Toyota ad hijacks Siri to switch off iPhones while driving

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1355388/clever-toyota-ad-hijacks-siri-switch-off-iphones-driving

by johansch • 11 years ago

125 106 11 years ago

marketingmagazine.co.uk

kaolinite2• 11 years ago

Clever? There are plenty of completely valid uses for having a phone on whilst driving - such as navigation, streaming music or using CarPlay. As an iPhone needs to be plugged in to use "Hey Siri", this will pretty much entirely affect people using their devices legitimately - whereas people driving with one hand whilst they make a phone call with the other will be unaffected.

This seems like it would be more likely to cause an accident as people have to divert attention from driving to mess with their phone so they can get navigation back (and having listened to the advert, I know I would be very distracted by it).

Finally, is this even legal? I have no idea of the law in Sweden (and IANAL) but I feel like you could make the point that this advert is interfering with your device without authorisation.

SloopJon• 11 years ago

Sounds to me like Toyota accessed thousands of computers without authorization.

jjoonathan2• 11 years ago

They're a corporation. Little people laws don't apply to them.

(Oh, how I long to be wrong on this, but I strongly suspect that nothing, or at least nothing that will make the campaign a net negative, will come of the fact that they violated the hell out of the CFAA.)

Animats• 11 years ago

We really need a case in which a corporate executive goes to jail for something like that.

matt_morgan• 11 years ago

Overreaction. Is it illegal for me to talk to your phone? To broadcast myself with a megaphone, in a crowd, and yell "Hey Siri, turn on airplane mode"?

Is it illegal for me to unplug your computer? Jerkish, sure, but illegal only, maybe, in very rare circumstances.

sneak5• 11 years ago

No, what causes the accident in your scenario is a driver illegally fucking with their phone while driving—not the ad that disabled their nav.

Don't misattribute the responsibility.

geon4• 11 years ago

Having the phone tucked away streaming music, or in a holder in turn-by-turn GPS mode is hardly "fucking with their phone while driving".

fao_• 11 years ago

You're assuming that someone who uses it for navigation or to stream music to listen to is 'fucking with their phone'. As either OP or one of the other comments on here noticed, it will not effect people who are talking on their mobile phone, only those who have left it plugged in; ie. those who are obeying the law will be penalized, while those who aren't remain a danger to others.

Calm 'the fuck' down.

Retra• 11 years ago

You can't use it as a passenger, either.

halviti• 11 years ago

A navigation device can be messed up for any number of reasons, but none of them are responsible for causing accidents.

The only thing that would cause an accident would be if the driver diverted his or her attention from the road instead of stopping the vehicle in a responsible manner.

Houshalter2• 11 years ago

Legally responsible? Of course not. Does that mean its a. Good idea to intentionally distract drivers, many of whom will look at and even pick up their phones while driving?

rancur• 11 years ago

Hey Siri

by the way, I don't like being made to interact with clunky robotic devices in a manner that suggests they might be human for the purpose of [marketing] making unintelligent plebians think 'wow that's cool'. If it's lifelike I'll use it like it's a personality, but otherwise it should just be a set of commands. Stop trying to confuse my socially inept brain

rebootthesystem3• 11 years ago

There are plenty of completely valid uses for having a phone on whilst driving - such as navigation, streaming music or using CarPlay

Valid? They are completely and utterly unnecessary. I was listening to music before the iPhone existed. I was also driving from point A to point B before GPS navigation existed. Funny, if you know how to read a map it you don't get lost.

No, these things are not necessary. It's one of those cases of "Just because you can <insert function> it doesn't mean you should".

Streaming Pandora while driving or using a shitty phone navigation system isn't a right. And certainly not one that is above the implied right to be safe on the road and responsibility to operate a vehicle in a manner that does not endanger the lives of others.

We are not entitled to use these toys while driving. Just because the features are there does not mean the driver MUST use them or IS ENTITLED to use them.

Let's start from the correct starting point: A driver should not interact with their phone in almost any way while driving. Everything else derives from there.

rebootthesystem3• 11 years ago

It would be fantastic if those down-voting this comment could explain why they think it is OK for somebody to place others in mortal danger for the "privilege" of playing with a toy while driving. And, in particular, I would like them to explain how they would feel about this if they lost a member of their family to some asshole texting while driving as my family has. It's easy to have a fucking opinion about everything when you are not exposed to the consequences of your ideas.

