Will Apple Lose Siri's Core Tech To Samsung? 161
An anonymous reader writes Apple bought Siri in 2010, but its core technology is owned by Nuance, maker of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Now Samsung is looking to buy Nuance. From the article: "This past June, Nuance and Samsung began merger talks, but nothing came of it. At the time, the two companies said talks had 'slowed' due to 'complexities.' But they didn't say it was dead. Guess what? The talks are back on. The first hint came in June, after the company missed the quarterly projections. The Wall Street Journal then brought up the talks with Samsung and also noted the company had taken financial steps that could indicate a buyout was imminent. The company’s earnings report for June stated that Nuance was redeeming $250 million in 2027 convertible notes. By calling back the debt, that would save the future acquirer around $50 million from a debt-to-share conversion."
Siri says (Score:5, Funny)
Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been in the tech scene for decades, and having have my "tech baptism" we always have that "community" feel to what we do
That was decades ago
Now, everything changed. Tech companies today are like warring fiefdoms. Instead of focus on innovation they wasted all their resources on making their competitors suffer
Take this SIRI/Nuance -- Apple/Samsung saga for example ---
Instead of innovate - Innovate - INNOVATE what we have here are "strategizing - scheming - blocking"
Instead of innovation the tech companies are more interested in dog fights, and the one thing that I need to know is this ---
Why are they doing all these?
Is it because they no longer have the urge to innovate?
Or is it because the corporate culture (the ROI mentality) that has taken over (in almost all the big tech companies that I know) and it is killing the tech field as we know it?
This is a very unhealthy trend, very very unhealthy, and if we let them corporate guys taking over our tech industry sooner or later we will be facing the sad cold reality that one day, somebody else, maybe India or China or Russia, will become much more technologically advance than the West
Please pay a visit to India or Russia or China, if you have the chance. Over there they still have a lot of people devoting their lives on innovation, because to them, it is the right thing to do
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:5, Insightful)
Please pay a visit to India or Russia or China, if you have the chance. Over there they still have a lot of people devoting their lives on innovation, because to them, it is the right thing to do
That will change...
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead of innovation the tech companies are more interested in dog fights, and the one thing that I need to know is this ---
Why are they doing all these?
Is it because they no longer have the urge to innovate?
Why are they doing this? It's because the low hanging fruit is gone. When every company makes general purpose processors in every device (cell phone, laptop, netbook, desktop, tablet), there is nothing to differentiate one device from any other device, at a fundamental level.
So, instead of having device differentiation, manufacturers need to fight it out over the underlying technologies that support the software running on those devices. The new ideas, or leadership in the old ideas (i.e., Nuance and voice recognition), are where the fight is now because that's the only way to beat a competitor with truly differentiating features in your own products.
- DB (posting as an anonymous coward).
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If the low hanging fruit is gone, then you plant more trees (invest in R&D), and grow more fruit.
It's nothing more than the business culture, and "ROI mentality" that Taco Cowboy mentions.
They're interested in THIS quarter's numbers. Who gives a shit about next quarter. Cash-in, pump-n-dump, grab the money and run.
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>> Or is it because the corporate culture (the ROI mentality) that has taken over (in almost all the big tech companies that I know) and it is killing the tech field as we know it?
Yes.
Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, nothing has changed.
The BUNCH vs IBM, Amdahl vs IBM, LANManager vs Netware, Word vs WordPerfect, Excel vs Lotus 1-2-3... The first big anti-trust case in IT was against IBM in 1969.
It may be seem different to anyone who arrived on the scene at a point in time when tech took its first Internet turn and there was enough virtual turf in cyberspace for everyone to have a piece of the action. However, most of those claims are now staked, so this is merely a return to business as usual.
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. This is nothing more than a case of nostalgia for 'the good old days' that never actually existed.
Watt and his competitors were having patent fights hundreds of years ago. Bell and his competitors. Edison. The list goes on.
