Update 'content/topic/listening-with-the-pandemic.md'

content/topic/listening-with-the-pandemic.md

@@ -36,17 +36,17 @@ A world of pure touchlessness is a world in which every breath becomes an examin
 
 Wakewords were never going to last. They were always a trojan horse, designed to inveigle voice assistants into our homes and machine listening into our daily existence via a fantasy of consent. Their tendency is to disappear. In the future, machine listening will be wakewordless. Much of it is already. The smart city in particular is always listening; though the distribution of this listening is heavily stratified by, for instance, [race and class](https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/gun-violence-police-shotspotter/)]. Urban gunshot detection systems like Shot Spotter, and the microphones embedded in streetlamps [ref Aus] and traffic lights [ref], never sleep. Only personal devices retain the pretense. And not for long.
 
-In response to the pandemic, the latest OS update to Apple Watch will include a feature that uses "machine-learning models to determine motion, which appears to be hand-washing, and then use audio to confirm the sound of running water or squishing soap in your hands.” All this with a view to helping you "keep going for the amount of time recommended by global health organisations." [ref]
+In response to the pandemic, the latest OS update to Apple Watch will include a [feature](https://amp.abc.net.au/article/12383124?__twitter_impression=true "a watch that tells you when you can stop washing your hands") that uses "machine-learning models to determine motion, which appears to be hand-washing, and then use audio to confirm the sound of running water or squishing soap in your hands.” All this with a view to helping you "keep going for the amount of time recommended by global health organisations."
 
-Here is a future in which the wake word becomes something we do, a situation, environment or atmosphere. Our bodies will consent on our behalf. Maybe one day soon, it will be our tone of voice, or a cough. As wakewords wane, so the qualities of wakefulness expand. What it means for a microphone to be 'on' grows by the day. Already, my headphones know where I am listening, and adjust how I listen accordingly [ref Sony]. Though Google Assistant is built in, I never have to ask. And if I want to stop and talk to someone, they pause automatically to let in ambient sound. That way I never have to take them off.
+Here is a future in which the wake word becomes something we do, a situation, environment or atmosphere. Our bodies will consent on our behalf. Maybe one day soon, it will be our tone of voice, or a cough. As wakewords wane, so the qualities of wakefulness expand. What it means for a microphone to be 'on' grows by the day. Already, my headphones know where I am listening, and [adjust](https://www.sony.com.au/electronics/headband-headphones/wh-1000xm4#intelligent-tech "Smart listening technology to enhance your listening") how I listen accordingly. Though Google Assistant is built in, I never have to ask. And if I want to stop and talk to someone, they pause automatically to let in ambient sound. That way I never have to take them off.
 
 ## Ambient assisted living
 
 Of the many things the pandemic has clarified, one is that aged care homes are a microcosm worth paying attention to. By August 2020, 68% of Australia's Covid-related deaths were residents of aged care. In the UK, aged care residents are dying at three times the "normal rate". No surprise then that aged care is also a laboratory for smart homes and cities.
 
-In Google Home patents, elderly relatives are monitored like Tomagotchi pets [ref]. Systems send out suggestive prompts at opportune moments, reminding you to "Give your mother a call." Across the spectrum of this technological imaginary, from nursing homes to nurseries, care is automated, accident averted, and human touch is always the last resort. When ambient assisted living is generalized, it slips out of the the retirement village like a fog: it is the becoming retirement village of the world. Or as Amazon now calls it: Alexa Residential [ref].
+In Google Home patents, elderly relatives are monitored like Tomagotchi pets [ref]. Systems send out suggestive prompts at opportune moments, reminding you to "Give your mother a call." Across the spectrum of this technological imaginary, from nursing homes to nurseries, care is automated, accident averted, and human touch is always the last resort. When ambient assisted living is generalized, it slips out of the the retirement village like a fog: it is the becoming retirement village of the world. Or as Amazon now calls it: [Alexa for Residential](https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-for-residential "Delight your residents and improve your properties’ operational efficiencies").
 
-Big tech knows you can get away with things in assisted living facilities that you couldn't in the city outside. Or not yet anyway. Nursing homes and their residents are already socially isolated, already underfunded, already sites of exploitation and abuse: ready and waiting for a magic bullet offered out of the goodness of some billionaire's heart. This is a context in which companies can proclaim in all seriousness that "Continuous monitoring offers greater privacy," where automated care and the total surveillance it entails justifies the absence of human care as a new feature: *greater privacy* [ref website]. 
+Big tech knows you can get away with things in assisted living facilities that you couldn't in the city outside. Or not yet anyway. Nursing homes and their residents are already socially isolated, already underfunded, already sites of exploitation and abuse: ready and waiting for a magic bullet offered out of the goodness of some billionaire's heart. This is a context in which companies can proclaim in all seriousness that ["Continuous monitoring offers greater privacy"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf3y6vSKKY4&feature=emb_title "CLB Acoustic Monitoring"), where automated care and the total surveillance it entails justifies the absence of human care as a new feature: *greater privacy*. 
 
 For such an ambient sensing environment to work, this very environment must be designed and shaped with embedded cameras and microphones in mind. Every room becomes a studio. Background noise must be minimized to make objects and sounds a little more legible. And we know that such environmental design doesn't stop at objects and spaces: it reshapes our own patterns of speaking and living as we learn to enunciate with a cadence, accent and tone that an algorithm can understand.