Matt3o12_4• 11 years ago

I don't think this is a particularly good idea because the first thing I'd do is switching it back one. I might miss an important call. And we have Siri and headsets to make calling while driving as secure as talking to a child while driving. So why would anyone turn the hands free functionality off and require the driver to pick up the phone and turn it on. This endangers driving, not using siri/Google voice whole driving.

tomjen32• 11 years ago

Actually couldn't you just tell siri to turn airplane mode off?

Also a good argument for not using a radio in a car, but that is mostly my own personal bias.

vbezhenar2• 11 years ago

Actually couldn't you just tell siri to turn airplane mode off?

Siri is a network service, it can't work locally.

coldtea5• 11 years ago

I might miss an important call.

OTOH, if you crash and die, you'll miss all calls. And the other passengers of the other car too.

Matt3o12_4• 11 years ago

Sure, but the chances of crashing are rather low if you use hands-free soft- and hardware (such as siri to control the call and a headset). If you believe these things should not be allowed, either, because there are too distracting, you should not let children ride with you because they tend to ask way more distracting questions then you saying ("Hey Siri, call XXX").

scrollaway3• 11 years ago

What a childish, fallacious argument ...

Parent wasn't talking about answering calls while on the road. Parent was referring to missing a call. If they need to have their phone on, that's completely reasonable. Maybe they're even an emergency driver. It doesn't mean they won't pull over when there's a call.

Having the phone on doesn't mean talking on the phone while driving. In fact, I'm pretty sure siri is disabled during phone calls, so this is a feel-good farce with very dangerous implications. One that's more likely to cause crashes than prevent them. Thankfully this happened in a low density country with safe roads.

sneak5• 11 years ago

They are not requiring the driver to do what you claim they are requiring the driver to do.

a3n2• 11 years ago

If the driver is going to pick up the phone and turn it on, he should first pull of the road as soon as it's safe. Just like any other interaction with a phone.

And when he gets home, complain to the national govt communication agency, and Toyota.

Matt3o12_4• 11 years ago

Except that you can't always pull over (e.g. in the city) and most people don't do it. In a perfect world, we would not need Siri handsfree but in reality, people are just too lazy and instead of making it too inconvenience for them to do something (so that they do something dangerous), we should rather give them safer (though not perfect) alternatives. Disabling them on purpose is just stupid and endangering.

rwallace• 11 years ago

And we have Siri and headsets to make calling while driving as secure as talking to a child while driving.

Apparently, headsets do not make calling while driving as safe as talking to a passenger while driving. If something happens, a passenger in the car with you will see it and instinctively shut up. Someone at the other end of the phone won't know anything is going on and will keep talking, keeping your attention distracted. Not for long, to be sure, but when you're behind the wheel of a car, half a second can easily make the difference between life and death.

Matt3o12_4• 11 years ago

That's a good point but remember that some passengers are not that good at keeping an eye on the row (I also often talk to a driver when I shouldn't without realizing it and he needs to shut me up).

But encouraging people to use safer alternatives is better then banning (or preventing) these alternatives because some people will always use a phone in the car. Remember that the average John Smith salesman who is about to use his phone to call his costumer doesn't immediately know how to turn off the airplane mode. He might be distracted for quite a while because he can't figure out why siri is not working. And if he is in a hurry, he will certainly not pull over!

MiguelHudnandez• 11 years ago

A clever idea with unintended consequences.

Now my docked phone in navigation mode is disabled, and I have to fumble for the airplane mode switch to then it back on, distracting me.

Or, my passenger, texting urgent details to someone else while plugged in to power, loses connection and doesn't realize. His message, "don't delete pied piper," never makes it to staff and a startup is ruined.

Or, the cell phone hidden the in the car by a jealous husband gets switched off, convincing him that the jig is up and an unstable situation turns grim.

Google and Apple should treat this as a security vulnerability. I think there were pranks related to Xbox voice control as well.

toxican• 11 years ago

I remember there was an xbox ad that had the unintended consequence of controller the viewer's xbox

sneak5• 11 years ago

As a driver, the only thing you have to do is pay complete attention to the road and drive safely. It is not Toyota's fault if you stop doing that to fuck with your phone, even if they disabled your nav.

StavrosK2• 11 years ago

"As a driver, the only thing you have to do is pay complete attention to the road and drive safely. It is not the company's fault if they played an ad that's just sirens and horns and people screaming, distracting you."

