Author: [email protected] (Charles Martin)

Amazon will soon disable users’ ability to process voice requests on-device. If you own an Echo smart speaker, it will soon lose a key privacy feature — and be replaced with cloud processing of all voice commands. Users of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker will soon receive an email from the company detailing changes to the device’s voice request processing. Beginning March 28, everything users say to Echo’s Alexa engine will be sent to Amazon. The move will disable local processing of voice requests in favor of a new Alexa+ feature called Amazon Voice ID, notes Ars Technica. This feature will allow Echo devices…