Siri Envy? Iris Brings Some Voice-Assistant Features to Android 402
Of all the upgrades that distinguish the new iPhone 4S from its predecessors, probably the feature that's gotten the most attention is the voice-based personal assistant app called Siri, which allows a user to accomplish certain tasks almost entirely by voice. A few days ago, as reported by TechCrunch, a team of Android developers came up with an Android equivalent to Siri called Iris (spell that backwards). It took them only 8 hours to have a working, if imperfect, app to play with and submit to the Android Market. This quick video review of Iris says the app is unpolished, but shows promise. For now, it generates some accurate results, and some amusing ones.
Just like Siri... (Score:2, Insightful)
Except not at all. Complete misses the point, again.
Re:Just like Siri... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's close enough for spec-sheet comparisons, which is pretty much what many Android manufacturers (and more than a few fans of the platform) fall back on.
Butbubut, it's got Super-Ultra-XVSAMOLED, 4+MEGA LTE-MAX and 2TB of flash. As soon as Fruitcake or Peach Flan comes out, it'll totally crush iOS!! Well, yeah, right now it might be a little buggy, and yeah, the interface hangs on occasion, and perhaps it's limited to 3G until the manufacturer releases an update that your carrier might not actually support, but the potential is there! Honest!
Disclosure: I have, and really like, my BlackBerry 9900; I've no skin in this game per se, but Apple really does present a cohesive, usable platform with most of the rough edges filed off. Maybe, maybe ICS will have closed the gap, but this kind of relentless focus on user experience isn't really Android's forte any more than Ubuntu comes even remotely close to Mac OS X.
Disclosure 2: I own both a PlayBook, iPad and LG Optimus Pad. The first and last, despite having box specs that more or less than meet Apple's unit, don't best the daily experience. For example, the PlayBook can play back 1080p; the iPad can maybe manage 720p, but the PlayBook's browser stutters and it's a bastard to type on and it lacks native e-mail. The LG has an even more broken browser (yes, you can get alternatives; they're not much better than stock) and a marginally-better keyboard, and the home screen stutters. How, in this day and age, can you ship a tablet with a subpar browser and mail client, when the 800lb Gorilla in the market nails all the basics perfectly. So they can both play back 1080p and both support Flash? So what?
Half-assed chasing of Siri is the same kind of thing. Apple doesn't own a big chunk of the market (and a bigger chunk of it's profits) because they have the most powerful, first out of the blocks and/or most open. They're doing it because their stuff doesn't exceed consumers' fiddle tolerance.
Re:Just like Siri... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an HTC Evo and an Apple iPad, so I'm well aware of the capabilities and limitations of both Android and iOS. Yes, there are some rough edges on Android, but there are rough edges on iOS as well. Copy and paste doesn't work very well, multitasking is (by design) mostly nonexistent, and there are many missing features. (For example, I would fuck a water buffalo to get Swype on iOS.) Cursor positioning is also better on Android.
This idea that Apple products are magically easy-to-use and perfectly polished is BS. They are good products, usually with fantastic industrial design, and usually very attractive to look at. But there's no magic to the user interface, and Android is really every bit as good.
Re:Just like Siri... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the first iPhone OS was well thought-of and intuitive, but after that it just relies on the user having to know some secrets to get it to work, e.g., who would've figured out that double-tapping the Home button on the lock screen would load Siri? That to move icons, group or delete apps on the home screen you have to hold them until they wiggle, and to group them you have to drag one onto another? Intuitive my butt...
Not that Android apps are any better. On some apps, hitting back actually means "go to the previous screen", even if that means leaving that app. But on my music player, if I load it, it goes to the "Now Playing" screen, which is the least useful screen since I can pause or skip songs on that screen, but I can do that from outside the app as well, so why would it show me that screen? Ok this is just nitpicking, it can't read my mind. But usually I open up the music app because I want to load up a different song. So I press the music app icon, I see the "Now playing" screen. Let's see, how do I see all songs? I press the menu button. No such option. I hit back. Ah, there it is. Real fucking intuitive..!
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And you're a very pleasant individual yourself, sir! (smiley face).
And what if the user, just like the majority of computer users, just hits OK to close whatever dialog box that popped up? "Well then it's their own fault!", I suppose Mr. Superior I'm-Not-An-Ignorant-Nor-An-Idiot would say.