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:4, Interesting)
Can't innovate man. The tech is covered by patents.
You're not allowed to build your own Siri from scratch.
Give me a break, "they do what they do in India Russia and China because it's the right thing to do."
They follow the law over there while trying to make a buck, same as we do here.
Don't blame our people for obeying the law.
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, you can't innovate. Which is why the phone in your pocket is exactly the same as, does the same thing as, and performs the same as the phone that was there 10 years ago.
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I was carrying a smartphone 10 years ago, my new one is faster, prettier and better integrated, but does it do anything the other one couldn't... nope. Just polishing there, no innovation that I can see. In fact the battery life is significantly worse.
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I was carrying a smartphone 10 years ago, my new one is faster, prettier and better integrated, but does it do anything the other one couldn't... nope. Just polishing there, no innovation that I can see. In fact the battery life is significantly worse.
Yeah only back then we called them PDA's [wikipedia.org]
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Really? 10 years ago you had a phone with 32GB of memory, that could connect to an LTE4 network, stream usable HD video (and display it on it's own HD screen), do voice recognition, weighed less the 150 grams, had a 16MP camera, etc? Exactly which phone was that?
Now, maybe YOU do not want or appreciate those features, and that is fine, but don't pretend they don't exist.
Most innovation (not just now, but always) does NOT show up suddenly as some earth-shattering new thing. Most innovation is incremental
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How is that 'not really innovation'? What enabled all those improvements, magic? Or maybe you think Moore's law is an actual law of physics, and things are just going to keep getting denser with no innovation from dedicated human beings?
If 'incremental improvements' are not innovation, then there has been no innovation between ENIAC and today's smartphones. Every one of the steps between there and here has been 'just an incremental improvement'.
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It's not really innovation because it's just taking advantage of Moore's Law and it's friends to pack more dense components made by OTHER people into the same old packaging.
Dell is no more an innovator for doing the same thing.
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Wow. You do know that Moore's law is not a real thing, right? You can't 'take advantage of it'.
And you may want to look at what one of those 'other companies' that are making these ever smaller components is called. Hint, it begins with an S and ends with a G.
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Wait, you're claiming that sticking something that already exists (a digital camera) in the same case as something else that already existed is MORE innovative than the camera sensors, memory, and all that other stuff you can't see is? That has got to be one of the STUPIDEST things I have ever heard.
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No it isn't. Do you remember 2004?
In 2004, most people did not have phones that could stream video. In the US, about 1/3 of adults didn't even have any cellphone (cite: http://www.pewinternet.org/200... [pewinternet.org]). Most people age 15 and younger did not, and now they are 25 and younger and thus probably make up a nontrivial portion of the slashdot userbase.
I got my first cellphone in mid-2004 (note: I am not from the US). It certainly could not stream video. I don't remember when I first saw a cellphone stream
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Okay, Okay. (actually I miss my Star-Tac, but that's another thing..)
Not everything under the sun has yet been patented. Point taken.
Was I wrong about Dragon owning the patents to speech recognition on a computer?
Was I wrong in implying that no one can feasibly publish speech recognition, designed from scratch or not; without paying Dragon on Dragon's terms?
I would like to be wrong about that. Somebody tell me I'm wrong about that.
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What is your point? Yes, I am sure Dragon has patents on certain ways of doing speech recognition, and if you want to use those methods you must pay Dragon. So what?
The purpose of patents is to spur innovation. Doing what someone else is already doing, the same way they are doing it, is not innovation.
If you are unable to copy (whether or not you 'designed it from scratch') what Dragon is doing, maybe you should do something ELSE. Maybe there is a better way to do speech recognition. Maybe you should f
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My point is that there is no 'other way' to do speech recognition on a computer. The method, is *ALL* speech recognition, using a computer.
