6 12 - 25 June 2019
A
lexa appearsto be
listening to users’
concernsover
privacy, so much so that
Amazon has set up a new
Alexa Privacy Hubto
explain howyour voice
record ings are taken
and handled. Itfollows
concerns that the
company’s employees
are askedto review
record ings to verify that
Alexa is correctly
understanding them.
The hub shows you
what happens whenyou
utter thewake word, explains the
purpose of the blue light indicator on
your Echo speaker andexplains how
to turn the microphone and camera
controls on and off. More importantly,
it pointsyou towards Ale xa’s privacy
settings, whereyou’ll be ableto
reviewyour voice history, manage skillbit.ly/petswap
Ever wondered how your pets would look if their faces were
transpla nted onto another species? Nvidi a’s new algorithm,
uses a technology called FUNIT and its own “imagination”
to make this animal makeover possible. Simply upload a
photo of your pet, dr aw a rectangle aroundits head and
click Translate for the bizarre results.
It’s possible to try a similar trick on your own face using
Snap chat’s new gender-swap filters: position yourself on
screen, tap the smiling face and select the male or female
icon to see how you’d look as a memberof th e opposite sex.
bit.ly/excel
It’s inevitable your hear t
will si nk when faced with
inputting reams of data
into a spreadsheet, but a
new upda te to Microsoft
Excel for Andr oid is su re
to put you in a better
mood. You can now take
a photo of a set of data
and convert it into
editable rows and
columns. It’s even
possible to preview the
captured data so that
corrections can be made
before it’s inse rted into yo ur workbook.
To get started, open a new file and tap the ‘Insert Data
from Picture’ icon (a tiny image of a camera) at the bottom
of th e screen. Position your mobile’s camera over a set of
data and determin e what information should be captured
using a red rectangle. You can then tap Capture, make
alterations and tap Insert when you’re happy. The feat ure
should be available in the iOS app by the ti me you read this.permissions and decide whether or not
you wishto allow Amazon access to
your record ings for the purpose of
improving Alexa’s features.
On top of that, Alexa will also let you
delete the day’s recordings simply by
saying, “Alexa, delete everythingI said
today”. This must be activate d first bygoing to Settings, Alexa Account,
Alexa Privacy, Review Voice Histor y
and toggling Enable Deletion By
Voice. It’s not availablein the UK yet,
but you can find out how to manually
eras e Alexa voice recordings in our
workshop on page 56.
bit.ly/alexaprivacyManage Alexa’s privacy settings
See what your dog would
look like as a cat
Convert a photo of data
into a spreadsheet