Defective touch panel causes pre-release Google Home Mini devices to record at will

Some of the Google Home Mini units distributed before release to the tech press and at "Made By Google" events had a defective touch panel. The devices were meant to turn on recording only when the owner woke it up with "OK, Google" or applied a long press to the centre of the touch panels. Instead, the defect meant that the devices turned on recording thousands of times a day and attempted to respond to random noises rather than waiting for the "OK, Google" prompt or long press. The problem was discovered by Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii, who wrote a lengthy posting describing his experience with it. In response, Google rapidly rolled out a software update that disabled the long-press-to-talk functionality and removed any activity or queries that were created in the days before the update was released. A day later, the company announced it was permanently disabling the centre touch point functionality on all Home Minis.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/pre-release-google-home-mini-goes-rogue-starts-recording-247/
Writer: Ron Amadeo
Publication: Ars Technica
Publication date: 2017-10-12