So Apple paid Dragon. The so what is, if Samsung buys Dragon, and then decides not to sell speech recognition to Apple anymore. Or to keep the DOJ off of them, maybe just triple the price. And they don't have to license the new version to Apple, which makes their phones better for the next 20 or 50 years, however long the patent lasts.
Patents only spur innovation when th
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Exactly what patent is it that covers ALL speech recognition on a computer? Or has there been some mathematical proof done that shows there is no other way to do it?
You can't get a patent on a 'new version'. You can get a patent on improvements, but ANYONE can do that.
What do you mean speech recognition isn't an invention? Did it just fall out of the sky or something?
If this technology existed 20 years ago, then the patent is expired anyway.
You're not making any sense.
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, this article is incredibly misleading.
Nuance is NOT the core-technology behind SIRI.
SIRI's search AI was the core technology.
Nuance was just the convenient front-end (speech recognition) - and that technology is actually very "old" (in internet terms): Mid-1990's.
What Nuance has that its competitors don't have, is a method of using pronunciation guides, which were captured using very painstaking intensive studies of speakers. Variations in individual speech patterns (mannerisms, dialects, accents) have been boiled down to statistical models. These models inform the recognizer, so that "training" isn't necessary, and speech recognition can be more of a plug-n-play thing. It's a huge boost in usability over other speech recognition software. And it required a huge up-front investment. There are few cases where intellectual property is a legitimate idea to protect in software - and this is one of them. Otherwise, there would have been no incentive for the geniuses at Nuance to have come up with this scheme, and invest in the research required to create the statistical models.
If other companies want to build a competing solution for speech recognition, I'm not aware of any encumbrance on the method (software patents are a thing, but this method is not patented afaik) - but they still have to come up with their own statistical models, because Nuance's are protected.
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Thank you.
So I was somewhat wrong. Samsung shouldn't be able to kill Apple's Siri with this move, even if they could use it to be a pain in Apple's ass for a while.
And that's just fine. Apple is a big boy these days; they can take it.
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Can't innovate man. The tech is covered by patents.
You're not allowed to build your own Siri from scratch.
Give me a break, "they do what they do in India Russia and China because it's the right thing to do."
They follow the law over there while trying to make a buck, same as we do here.
Don't blame our people for obeying the law.
So your only examples of "can't innovate" you could think off was doing something already existing "from scratch"? Something that others have done, supposedly better, as we are constantly told here?
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Of course they don't have lobbyists. They have near totalitarian governments.
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I'm sure they have lobbyists of some sort. You writing a letter to your congressman is lobbying him. But it would be better to get face time, right? Can you take that much time off work? Do others feel as you do? Could you all get together and hire somebody to go down there and talk to him for you? Maybe someone who is an expert in the field, and could answer any questions the congressman might have...
I never bought into the 'it's the lobbyists fault' thing. Lobbyists don't pass legislation. Elected represe
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's no different in tech now than ever it was.
Please pay a visit to India or Russia or China, if you have the chance. Over there they still have a lot of people devoting their lives on innovation, because to them, it is the right thing to do
They are certainly the innovators when it comes to malware. So please save the nonsense that they are doing it "because it's the right thing to do." They do what they can to make money, same as any other country.
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Yes, because IP is something to protect even if it has no intrinsic value in concealment - it has strategic value in making your competitors lag. This is abuse of the patent system. China's (to pick a random example from your shortlist) knowledge base depends on the free sharing of ideas, of designs and of the technology to make whatever. Take their auto industry: Chinese manufacturers are building what are basically clones of the most solid cars on the planet built by the likes of BMW, Porsche, Volvo, and
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They are not building clones. That would imply they are building cars that would pass for BMWs and Volvos. (Incidentally, Volvo is now Chinese owned, so that would be a interesting fight).
Their cars only look like BMWs and Volvos, but are nowhere near the quality.
