing atypical speech. Moreover, it shouldn’t be akin to pulling teeth to ask newspeople to consider regularly running more nuanced takes on products alongside the more overviewing ones. The disability viewpoint is not esoteric; it matters. It’s long past time disability inclusion (and disabled reporters) figure prominently at the tech desks of newsrooms the world over. Accessibility deserves a seat at the table too.

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Tech

Ottawa orders TikTok’s Canadian arm to be dissolved

Published

9 hours ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

The federal government is ordering the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business after a national security review of the Chinese company behind the social media platform, but stopped short of ordering people to stay off the app.

Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the government’s “wind up” demand Wednesday, saying it is meant to address “risks” related to ByteDance Ltd.’s establishment of TikTok Technology Canada Inc.

“The decision was based on the information and evidence collected over the course of the review and on the advice of Canada’s security and intelligence community and other government partners,” he said in a statement.

The announcement added that the government is not blocking Canadians’ access to the TikTok application or their ability to create content.

However, it urged people to “adopt good cybersecurity practices and assess the possible risks of using social media platforms and applications, including how their information is likely to be protected, managed, used and shared by foreign actors, as well as to be aware of which country’s laws apply.”

Champagne’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment seeking details about what evidence led to the government’s dissolution demand, how long ByteDance has to comply and why the app is not being banned.

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that the shutdown of its Canadian offices will mean the loss of hundreds of well-paying local jobs.

“We will challenge this order in court,” the spokesperson said.

“The TikTok platform will remain available for creators to find an audience, explore new interests and for businesses to thrive.”

The federal Liberals ordered a national security review of TikTok in September 2023, but it was not public knowledge until The Canadian Press reported in March that it was investigating the company.

At the time, it said the review was based on the expansion of a business, which it said constituted the establishment of a new Canadian entity. It declined to provide any further details about what expansion it was reviewing.

A government database showed a notification of new business from TikTok in June 2023. It said Network Sense Ventures Ltd. in Toronto and Vancouver would engage in “marketing, advertising, and content/creator development activities in relation to the use of the TikTok app in Canada.”

Even before the review, ByteDance and TikTok were lightning rod for privacy and safety concerns because Chinese national security laws compel organizations in the country to assist with intelligence gathering.

Such concerns led the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill in March designed to ban TikTok unless its China-based owner sells its stake in the business.

Champagne’s office has maintained Canada’s review was not related to the U.S. bill, which has yet to pass.

Canada’s review was carried out through the Investment Canada Act, which allows the government to investigate any foreign investment with potential to might harm national security.

While cabinet can make investors sell parts of the business or shares, Champagne has said the act doesn’t allow him to disclose details of the review.

Wednesday’s dissolution order was made in accordance with the act.

The federal government banned TikTok from its mobile devices in February 2023 following the launch of an investigation into the company by federal and provincial privacy commissioners.

— With files from Anja Karadeglija in Ottawa

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

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Health

Here is how to prepare your online accounts for when you die

Published

2 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Anne Joseph

LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?

It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.

Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:

Apple

The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.

For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.

You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.

Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.

Google

Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.

When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.

You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.

There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.

Facebook and Instagram

Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.

When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.

The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.

You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.

TikTok

The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.

Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.

It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.

Passwords

Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?

Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.

But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.

___

Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.

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Tech

Google’s partnership with AI startup Anthropic faces a UK competition investigation

Published

2 weeks ago

October 24, 2024

Anne Joseph

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it’s opening a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it has “sufficient information” to launch an initial probe after it sought input earlier this year on whether the deal would stifle competition.

The CMA has until Dec. 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.

“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said. “Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot named Claude.

Anthropic said it’s cooperating with the regulator and will provide “the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” it said in a statement.

The U.K. regulator has been scrutinizing a raft of AI deals as investment money floods into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month it cleared Anthropic’s $4 billion deal with Amazon and it has also signed off on Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.

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