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In the months ahead, the company will add AI-powered voice search for its smart TVs and streaming players. While Roku's existing voice search can find specific programs, actors, or genres, the upgrade will allow for more conversational queries, such as "What's the Barbie movie about?" or "How scary is The Shining." It will also support follow-up questions.
Other forthcoming Roku features include a "What do you like to watch?" feature to tweak Roku's home screen recommendations, live scores in the Sports section, and a search function in Roku's live TV guide. Roku is also updating its recently-launched Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus to support private listening through Bluetooth headphones and earbuds.
TV-focused AI
Unlike rivals Amazon and Google, Roku isn't trying to launch an all-purpose AI that also happens to work on TVs. Roku doesn't sell its own smart speakers, and users primarily interact with voice control through the mic button on Roku remotes. The new AI-powered assistant will only respond to entertainment-related queries, Roku says.
"Even in this case, with us evolving Roku voice to now answer entertainment Q&A, we are specializing in a TV-related solution only," Amit Desai, Roku's director of product and UX for voice and conversational AI, told reporters. He added that the feature will use a combination of in-house and commercial AI technology.
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This morning, Microsoft's 365 Defender research team released details of a new macOS "Powerdir" vulnerability that allows an attacker to bypass transparency, consent, and control technology to gain unauthorized access to protected data.
Apple has already fixed vulnerability CVE-2021-30970 in the macOS Monterey 12.1 Update released in December, so users who have upgraded to the latest version of Monterey are protected. Those who haven't should update. Apple in its Security Release Notes for Update 12.1 confirmed the vulnerability of TCC and attributed its discovery to Microsoft.
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