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until you go round the back you would swear that their BMW X5 clone was actually a BMW X5. In 2008, BMW actually lost a court case against the company that built the clone [autospies.com] (believe it or not, that is the CLONE on the left, built by Shuanghuan and dubbed the "CEO", revealed in a side by side comparison against the BMW stand at the 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show!) simply on the grounds that the company used a Mazda chassis and sidestep! Their "Genesis" model (from 2006?) uses their own chassis with coachwork remin
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Addendum: a few more differences between the CEO and the X5 (from what I remember):
- wheelbase on the CEO is slightly longer (a matter of a couple inches)
- Track width on the CEO is also wider by about an inch
- Engine in the CEO is slightly smaller, offering more room in the cab
- Floor in the CEO is closer to the ground
- - Altogether offering better stability in the CEO, offset by it being about 400lb lighter on basic model compared with basic X5.
- CEO offers
Screaming "innovate more" is not a solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of innovation the tech companies are more interested in dog fights, and the one thing that I need to know is this --- Why are they doing all these?
Because they have to. It has nothing to do with their desire (or lack thereof) to innovate. Once you are an established player part of remaining a successful company is competitive strategy. Some products simply cannot be rapidly innovated. Coca-Cola isn't going to come up with some new miracle drink. Apple is not likely to reinvent the personal computer. Those are mature businesses and they have to be tended to and protected. The notion that every problem can be solved and every business can be run if we are just more innovative is incredibly naive. Even if you do have some incredibly innovative new product it is going to be copied within days and you will be out of business if you cannot protect that new product. To do otherwise is irresponsible and a one way ticket to bankruptcy.
For Apple or Samsung or Microsoft to grow at even a modest 5-8% rate they would have to create as much new business as the entire revenue of EBay *every year*. You think it is easy to create a new company the size of eBay each any every year? When you become big enough there simply are not that many new lines of business that are big enough to really move the needle. It is unbelievably difficult
Please pay a visit to India or Russia or China, if you have the chance. Over there they still have a lot of people devoting their lives on innovation, because to them, it is the right thing to do
I have been to China and India. There is no religion of innovation over there any more than there is lack of it here in the US. There are a bunch of people who are working hard to find economic opportunities, just like here. A lot of the effort over there is largely aimed at copying industry from other parts of the world with the advantage of cheaper Chinese labor rates. Sure there are a few companies doing some pretty nifty new stuff, but their economy is in no way centered around innovation. Most of it is engaged in contract manufacturing [wikipedia.org] for export. They don't design the products, the just make or copy them. Nothing (generally) wrong with that but China is not driving product innovation in any big way yet. One day maybe but not today.
Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms (Score:5, Insightful)
The short answer? The stock market. No really, no tin-foil hats here.
It's become a race to the bottom in order to push the stock prices up. It's not even ROI anymore. The balance sheet for a corporation has more in common with the matrix computers than your checkbook...but if the symbols line up just right you win (and your stock price goes up). Cut 10% of your workforce (even if they're actively earning money) and your numbers look immediately better. Stock price typically goes up.
Why?
Companies are run by their senior staff and board members; All of whom receive large stock-based compensation and/or typically have large holdings in the company. So laying off a bunch of hard working people or doing other shitty things even if your company is doing just fine...suddenly starts to make sense. If you own 12 million shares and cutting a department or two pushes up the stock price a buck you just make $12 million. The board is probably thrilled with you and increase your bonus this year by another 100k shares or something on top of it.
So the same game applies to stuff like patents and apps and whatnot. It's all about swinging the bigger dick and look like you're running your competition out of business. Doesn't matter if you do or not. Doesn't matter if you put a bunch of people out of work. Doesn't matter if you have a stupid. Stock price goes up? Execs win.
Granted most other people lose in the process. Buy hey, we don't count.
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I think it's also true, largely, with outsourcing.
If a company cuts high-paid domestic workers, and contracts out to an overseas consulting firm (or call center, or whatever) - whether or not this actually saves money overall (in most cases, it actually does NOT) - is irrelevant.