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Yes. But she hated it, because what she actually wanted was a netbook. She just got caught up in the iPad hype. So we got her a $200 netbook, which she is delighted with. But then instead of returning the iPad, I kept it. It has not particularly grown on me or become essential, though.
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Apple, at least, gives you a magnifying bubble that makes it possible to select text and place the cursor. On Android it's a total crapshoot.
Frankly, iOS magnifying bubble is more annoying than it is helpful, because, with the image distorted, it's often rather disorienting. The only thing that's really needed is for the cursor to be above the finger, not under it. For an example of this done right, look at Windows Phone (7.5). That said, even on Android, it varies from phone to phone, because some manufacturers do change Google's default.
Full multitasking makes sense in a multiwindow environment. It's useless on a device designed around an interface that's single-app-full-screen.
The fact that all tablets are still single-app-full-screen (courtesy of Apple, since they have set the trend
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Re:Just like Siri... (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering Apple is pushing Siri but explaining away all it's faults by claiming "uh, well, it's uh. . Still in beta," I'd say your entire post is moot.
Siri is a gimick. It doesn't make the phone any more useful. Neither does Iris. Having a dick-measuring contest between the two is stupid, especially since they BOTH suck right now, and BOTH will presumably get better.
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Yeah after looking at Siri I don't have any use for a Siri clone. It's one of those things that's good for 5 minutes of novelty value and impressing friends who haven't used up their 5 minutes yet.
Re:Just like Siri... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just like Siri... (Score:4, Insightful)
Siri is a gimick. It doesn't make the phone any more useful.
I used to think this about voice control, then Apple made it work in the iPhone 4 and now I use it a lot. Everything is a gimmick until someone does it well enough.
Re:Just like Siri... (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Siri all the time, even when I'm not driving/hiding the phone in my jacket. Earlier today, I told Siri, "Remind me when I leave the house in the morning, or by noon, that I need to stop by Mom's house and fix her router." 5 seconds to say + 5 seconds for Siri to process and confirm, and my reminder was set up. I certainly could have done this manually, but Find Reminders app -> Open Reminders app -> Add new reminder -> Add "when I leave the house" geofence criterion -> Add "At noon tomorrow" criterion -> Type "Stop by Mom's house and fix her router" into description field -> Save is unquestionably going to take longer.
Voice control is far more than just a gimmick.
Re:Just like Siri... (Score:4, Insightful)
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voice command so far to me has always been pure entertainment and of no practical use what so ever
one christmas i set up a nokia 3310 to dial a number automatically the key word was "arse" it was hilarious after 5 minutes sounding like a farmer with tourettes my brother and sister dying of laughter watching me try to get it to dial, it did so.
A later phone with windows mobile was little better, the american bitch just couldn't understand a british accent and would eventually get in a huff and quit. Funny
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I can leave my phone in my jacket pocket in the rain and still be able to do some really basic stuff like send email, text and set up reminders.
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Siri is a gimick. It doesn't make the phone any more useful.
The hell it doesn't. I have practically outsourced my short-term memory to the Reminders app in the last week. Anytime I need to remember something-- particularly when I'm in the car-- it's incredibly easy to hold down a button for 2 seconds and tell my phone "Remind me to [activity] at [time] and/or when I [leave/arrive] [location]". I would never use it that much if I had to set those up manually.
Voice Control in the iPhone 3GS was a gimmick. Siri added utility to my iPhone from day one, and it's only
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Apple really does present a cohesive, usable platform with most of the rough edges filed off.
Those rough edges aren't just filed off, they're rounded.
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> any more than Ubuntu comes even remotely close to Mac OS X.
+...don't believe the hype.
The same goes for MacOS or PhoneOS.
Apple owns a big chunk of the market because of an early lead and marketing and that chunk they do own is shrinking.
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Did they build in all the easter eggs? Siri took a ton of work by multiple developers. You may be able to replicate 80% of the functionality. Heck, the original iPod had 80% of the functionality of every other mp3 player on the market. It was the 20% that set Apple apart.
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What are you talking about? The original iPod had far less functionality than every other mp3 player on the market at the time. It is the scale of Apple and the ecosystem that emerges around their products that makes them compelling. The original iPod was not even very well designed from a usability point of view!
