News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by reaperducer on Friday May 22, 2020 @02:36PM (#23275399)
About once a week Siri and I have this conversation:

Me: "Siri, turn off the bedroom lights."

Siri: "OK. Your 6am alarm is off."

For the most part Siri works for me, with the exception of the above and her insistence on adding "ginger ale" to my grocery list as two items.

/Native English speaker, specifically trained in non-regional diction because I used to work on-air in radio.

Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by GloriousKoji on Friday May 22, 2020 @07:58PM (#23278486)
Me: "120 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius"

Siri: "Contacting emergency services in five seconds"

To be fair I was in a noisy environment and Siri only got the "120" part but seriously, why would that be okay? My phone is registered in America with an American phone number and English set as it's only language. Why should it think 120 is equivalent to 911?

Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by MereInterest on Friday May 22, 2020 @08:33PM (#23278681)
Looks like 120 is the emergency number for ambulances in China, emergency at sea in Norway, police in Guatemala, and national police in Bolivia [1]. Alternatively, maybe it interpreted "120 degrees Fahrenheit" as a body temperature reading for an extremely high fever?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_nu...

Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by reaperducer on Saturday May 23, 2020 @10:54AM (#23283428)
I was having problems with a phone service where I needed to "press 1 to continue," but it wasn't registering. Eventually I ended up pressing 112, and my iPhone displayed "Calling emergency services," even though it's an American phone in America.

I know some countries use 112, but that's too many edge cases colliding.

Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by fphhotchips on Saturday May 23, 2020 @12:12PM (#23284098)
In fairness here, 112 is an international standard (I think it's in the GSM spec?) and is expected to work in the US.
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by reaperducer on Saturday May 23, 2020 @03:01PM (#23285468)
I guess that makes sense. But it doesn't explain why the iPhone intercepted those digits when I was punching into a phone menu system.
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by ThePowerOfFuet on Friday May 22, 2020 @03:13PM (#23275785)
>Native English speaker, specifically trained in non-regional diction because I used to work on-air in radio.

Well there's your problem (/s): https://youtube.com/watch?v=Avp9aUkM5g0

Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by vagab0nd on Friday May 22, 2020 @05:00PM (#23276953)
It could be worse. It could have said "OK".
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by GilbertErik on Friday May 22, 2020 @07:16PM (#23278189)
In the past week:

me: "Hey Google, add half and half to the shopping list."

gh: "I've added those two things."

-----

me: "Set an alarm for 2:30 tomorrow"

gh: <generic alarm set response>

...

wife at 2:30AM: "hey... HEY... why's the alarm in the kitchen downstairs going off?"

Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by ddalex on Saturday May 23, 2020 @06:25AM (#23281766)
well you specifically said 2:30 tomorrow.. it sounds like it triggered at 2:30 next day

And never-mind the literal interpenetration of the command - it's far more usual to set up an alarm very early in the morning (got to catch a plane, unusual event) rather in the afternoon.

Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by GilbertErik on Saturday May 23, 2020 @10:57AM (#23283444)
Very true. I hadn't specified AM or PM as to when I wanted to start the dinner roast. :-/
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by garfieldnate on Saturday May 23, 2020 @05:49PM (#23286820)
It's nice to see that using siri is a normal thing to do :) People at work make fun of me for using it.
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by Lammy on Friday May 22, 2020 @03:10PM (#23275760)
That conversation sounds like Siri thinks you're about to go to sleep and wants to make sure you remember to enable your wake-up alarm.
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by mzz80 on Friday May 22, 2020 @03:38PM (#23276022)
No, that’s what Siri says when it disables your alarm lol.
Re:Siri, What Time Is It in London? by smabie on Friday May 22, 2020 @04:15PM (#23276438)
She wants you to get more sleep so she's disabling your alarm.