The only relevant factor, is it makes the CEO seem "ruthless in the pursuit of profit" - and this boosts the stock price, much in the same way as "brawndo's got what plants crave". It's also the same with high CEO compensation. I
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Part of it is that the soul of innovation has been beaten out of people here in the US in the past decade or so. The seeds of this were sewn back in the 1990s with Operation Sun Devil which drove the hacking community underground, and long term, caused it to move to Europe and Russia. Even now, if a kid shows hacking experience, in other countries, it would be encouraged. In the US, they would be tossed in jail until age 21 because most public schools are more interested in "teaching" the three "C"s here
Maker? (Score:1)
Don't you mean "acquirer"?
That Will Make The On-Going Patent Wars Uglier (Score:3)
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Even if thats what happened I can say it couldn't happen to a more deserving company.
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You don't get it. Samsung would never revoke Apple's license. Think about it...
Apple technology... brought to you by Samsung!
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Just like Samsung would never stop selling chips and screens to Apple. Oh wait.
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It'll be a license for a limited number of years. In this hypothetical situation of Samsung buying Nuance, they would simply put impossible terms upon Apple renewing the contract. At which point Apple would withdraw and get another solution, with perhaps a year available to do so. Nuance isn't the only speech recognition company in the world. This is what happened with Google Maps.
Of course it could leave Apple with a temporarily worse solution, just as happened with maps.
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You would be surprised at how few speech recognition companies are left in the industry. Nuance was on a buying spree a few years ago and there really are almost no mature companies left. There are a few smaller ones, but their software really isn't any good. Plus, they own almost all the patents, so others are quickly purchased or squashed...
Which company? (Score:5, Insightful)
The first hint came in June, after the company missed the quarterly projections.
In an article about two companies possibly merging (and the possible ramifications of said merger for a third company), "the company" ends up being just a bit ambiguous.
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Thanks. I was going to post the same comment. Still don't know which company they're talking about.
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Gramatically speaking you're right, there is ambiguity. But practically speaking it should be quite clear they're talking about Nuance.
Except that Samsung substantially missed their predicted quarterly earnings [bgr.com] for the quarter, whereas Nuance hit the midpoint of their projections [nuance.com].
license cortana (Score:4)
Right now Cortana (Windows Phone) is the digital assistant that is furthest ahead. Microsoft / Apple's relationship is good for example the Bing integrations. So potentially they could license Cortana (likely calling it Siri and using the Siri voice) and get an upgrade. I don't see this as devastating, just annoying. Or of course it isn't like Apple couldn't afford to move anything in house.
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Have you actually used Cortana, or just have you just watched too many of the Apple vs Windows phone commercials?
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Right now Cortana (Windows Phone) is the digital assistant that is furthest ahead.
And I laugh out loud whenever I see the add for Cortana on TV that gives the user the reminder that he has to leave now in order to get to his date on time.
The map shown on screen is of Richmond, VA, .. a city of 210,000 people .. about 3 miles
The route shows going from somewhere in Church Hill to the Fan
The time of day is around 8PM at night
And Cortana suggests that this will take 20+ minutes.
Sure, the map and the reminder are nice, but factually the trip duration is out the window unless you are consideri
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Good point didn't catch that. It does get good reviews.
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Secondly, it's a date. You do not want to be late for the date. I think it's actually instilling good habits on people to arrive 10 minutes early. Sure the 3 mile drive may only take 5 minutes. Some people will think it only takes 5 minutes to get there, and start leaving 5 minutes before the date. But that's not how to estimate time to get somewhere. He should
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Secondly, it's a date. You do not want to be late for the date.
Unless you're seriously late, she'll make you wait. Every. Single. Time. Even after 14 years of marriage.
I think it's actually instilling good habits on people to arrive 10 minutes early.
Nobody wants their date to show up 10 minutes early. Since she'll make you wait anyway, she will REALLY be unprepared when you show up early. Plus it makes you look desperate and over-eager.