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Re:Just like Siri... (Score:4, Interesting)
If it responds more than 25% of the time with a useful response, then yes indeed it is nothing like Siri.
If it responds with a useful response less than 25% of the time, then yeah it is pretty much the same.
You miss the point (Score:2)
What part of "8 hours" didn't you understand?
Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:3, Informative)
...and shout, "Me too! Me too!"
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Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:5, Informative)
Siri is much more than voice recognition. However, it was not developed by Apple. It was a 3rd party application created out of a bigger AI product, and was originally going to target all the smartphone platforms. Apple simply bought the firm and the technology, and shut down development for other platforms.
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm still forced to have BB for work, but my wife has android. She has had a few voice apps and not sure which one she is currently using, but I think it may be called something like vlingo (or at least one of them was). She now does just about everything by voice. When she is in the car she turns on a setting and whenever she receives a text the phone announces who sent the text and reads it to her, etc, etc, etc.
Haven't seen Siri, but seems Android has "had some apps for that" for some time.
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Yes, you're talking about Vlingo and yes, it works pretty well. It's hampered by the platform, and it's not as good as Siri but it's reasonably close.
I have it for BlackBerry, and where it falls down is that it feels like a bolt-on where Siri seems more baked-in.
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:4, Insightful)
And so is the equivalent that Google Voice Actions provides, apart from not being able to set appointments, I don't see anything that Siri can do that Google Voice Actions can't. The only major difference I see is natural language support with Siri, but it's still limited to the same basic list of tasks and comes with the downside of having to figure out what's being said and match that up to a particular command rather than just identifying the command.
Looking at the list of Siri features, I'm not seeing anything that makes me want Siri.
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple didn't shout "Me too!". They quietly demonstrated how well it worked.
There are people who are going to think Apple did it first, just like they do with GUIs, smartphones and tablets. The onus is on the whole rest of the industry to start delivering products and services that work as well as Apple's do so that Apple can't keep using that strategy. Currently, the whole rest of the industry seems content to look like chumps and, yes, "Me-too"-ists.
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There are people who are going to think Apple were first to do it for the masses, just like they do with GUIs, smartphones and tablets.
And they were.
Okay, that's probably not what you meant, but it's more accurate. At the end of the day, if the nerds don't care for Apple and would rather use something else, fine. But to argue that there's some value in being first when your product "exceeded consumers' fiddle tolerance" (great way to put it earlier, sarhjinian, I thank you) and not enough people bought it to make it huge... well, that's just silly.
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if you're the first to do it, what matters is if you're the first to do it well and are successful at it. Ford wasn't the first to make cars, and yet he's remembered as the father of the modern car industry. The dustbin of history is filled with failures who were there first ( and Apple nearly went in that dustbin once.)
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:4, Interesting)
That remaining 67% is pretty important, it turns out. Google's voice-search app has been available for a long time on the iPhone as well, but it doesn't know what to do with Remind me to pick up lettuce at the grocery store or Wake me in two hours. (Also, and sadly typical of Google these days, its usability has degraded over time due to Google apparently hiring a team of monkeys on meth to maintain it, but that's neither here nor there.)
I could point to several posts I made when the 4S was announced (on other forums with other account names) mocking the idea behind Siri and speech recognition in general. I got my phone a couple of days ago, and I am singing a different tune now. Siri is unquestionably more useful than a simple voice-search app.
Siri is not "awesome" by any means... but, because it has a ridiculously good speech recognizer, and because its back end runs on a central server with every single instance of attempted usage available to the developers for refinement and curation, I believe it will indeed reach the "awesome" level eventually. Search is nowhere near the most important part of a system like this.
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:5, Interesting)
Android voice recognition is equivalent to voice commands. "Open Internet Explorer... Highlight Search Box... Type 'weather, return.'"
Siri is a heck of a lot more interesting. Siri is a first grasp at understanding intent. "Is it going to rain tomorrow?" "Text my wife that I'll be there in 5 minutes." "Remind me at 6PM tomorrow to call the doctor." "How do I get home?"
Now, it's not perfect. Siri is damned slow, when it runs at all. And it works a lot better in the sorts of quiet places where you probably shouldn't be talking into a phone. And it was bought by apple, rather than being initially developed by them. But it's interesting in that it forms relational databases about the world around you, and starts to correlate bits of information. It's not just voice recognition, it's meaning recognition.
