Pinboard (guardiantech)

Siri vs. the Android - the sequel >> NYTimes.com

guardiantech — 2013-08-21T10:21:40+00:00

David Pogue:

Though Siri has the edge, the gap has closed substantially, and both systems are rapidly improving. For example, until recently Android had no phone-control features at all — only Web searches. And in this fall’s iOS 7 update, Siri will gain a more pleasant speaking voice, faster searches and the ability to change settings by voice (“Turn on Airplane Mode,” “Turn up the brightness,” “Turn on Bluetooth”) — something neither phone can do now.
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.

Intel brings voice search to ultrabooks >> ZDNet

guardiantech — 2012-09-16T21:00:41+00:00

By partnering with voice specialist Nuance, Intel will let ultrabook buyers use speech to control their laptop, Dadi Perlmutter, general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, said in a keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco on Tuesday.
In an onstage demonstration, attendees saw an Intel developer instruct a Dell XPS ultrabook to search the web, look up a product on Amazon, tweet a link to it, and then play some music. All of this was done with voice control.
The software "is running native on the platform. This is not a cloud service, this requires the high-performing CPU and the capabilities inside", Perlmutter said. Intel has worked with Nuance to tune the application for its processors to maximise performance, he said.

Hands up who wants it? (And: Nuance must be coining it.)

Goldman Sachs and a sale gone horribly awry >> NYTimes.com

guardiantech — 2012-07-16T15:33:26+00:00

And yet, even today what happened next to the Bakers seems remarkable. With Goldman Sachs on the job, the corporate takeover of Dragon Systems in an all-stock deal went terribly wrong. Goldman collected millions of dollars in fees — and the Bakers lost everything when Lernout & Hauspie was revealed to be a spectacular fraud. L.& H. had been founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, who had once been hailed as stars of the 1990s tech boom. Only later did the Bakers learn that Goldman Sachs itself had at one point considered investing in L.& H. but had walked away after some digging into the company.

Jawdropping. How the sale of Dragon Systems turned into a calamity.

Minneapolis street test: Google gets a B+, Apple's Siri gets a D >> Fortune Tech

guardiantech — 2012-07-05T10:34:03+00:00

Piper Jaffray published the results Thursday in a note to clients:
• 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.

Google’s plan to compete with Apple’s multi-platform Siri? Google “Assistant” >> TechCrunch

guardiantech — 2012-03-05T22:28:19+00:00

Google has had the in-house voice technology for ages — it hired Mike Cohen, the guy who started Nuance. But ‘Assistant’ is set to go beyond Siri in many ways, most importantly in that the search company will retain complete control of all the layers involved.

Putative launch date by fourth quarter 2012.

Google’s response to Siri is codenamed Majel, could be released by end of year >> Android and Me

guardiantech — 2011-12-16T06:51:10+00:00

Taylor Wimberly: "I wrote about Google’s response to Apple’s Siri voice assistant several months ago and over the last couple weeks I received further details about the secret project. For starters it is codenamed Majel, which comes from Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, better known as the voice of the Federation Computer from Star Trek. "Majel is an evolution of Google’s Voice Actions that is currently available on most Android phones with the addition of natural language processing. Where Voice Actions required you to issue specific commands like “send text to…” or “navigate to…”, Majel will allow you to perform actions in your natural language similar to how Siri functions." The arms race continues.

Microsoft Tellme is NOT the same as Siri [video] >> techAU

guardiantech — 2011-11-30T14:14:01+00:00

Seems that Siri copes with Australian accents a lot better than Microsoft's Tellme. But the point made here is a fair one: Microsoft should quit pretending that Tellme is equal to Siri. Just say you're going to make your own even better, and get on with it. But old habits die hard. (Via @Carniphage.)

Video hands-on with Cluzee: not quite a Siri competitor >> Android Central

guardiantech — 2011-11-29T16:57:13+00:00

"Point 1: You need to be able to launch a voice app like this quickly. The iPhone 4S has a leg up by allowing you to long-press the home button to launch Siri at any time. Simple, quick. With Cluzee, you need a home screen shortcut, which means having to wake and unlock the phone first. If the app's not yet in memory, it takes several seconds to launch -- an eternity for this sort of thing. It really has to be faster. (And it is, so long as Cluzee remains loaded.) "On to Point 2: Cluzee understood our tests some of the time, but not all of the time. And even in our abbreviated use, it seemed to struggle more than it should. That ties into Point 3: Returning results for local pizza locations took so long we thought the app had hung on us (force closes are not uncommon at this point). And opening applications through Cluzee took too many steps. (Us: "Open Google Maps." Cluzee: "Which application do you want me to open?" Grrrrrr.)" Android Central are biased, though, right?

Five Siri alternatives that give your older iPhone a voice >> Macworld

guardiantech — 2011-10-12T05:45:08+00:00

"After last week’s iPhone 4S unveiling, Siri was one of the most talked-about features. With Siri, the iPhone 4S will be able to answer just about anything you ask it, from the weather report to nearby points of interest. It can also read messages and notifications aloud and even let you dictate messages of your own instead of relying on the phone’s on-screen keyboard." Includes Google Search, natch. Also Vlingo.