Killswitch• 11 years ago

And it's not Toyota's job to tell us what we should and shouldn't be doing while driving.

raldi• 11 years ago

If that's true, then why do Toyotas have radios?

geon4• 11 years ago

Xbox voice control trolling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTQlHJcrbPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWZLa4AnN5k

Vexs• 11 years ago

That's golden. It's like social engineering SQL injection. Fun stuff!

I wonder if there's any sort of sentence you can make that isn't actually "xbox shut off" but is interpreted by the xbox as such.

tedks• 11 years ago

If the OP is unauthorized access to a computer system this certainly is. Should these boys go to prison?

eeeeeeeeeeeee• 11 years ago

The "Hey Siri" feature is something that must be enabled, so that is one way to thwart this Toyota hacking attempt.

tomjen32• 11 years ago

This should be considered hacking, not to mention interfering with driving, as you know some people would start fiddeling with their phones (without thinking).

just_had_coffee• 11 years ago

I am a cyclist. I am always incredibly wary when I see drivers using their phones. Yes, this happens a lot, and yes I am in the habit of looking very carefully if drivers have seen me or not. Usually they don't and drive as if I don't exist – it's so frequent that I am nearly driven over, that I have become a rather defensive cyclist. But indeed, apart from random aggressive people (e.g., just yesterday on my way home from work, a car shaved past me at rather high speed (about 50-60km/h at 10cm max) with youths shouting at me) on of my biggest gripes is people who text at the wheel. It's insane.

(disclosure: I live in France, and as far as cycling culture/acceptance and infrastructure is concerned, this is a third-world country)

coldtea5• 11 years ago

I am a cyclist. I am always incredibly wary when I see drivers using their phones.

OTOH, I'm always wary when I see cyclists on roads where heavy boxes run with 40-80 miles per hour...

scrollaway3• 11 years ago

Where would you want cyclists to go exactly? Sidewalks filled with pedestrians? Not every road has a cycling path.

GFK_of_xmaspast• 11 years ago

If you're driving, you should always be wary whether or not there's any cyclists around.

Frondo4• 11 years ago

I know it's hard to accept sometimes, but the world changes. Cycling is becoming more prevelant in auto-dominated America, whether autoists think it should or not.

jedrek2• 11 years ago

Cycling on the road is literally the law in most of the west.

mzs2• 11 years ago

I've had drivers on phones see me at a red light and then almost turn into me. I've decided it's not enough they see me at some point. I've solved this by looking to see it is clear and going when all the directions are red. It's just safest to not be where they will be even though I am breaking the law.

georgerobinson2• 11 years ago

I spend most of the week in London, where cycling is an incredibly popular mode of transport given the slow buses, heaving tubes, and the more widespread push to exercise and be healthy.

A pedestrian myself, I've observed that the largest risk to cyclists appears to be either at the lights or in slow moving traffic.

This could be incorrect, but I think almost all mid-range cars come with parking sensors which alert drivers to objects around them. However, they typically only sense objects in front of or behind the vehicle.

Therefore, I think it would be great to extend parking sensors to provide 360 degree detection. As a driver, your car would be able tell you if there is a cyclist behind you, in your blind spot, stationary or moving - all without having to take your concentration of the road ahead - including pedestrians who choose to jump out right in front of you.

I don't know if this is present in executive cars, such as the Mercedes E/S class, however, it would be an amazing kit to have, and I think it should be a legal requirement on all busses and HGVs - the single largest cause of accidents between cyclists and vehicles.

matthewmacleod• 11 years ago

Please stop fucking doing that. The number of times I've nearly been hit by other cyclists, who no doubt also "looked to see if it was clear", is terrifying.

pkkim• 11 years ago

Funny phrasing. I usually think of third world countries as having drivers who are more aware of cyclists, and more bike-friendly roads in general. ;)

zzleeper• 11 years ago

Same here but in the US. I can actually spot them as they drive like faux drunk drivers. Driving at weird speeds, swerving a bit, etc. and then when they get close enough, "yep, just texting!".

I hope in 10 years people using their phones while driving will be seen on the same scale as drunk driving. At least drunk drivers keep their eyes on the road...

mcintyre19942• 11 years ago

As a cyclist, I definitely agree with you - but this applies to other cyclists too. One of the most ridiculously dangerous things I regularly see is someone I'm cycling behind in a narrow cycle lane suddenly slowing to walking pace to answer their phone like an idiot. Most of these cycle lanes don't really have enough room to safely overtake if the road alongside is busy (at least without probably panicking a driver and causing issues there) so it's really annoying and stupid.