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I'd expect it to be used in the car for it's handsfree capability. And in a one-man office for it's dictation ability. The office is going to be quiet. How does it perform in a car? I'm guessing that ordinary car noises won't particularly disrupt it, but who's tried it?
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:4, Funny)
Siri is a heck of a lot more interesting. Siri is a first grasp at understanding intent. "Is it going to rain tomorrow?" "Text my wife that I'll be there in 5 minutes." "Remind me at 6PM tomorrow to call the doctor." "How do I get home?"
We told SIri, "Eat shit" and she listed local restaurants in order from worst to best.
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Dude, seriously, "she"?
Yes PNutts, don't anthropomorphize her, she doesn't like that.
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Those are all things you can do with Google Voice Actions. Admittedly you're restricted in terms of how you phrase it, but it's dishonest to suggest that any of that stuff doesn't work with Google Voice Actions.
Siri is ultimately at a disadvantage for taking that route, because ultimately it has to have much better comprehension of the spoken words as it can't count on matching just most of the command before worrying about what to do with the input. Basically it's the difference between Palm's Graffiti and
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What? Seriously. Who uses the english like that?
Siri rocks because of how it does those things. If I can't use natural language then that is the real disadvantage.
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:5, Interesting)
Like Apple did when they introduced Siri? ...cuz, Android had voice recognition and commands long ago. Admittedly, Siri is superior... now. But, DON'T EVEN.
Are you sure about that? Apple released Voice control with the iPhone 3GS on June 19, 2009 and demoed it on Jun 8, 2009. Google followed with Voice Commands in Froyo (2.2) about a year later but supporting only a fraction of the languages supported by the Apple feature.
Siri is more advanced than Voice Control/Voice Commands in that it understands natural language, can remember things like who your wife is, where your work is and where home is and then follow commands in the future when you mention those things. It also is able to follow the context of a conversation. So if you ask about London, England in the previous question and then ask "What's the weather like today", Siri infers that you are asking about London instead of where you currently are unless if you say "What's the weather like here?".
Siri is the off shoot of work at DARPA with SRI international on the PAL/CALO project. PAL stand for Personal Assistant that Learns. Good luck implementing AI in a couple of days.
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Is doing it with a portable CPU supposed to mean it's novel?
Dragon Naturally Speaking [wikipedia.org].
Why is every generation so naive as to think their use of an old technology is always revolutionary instead of evolutionary? Why the incessant greedy claims of "my favourite brand did it first" in the face of facts?
No doubt Siri has advanced and evolved compared to early relases of Dragon, but people have been working on the idea and enhancing long before your iPhone existed.
You young/'uns really need to do more
Re:Why not just wave your arm in the air... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I upgraded to the 4s and have played around some with Siri, and I like it so far. For some tasks it is definitely faster to ju
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I see you haven't used Android much. I've been able to dictate text in any app that used the keyboard since Android 2.1 released. So for almost 2 years now. As well as having the voice commands. Yes, the control of the phone is more simplistic with the voice commands on Android, but being able to dictate an email and such has been great on Android for a long time now.
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"How is Iris like Siri?" (Score:5, Funny)
You asked "How is Iris like Siri?" ... I don't know."
"One moment
"How is Iris different from Siri?" ... Iris is backwards."
You asked "How is Iris different from Siri?"
"One moment
"Should this have been posted on slashdot?" ... That is what idle.slashdot.org is for."
You asked "Should this have been posted on slashdot?"
"One moment
"Do I look lame talking to my phone when nobody's there?"
You asked "Do I look lame talking to my phone when nobody's there?"
"As opposed to the rest of the time?"
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"Siri Envy?"
You asked "Are you envious of Siri?"
"We are here to talk about you, not me. Is it because of your mother that you ask me about are you envious of Siri?"
No, Siri-ously (Score:4, Interesting)
This reminds me of when the Chinese tried to copy a 747. They made it out of wood, and got the center of gravity wrong. Is it a plane?
In the youtube demo, it missed every question.
A few hours? (Score:4, Interesting)
mmmmk.
The real Siri grew out of one of the largest artificial intelligence Darpa funded projects ever. Then SRI raised 24 million to continue development. Then Apple bought the company and threw a lot of man hours refining it further.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri_(software) [wikipedia.org]
And they successfully copied it in a few hours? Should fit right in on the Android app store.
