This much is clear: cellphone speech recognition is getting better fast. Very soon, we’ll do less talking through our phones — and more talking to them.]]>
Today, we’ve got an answer.
Apple has assembled a small team of notable names in speech technology and is looking to expand those efforts in the Boston area, industry sources tell Xconomy.
Based on their online job profiles, we can say that members of the Apple speech team here are working on Siri, the company’s voice-activated virtual assistant. Details beyond that are hard to come by, however, even for others in the field. Nuance is behind key technologies used in Siri (and Samsung's S-Voice). ]]>
• Google understands 100% of the questions (not surprisingly, since they are keyed in)
• Google replies accurately 86% of the time
• Siri comprehends 83% of queries in noisy conditions, 89% in a quiet room
• Siri answers accurately 62% of the time on the street and 68% in a quiet room.
"In order to become a viable mobile search alternative," Munster writes, "Siri must match or surpass Google's accuracy of B+ and move from a grade D to a B or higher." Hang on, Google is only accurate 86% of the time? Something is wrong on the internet.]]>
A cluster of lawsuits seeking class action status in Oakland, Calif., allege that iPhone 4S commercials and company statements about the phone were false and misleading. Siri, they say, is brilliant on TV, but she's dim in reality…
The plaintiffs don’t say how the advertisements are misleading, or how their personal experiences relate to those advertisements, Apple said. And if Siri so disappointed them, they could have — but did not, apparently — avail themselves of Apple’s 30-day return policy, the company said.]]>