That said, yea - anyone in a car not paying attention are lethal, it's not easy to predict what someone is going to do even at 30mph if they act like they have the whole road to themselves.

vbezhenar2• 11 years ago

Hey, Windows! Format C colon slash y enter

That was a joke many years ago. Not so joke today?

DanBC• 11 years ago

Funnier was to label a disc with ANSI commands. Anyone doing a directory listing would end up with blinking text or garish colours.

brobinson2• 11 years ago

I used my iPhone for turn-by-turn directions because it was far superior to the navigation functionality built into my car. This ad could potentially have caused me to have to interact with my phone while driving to disable airplane mode and allow me to resume navigation.

sneak5• 11 years ago

No, it cannot cause that. You may illegally choose to then grab your phone while driving to fiddle with the settings, but that is your own reckless and negligent choice.

viraptor3• 11 years ago

It may definitely cause you to drive around in unknown area while trying to figure out where you can stop to turn the navigation back on. If you're on a motorway, that may be an additional 20+ miles until you can stop safely.

If it happens to kill your navigation, it's going to cause a lot of unnecessary distraction. Whether you decide to turn it on again while driving or wait until you can stop.

brobinson2• 11 years ago

I don't think it's illegal to manipulate your phone while driving anywhere I've lived, though it was illegal to text or talk without using a hands-free device.

jamesbrownuhh• 11 years ago

'The ad relies on the fact that an iPhone, if plugged in and charging, will wake up on the voice command "Hey Siri"'

-- actually, an iPhone will only respond to Hey Siri if you have _explicitly_ turned that feature on - it's not enabled by default and I would imagine that the vast majority of people wouldn't have bothered.

mukyu• 11 years ago

They think it is a world first, there there was an Xbox one ad[0] that was doing this over a year ago. They could have easily found it just googling "voice command ad" or similar.

[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/16/aaron-paul-xbox-one...

coldtea5• 11 years ago

Let's be clear: this is more an ad to cause people to think of/buy Toyota than an actual thing that worked.

What we saw in the ad is an ideal situation for the mechanism.

Only a miniscule amount of iPhones will be affected by this. In real life, iPhones won't be plugged in, won't have Hello Siri enabled (an explicit thing to do), won't be turned to a station that plays the ad, and so on.

RRRA• 11 years ago

So what is the shortest wav that can disable both iOS and Android? ;)

joshstrange2• 11 years ago

iOS: Settings -> General -> Siri -> Toggle "Allow 'Hey Siri'"

delish• 11 years ago

Many comments are saying, "This ad exposed people to danger."

Zooming out, lots of ads expose people many kinds of danger. It's easier to criticize this ad because the danger-connection is obvious. It's harder to run robust thought-experiments about the effect of thousands of unhealthy food ads (or gambling ads, smoking ads, 411 scams, credit card offers). But the (speaking unscientifically) aggregate millions of extra calories consumed is a big deal.

So saying, "Toyota shouldn't've done this" neglects wider contexts.

neotek• 11 years ago

This is the advertising equivalent of clickbait - make a video about an ad which maybe ran a handful of times, if it even aired at all, in the hopes of that video going viral and stimulating press coverage.

Pizza Hut recently did something similar with their pizza box projector[1], a fun little idea which ultimately probably only directly reached a few hundred customers but which millions of people around the world read an article about.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com.au/pizza-hut-box-turns-into-m...

imd23• 11 years ago

I ended up in a river because of switching a Spotify playlist. It was a miracle that saved my friends and me. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, PUT YOUR PHONE AWAY WHILE DRIVING. NOTHING, NOTHING CAN'T BE MORE IMPORTANT IN THOSE MINUTES YOU DRIVE THAT YOUR OR OTHER PEOPLES' LIFE. Want to check your phone? stop, check it and continue.

rsync• 11 years ago

"I ended up in a river because of switching a Spotify playlist."

That is a profound level of incompetence along a number of dimensions. Obligatory: ThisIsWhyWeCan'tHaveNiceThings.