Re:A few hours? (Score:5, Interesting)
The core technology is available for download from SRI's website. Siri had exclusive licensing within a domain, but that was with the understanding that it would be cross-platform in the smart-phone sector. If Apple doesn't restart development for Android etc., it may make an interesting case whether they can keep exclusivity on non-iOs platforms.
....and it still is useless. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think anyone in the media talking up Siri has never actually tried to use the thing. It hardly every understands what you want the first time without clarification, it doesn't work without a constant network location, it can't read back any answers to queries (just pops stuff up on the screen)... its pretty much useless as a real voice control solution. And yes, I *DO HAVE IT* unlike some reviewers.
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That's the price you pay for flexibility. I had similar issues with my Win mobile device, MS would allow you to draw the characters in different ways and would try to accommodate that. Palm at that time made you learn how to use Graffiti in order to enter text, however because they made you use a standard style of writing it could cut down dramatically on the possible interpretations of any written text.
In this case because Google Voice Actions is limited in what input it will receive it becomes drastically
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I don't understand the hype - Android had awesome voice actions before iPhone did.
Actually, no. Apple introduced Voice Control with the iPhone 3GS in June, 2009. [wikipedia.org]. Android had some incipient voice commands capabilities since the beginning, but they were only marginally useful since Donut [wikipedia.org] in September, 2009, and only became really useful (to the point of and surpassing the old iPhone's Voice Control capabilities) with Froyo [wikipedia.org].
"Shows promise"? "Accurate results"? (Score:2)
It reminds me of DragonDictate, in that there is no connection between what I say and what it thinks I said. Google Voice Search does a better job of imitating Siri than Iris does.
iris not siri ? (Score:2)
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Very much a work in progress (Score:5, Funny)
Q: Where can I get a cheeseburger?
A: The bank.
Q: What's the weather like in (my town) tomorrow?
A: Now in (my town) the temperature varies between low points of 26C and highs of 36C (79F and 97F). The conditions are light rain showers during the day. The day after that the temperature will vary between 26C and 37C (79F and 99F) and the conditions will be sunny weather.
(It didn't rain today, and despite the impressive range of temps - way to cover your bases, Iris - it still muffed the highs for today and tomorrow.)
Q: What time is it in Hong Kong?
A: October 23rd 2011, 8:24:52 HKST
Q: Where is the nearest Wal Mart?
A: Probably Washington. It's a state border.
(I live on the east coast.)
Q: What's the population of Canada?
A: The population of Canada is approximately 33,100,000.
Q: How far is it from Chicago to New York?
A: 1,145.16 kilometers (711.57 miles).
Q: Where can I get a recipe for cheesecake?
A: En la esquina, con minifalda.
(Yes, it really said that in Spanish.)
So, yeah - a work in progress. It had no trouble recognizing every single question, it just fell down on many of the answers.
Re:Very much a work in progress (Score:5, Funny)
Some sample queries I fed Iris:
Q: Where can I get a recipe for cheesecake?
A: En la esquina, con minifalda.
(Yes, it really said that in Spanish.)
So, yeah - a work in progress. It had no trouble recognizing every single question, it just fell down on many of the answers.
Oh, man that was awesome. Thanks for making my day.
En la esquina, con minifalda. English:"In the corner, wearing a miniskirt."
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You do realize that range of temperatures is from the low point at night to the high point during the day, right? I see nothing "impressive" about the range of temps. It looks like a perfectly normal forecast. Perhaps you're just not acquainted with how weather is predicted and reported?
Actually (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, if you really want to see anything that comes close to Siri, it's speaktoit. It's available for free from the Android Market and is very similar to Siri.
My Iris of the day (Score:2)
What should I do today?
A: You should hate stairs
Voice Actions (Score:5, Informative)
I have been using an app called voice actions on my Android phone for several months. It does text messaging and email quite well. It seems they recently renamed it to Jeannie. Check it out instead of this useless app. Market link [android.com]
don't get it (Score:3)
Another bunch of freaks who just don't get it.
The polish and the fact that the Apple stuff is finished when it hits the street is what makes a good part of it's appeal. Don't confuse "finished" with "perfect", it isn't. I have a couple remarks on what could/should be improved. But I've not gotten the impression of getting a half-finished DIY product as with Linux or Android (don't get me wrong, for some things, that's exactly what I want. But not for my phone).
