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In the IoT world, intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) is a popular service to interact with users based on voice command. For optimal performance and efficient data management, famous IVAs like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant usually…
Since being launched in 2014, Alexa, Amazon's versatile cloud-based voice service, is now active in over 100 million households worldwide. Alexa's user-friendly, personalized vocal experience offers customers a more natural way of…
Parental control apps, which are mobile apps that allow parents to monitor and restrict their children's activities online, are becoming increasingly adopted by parents as a means of safeguarding their children's online safety. However, it…
Supporting older adults in health self-management is crucial for promoting independent aging, particularly given the growing strain on healthcare systems. While voice assistants (VAs) hold the potential to support aging in place, they often…
Individuals increasingly face an overwhelming number of tasks and decisions. To cope with the new reality, there is growing research interest in developing intelligent agents that can effectively assist people across various aspects of…
Virtual personal assistants (VPA) (e.g., Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant) today mostly rely on the voice channel to communicate with their users, which however is known to be vulnerable, lacking proper authentication. The rapid growth of…
While voice user interfaces offer increased accessibility due to hands-free and eyes-free interactions, older adults often have challenges such as constructing structured requests and perceiving how such devices operate. Voice-first user…
While Alexa can perform over 100,000 skills on paper, its capability covers only a fraction of what is possible on the web. To reach the full potential of an assistant, it is desirable that individuals can create skills to automate their…
Intelligent conversational agents and virtual assistants, such as chatbots and voice assistants, have the potential of augmenting health service capacity to screen symptoms and deliver healthcare interventions. In this paper, we developed…
The widespread use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) among teenagers has led to significant misuse and safety concerns. To identify risks and understand parental controls challenges, we conducted a content analysis on Reddit and…
We present Alexa versus Alexa (AvA), a novel attack that leverages audio files containing voice commands and audio reproduction methods in an offensive fashion, to gain control of Amazon Echo devices for a prolonged amount of time. AvA…
Personal voice assistants (VAs) are shown to be vulnerable against record-and-replay, and other acoustic attacks which allow an adversary to gain unauthorized control of connected devices within a smart home. Existing defenses either lack…
Modern conversational agents such as Alexa and Google Assistant represent significant progress in speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech synthesis. But as these agents have grown more realistic, concerns have been…
Visual Programming Tools (VPTs) allow users to create interactive media projects such as games and animations using visual representations of programming concepts. Although VPTs have been shown to have huge potential for teaching children…
Voice assistants have become quite popular lately while in parallel they are an important part of smarthome systems. Through their voice assistants, users can perform various tasks, control other devices and enjoy third party services. The…
Smart voice assistants (SVAs) are embedded in the daily lives of youth, yet their privacy controls often remain opaque and difficult to manage. Through five semi-structured focus groups (N=26) with young Canadians (ages 16-24), we…
Many Internet of Things (IoT) devices have voice user interfaces (VUIs). One of the most popular VUIs is Amazon's Alexa, which supports more than 47,000 third-party applications ("skills"). We study how Alexa's integration of these skills…
Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the number of underage users in virtual reality (VR), where security and privacy (S\&P) risks such as data surveillance and self-disclosure in social interaction have been increasingly prominent.…
Advances in voice technology and voice user interfaces (VUIs) -- such as Alexa, Siri, and Google Home -- have opened up the potential for many new types of interaction. However, despite the potential of these devices reflected by the…
Conversational agents (CAs) embodied in speakers or chatbots are becoming very popular in some countries, and despite their adult-centred design, they have become part of children's lives, generating a need for children-centric trustworthy…