There may actually be something to always-listening devices, after all.
Apple’s Siri voice assistant is being credited with helping to save the life of an Australian toddler who unexpectedly stopped breathing.
When a mother in Australia discovered her one-year-old daughter had stopped breathing and was turning blue, according to a report in Yahoo Australia, she enlisted Siri to call for help.
The mother, Stacey Gleeson, apparently had to use the “Hey Siri” voice function because her iPhone was out of reach.
Gleeson told Yahoo that she dropped her phone as she ran to check on her daughter (she’d noticed her child’s condition over a baby monitor). When Gleeson realized she didn’t have the phone in her hand, she called out “Hey Siri, call the ambulance.”
Siri did its job, and an ambulance arrived in time to help revive Gleeson’s daughter, whom, Yahoo says, is now doing fine.
The happy tale serves as a reminder of why you might actually want to turn on “Hey Siri” on your iPhone and “OK, Google” on your Android device. If you haven’t enabled voice features in your phone, you’ll find them under the Google app on your Android phone and under Settings/General/Siri on your iPhone.
In case you’re wondering, Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, which lives on Amazon Echo and other third-party devices cannot call an ambulance… yet.
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