8 hours can give you a prototype. It'll take at least a couple weeks before you can consider it "done".
Who cares (Score:2)
I dont want siri, shes polite sanitized crap force fed to us by apple.
I want sumomo from chobits, an obnoxious anime voice assistant for my phone.
"ITS TIME FOR THE WAKEY WAKEY EXERCISES!"
Recognises words, that's about it. (Score:3)
I just installed it...
ME: what is the weather like in Christchurch tomorrow
It Recognised: what is the weather like in costume tomorrow
It Replied: There is no weather
Tried again...
ME: what is the weather like in Christchurch tomorrow
It Recognised: what is the weather like in christ church tomorrow
It Replied: I don't know I don't live there.
ME: where is the nearest bank of new zealand
It replied: Hell if I know.
ME: where am I
It replied: Where Am I? is the abumn by Mike Johnson published November 7th 1994
Me: what is my current location
It: You have no brother.
Me: what time is it
It: (gives correct time, but in UTC, not local)
Me: how long is it until 4pm
It Recognised: how long is it from 214
It Replied: How long is a day?
Me (replying to question): Yes
It Recognised: kids
It Replied: Kids is the school and non-business organization, in Northside Independant School District
Me: Remind me at 9pm to go and buy milk
It Recognised: remindme at 9 pm to go in hawaii
It Replied: I have two pets.
Me: What time is it in Tunguska
Recognised: what time is it in english
Replied: it is 4:40 in England
Me: Where is siberia
Replied: Wherever you make it I guess
Me: How do I get to blenheim road
Recognised: how do I get to clean a micro
Replied: By plane.
Me: Give me directions to jelly place
Recognised: give me directions to chelsea place
Replied: it's a garage
Soooooo... yeah, the developers of this seem to have done little more than wrap around google voice search to provide rather abstract one liner spoken responses. An amusement. Nothing more.
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Re:Jeez (Score:5, Insightful)
Does Android do anything original?
Because Siri is original? And so is a black rectangle with rounded edges?
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So, is this still an point FOR Android that STILL gets modded up two points? Doh! Slashdot is full of fuck!
If you weren't so quick to rag on anything that points out the hypocrisy of Apple and it's supporters, you would have noticed that my post hasn't been modded up at all yet.
Re:Jeez (Score:5, Informative)
Siri was developed from technology created at the SRI in Palo Alto. It was a company which used technology spun of from CALO and PAL, two major (and intertwined) research initiatives funded partially by public funds. Siri spun off and began developing for iOs, Android and the Blackberry.
Apple simply bought Siri and shut down development for Android and the Blackberry. The core technologies remain available at https://pal.sri.com/Plone [sri.com] - it is not a matter of Apple having developed anything original at all.
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it is not a matter of Apple having developed anything original at all.
No, but it's a matter of Apple polishing it and turning a voice-recognition prototype into a personal assistant. The true strength of Apple has never been revolutionary innovation. It has always been turning innovation into great products. The first Apple computers didn't do anything that was not available elsewhere - but "elsewhere" meant either a hefty bill, several times that of the Apple machine, or it meant DIY.
Same for their recent successes. The iPod didn't invent the MP3 player, but it took the mark
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Siri was a good way along. But to become a real PA, it needed more integration. Here's a Siri review of the App Store version:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/04/siri-iphone-personal-assistant/ [techcrunch.com]
As you can see easily, it integrated with a lot of websites, but little on the phone itself. But that's exactly what you want in a PA - make calls, set reminders (real ones, not the "send me an email" kind of the original Siri app), interface with contacts, calendar and all the other data you already have on there.
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One, the affordable (as in, cheap and uncontracted) Android phones utterly suck to use, so much so that you're probably better with a dumbphone. Two, for consumers, the "barrier" on both is equivalent, after both application quality as well as carrier and OEM reticence to update. Three, if you can handle a contracted phone, iOS devices aren't very expensive at all.
I mean, yes, Apple could make Nokia-style featurephones for the third-world, but that's not something they could do profitably, nor have any at
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"nor have any at expertise doing."
At one point, they didn't have any expertise at making phones at all... so your point is?
