How do I stop my HTC One M8 from making random calls and self-launching apps?

[AC Question]

HTC One M8 - Random calls and self-launching apps

My son has an HTC One M8. It just started making random calls over and over to the same numbers (the number it calls varies). It is also launching apps all by itself. The last issue is it shutdowns down the music app for no reason. It is a T-Mobile purchased phone if that makes a difference. Any ideas are much appreciated.

 

[VidJunky]

Re: HTC One M8 - Random calls and self-launching apps

It sounds like voice activation from Google Now. Do you know if he enabled Google Now from any screen or Google Now from any screen and the lock screen? If so have him retrain the voice recognition in the Google Now settings. I don't think they come enabled by default because you have to train it the first time. Ask him if he was ever prompted to say OK Google 3 times? With Google Now you can open apps, make calls and search the phone and internet without touching the screen.

If this is happening randomly without Google Now it could be a launcher, so ask him if he's running a third party launcher like Go Launcher or Nova Launcher. I don't know what the trigger would be for either of those but a lot of launchers are offering voice activation. So noisy areas or radio and tv sound could be waking the device and causing these unusual commands.

Aside from those two I suppose it could be app related, but besides a launcher I don't know of an app that causes voice activation.