Houshalter2• 11 years ago

Tons of people have gotten in accidents doing things like adjusting the radio or air conditioning. Your car travels 88 feet blind every second you are distracted.

tzakrajs• 11 years ago

Highly suggest using Siri on a mounted device where you can say "Hey Siri" without taking your eyes from the road and speak your command. I am not sure if it is compatible with Spotify playlists but can give you a lot of power behind the wheel without compromising on safety.

eyeareque• 11 years ago

This makes me wonder, does the "hey Siri" recognition happen on the phone or on their servers? If it happens on the server does that mean that it's secretly uploading a recording of everything I say?

kaolinite2• 11 years ago

No, it's 100% local. Even ignoring the privacy concerns of uploading everything you say, it would simply use too much data.

You also need to opt-in: it's turned off by default and can be enabled by going to Settings > General > Siri > Allow "Hey Siri."

thisjepisje• 11 years ago

"Toyota makes front page of HN with silly gimmick"

wrs• 11 years ago

I can't find it now, but I'm certain I saw a story about a late-night television infomercial that used "OK Google" to dial a premium long distance number. As I recall, the show was pulled off the air in minutes.

nnutter• 11 years ago

My phone got part way through the process while watching the video. The lock screen prevented it from working.

vmarsy• 11 years ago

I have the same issue with my Xbox one: If a commercial on TV says :"now available on Xbox one", the Xbox interprets "Xbox one" as "Xbox ON" and turn on by itself.

But here this is a malicious use of the feature. It doesn't even assume there might be other people in the car. I wouldn't be surprised if people start boycotting Toyotas if they get disturbed by this stupid ad.

I noticed on windows 10 you can switch Cortana to "recognize my voice". This would fix the problem for anyone with a voice sufficiently different from the ad

gtirloni• 11 years ago

If a GPS system needs my 3G/4G connection to work, I'm not using it. Period.

Clever ad, btw. It's not like they are running this every day to enforce some law. It might be a little distraction (on top of the other 200 distraction/minute you get while driving) but it's good press, and for a good reason.

rebootthesystem3• 11 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rClJW9gnchc

I wish there was something one could do every time we see someone staring at their phone while driving. I've seen it so many times. I wonder how many accidents those people have caused.

Frankly, the problem does have a technological solution. Is there no interest on the part of companies like Apple to fix the problem? I wonder how many people have been killed by iPhones and other "smart" phones?

One of the first things I noticed about smart phones was just how much more of your attention and focus they require for normal use. I've owned cellphones dating back to when they were the size of a shoe-box, including many Blackberry's. The last Blackberry I owned could be used with one hand. In fact, most everything I needed to do could be done with my thumb by using the rotary encoder on the side.

The minute we went to touch screens things changed radically. Usability, from a certain perspective, suffered greatly. A touch interface is inherently fragile. With physical buttons you know what you are touching without looking. You can learn shape and location based cues that do not require looking at the phone. A touch interface cannot be explored. If you touch the screen a mm this way or that way you can make an absolute mess out of things. A touch interface requires that you look at he phone and focus on it intently enough that your brain task switches during that time.

My own test is what I call the "Mom and Dad Test". I can deal with my kids in the back seat and retain far more attention on the road and my surroundings than when I have to look at and interact with a smart phone. The act of operating a smart phone, reading small type, locating buttons, menu's, understating state and then precisely touching small controls, seems to require far more CPU cycles than most other distractions.

Of course, I haven't conducted any studies. This isn't my field. This is just conjecture and one data point. Having one teenage kid now driving we had to make sure we pounded the "don't use the phone while driving" message into his head. It's scary, actually. And, it is also scary to realize that you could be perfectly responsible while someone in another car might plow into you because they were focusing on a small little button on their iPhone to be able to click it.

I hate government over-regulation and the insertion into our lives. However, this might just be a case where a law or mandate is required. It needs to be simple. We don't need a new government agency with 100,000 employees and 50,000 pages of rules. It can be stated very clearly: By the year 2020 car drivers should not be able to use their phones while the vehicle is in motion. Let car and phone manufacturers figure out how to accomplish this feat. If it means nobody in the car can use their phone.

One of the arguments being made is that for navigation. Frankly, I hate using navigation on my iPhone. It goes back to the fragility of the interface. I have a dedicated GPS unit on the dashboard. It's pretty hard to screw up and it is pretty much immune to fumbling. The using Apple/Google for navigation on the iPhone can fall pray to the issues and fragility of a touch screen system with a pile of unrelated apps.

How many of you are willing to lose your kids or your own life to the issues introduced by smart phones while driving? Right.

Apple has enough money to figure out how to solve this problem. They need to solve this problem.

Toyota ad hijacks Siri to switch off iPhones while driving

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