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I think the ones that missed the point were the developers and reporters. The whole point of an AI helper is that it behaves as if it were alive, and there is absolutely no way you can accomplish that in 8 hours of work. It's the details that matter for the life-like experience, not the general idea.
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Absolutely. I'm doing it right now on the highwa#@#??AstXA
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You should probably tell that to the people who have been working on voice recognition for decades. There is an obvious want/need for it, and only now is the processing power available via either the net or locally to make it worthwhile. This has been the geek dream for years to be able to talk to their computer (star trek). Claiming it's a non-story smacks of a little envy. I have no doubt that the Android developers will eventually get something more workable and similar to Siri, but this is not it.
The de
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You have a good point. Background noise is one of the many reasons why I refuse to talk to a machine when calling a company.
Personally, I have no use for this. I've had Google Voice on my Android phone for quite some time but the only time I use it is for hands-free dialing and navigation.
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First, if you're bounded by what random people on the street think you, I feel sad for you.
Second, people use their phone in other places, like their homes, cars and such.
Third, Google didn't make this, some random company did.
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I know everyone doesn't commute to work, but don't you see how this might appeal to people whose hands/attention is otherwise occupied?
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Are you really so self conscious you feel embarassed about talking into a phone in public? You need to get out a bit more. Maybe find some confidence boosting activities.
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do you even north checking if things like links work?
It's not like anybody clicks those things... so why bother?
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You forgot to mention that the reason no one wanted your feature was that in spite of its awesome potential, you were so excited to see it working that you did not polish it enough to be usable. Then Apple comes along, does the polishing, and everybody loves it. The copycats think they can do the same thing cheaper without the polishing, and discover that the polish is the most important part of the whole thing.
Honestly, I love to bash Apple's policies as much as the next guy, but you have to admit they
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Hiding under "whatever" you missed a big one: the closed platform. The competition starts with the same number of bugs per platform, but has to remove them 100 times.
In hockey, the secret of coaching success is a good goaltender. In software development, the secret to success is a monopoly over the kind of consumer who doesn't expect to play on home turf. In essence, the competition implements one
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Try Vlingo from the Android Market. Does exactly what Siri does, been out for a year, and its better, and its free.
I never understood why everyone buying an Apple Fondlebrick thinks they invented it first.
ask your vlingo for the meaning of life
then tell it your drunk
and want to fuck
compare to siri, this is why people are in love with siri, it understands language, not words
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Most of the people trying to compare Android apps to Siri have clearly never really used Siri first.
I was experimenting with several of the so called "competitors to Siri" for Android just the other night, and Vlingo was one of them (as well as a free app called Edwin that came highly recommended).
First off, Google Voice Search: Did a good job recognizing my speech but can't even speak back any replies, so NOTHING like Siri in that respect. Additionally, poor integration in some cases. (EG. If I ask it "Wh
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I'm not sure it does "exactly what Siri does"; from the demos I've seen of Vlingo it accomplishes the same things but in a different way, and the way something is done can have a big impact on usability.
What's really impressive about Siri isn't the voice recognition; Android phones have been doing that from the start. What's really impressive is its natural language processing abilities. I haven't used either, but from I've seen both apps allow you to search and handle messaging with voice control, but S
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I haven't used either, but from I've seen both apps allow you to [...]
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Yes, it's been out on Android for a year. Which means it was behind all the other phone platforms for availability of Vlingo.
BlackBerry Jun 2008
iPhone Dec 2008
Nokia May 2009
Windows Mobile June 2009
Android March 2010
The difference with Vlingo is the processing is done on a web-service. So you need a data connection, if you have a limited data plan you'll use some of it, it doesn't integrate as well with the built-in apps as Siri does.
As to which is better, that takes someone do do a side by side review of t
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Siri also requires a data connection to function.
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And then sue the Catholic Church for implying that other people might have come back from the dead... when he invented it
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I don't know about Linux or OSX, but Windows has had a pretty nice speech recognition function (aptly titled Windows Speech Recognition) built into it since Vista. I don't use it much anymore now that I have a bunch of remote programs for Android, but it was useful for controlling my computer from across the room (or slouched down in my chair like a troglodyte). It can be used to type, open programs, select links, highlight the browser's address bar, and even click on a particular area of the screen using a
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That's true, I wish they'd publish an API to allow integration with calendar apps, etc.