If you have to be early because of some compulsion, park a block a
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You are judging a technology from a fucking mock up on a tv commercial.
What sort of company allows their marketing department to show their product in a bad light? Especially when they are in full control of showing things that are easily verifiable.
And I didn't "spend time to figure out where the map was". I am simply very familiar with the city and the route that was shown. Funnily enough if you show something from an identifiable, real world location in your advertisement, there exists people who know that location.
Samsung Already works with Apple, what changes? (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it funny how this article implies that because Samsung might now own the technology behind Siri, Siri is in trouble.
Samsung is a REALLY big company with lots of different divisions. One of those, the phone division, is in stiff competition with apple. Another one of those, the chip division, has apple as their best customer.
Apple will continue licensing siri technology. Yes, they'll probably look for alternatives (the same way they are looking for an alternative to the Samsung chip fabrication).
But whether or not they're successful, all that will happen is two really big companies will continue having divisions that work together, and divisions that are in competition.
It's a non story.
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I would be amazed if they weren't already working on this. You mention chip fabrication, but bringing software development in house compared with bringing manufacturing in house is a hell of a lot easier.
This is more akin to Google Maps vs Apple Maps. They are reliant upon licensing software from a competitor for a major featur
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Except voice recognition is difficult. Really, really, really difficult.
I have no doubt they would like to bring such technology in house. But after the Apple Maps fiasco, I'm not sure they'd risk a switch.
Then again, Siri already sucks. It can't get much worse.
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You mean the greatest Hatorade orgy until Bendghazi? [washingtonpost.com] All navigation services have errors, but you didn't see people crying at Google. [cio.com]
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I would be amazed if they weren't already working on this.
They are. Rumors have been circulating for months that Apple has been busy [macrumors.com] poaching the top talent from Nuance (everyone from VPs to postdoc researchers) to form their own in-house voice recognition group. The efforts apparently started way back last year, in fact.
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Apple seems to have a good track record of working well with its most bitter competitors.
Apple and Microsoft, Apple and IBM, Apple and Samsung, Apple and Google...
Apple seems to compete against individual products not against the companies on the whole.
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Or more correctly, big companies form very complex relationships with other companies.
Apple. Google. Samsung. Microsoft. They all have relationships with each other, very complex ones. One is a customer of another. Or vice-versa. One competes against another.
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I'm surprised they have not ditched Nuance already. Siri hasn't been getting the development it needs to keep up with the competition like Cortana and Google Now.
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Yes, they'll probably look for alternatives (the same way they are looking for an alternative to the Samsung chip fabrication).
I thought they already signed on with TSMC for this. Yes some could look at it as Apple looking to smite Samsung but also remember that TSMC currently is ahead of Samsung when it comes to feature size. TSMC will be producing 16nm chips in 2015 and 10mn after that [extremetech.com] while Samsung has only recently made 20nm ones. [anandtech.com] Only Intel is ahead of them but Intel is not yet producing ARM chips in this size. They seem to be reserving these fabs for their own x86 chips.
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Welcome to slashclickbaitdot, courtesy of Dice.
Do people actually use Siri? (Score:2)
I'm genuinely curious here, do any Slashdotters use Siri on a regular (let's say daily) basis? What do you use it for?
I've always thought this kind of tech to be more of a gimmick, something to show your mates every now and again.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Dictation takes practice (Score:2)
I don't really use it for texting or notes since it makes too many mistakes but I think that's more of my problem. I feel weird talking to a computer so I talk weird and not loud enough.
Not unusual. Dictating is a learned skill and not that many people are used to doing it. I'm not particularly good at it either.
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I use it recursively.
"Remind me to set a reminder in an hour"
It's never ending fun.
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I use Google Now for the same sort of things.
"OK Google - Remind me to pick up light bulbs when I get to Home Depot."
"OK Google - Wake me up in an hour."
Wake me up in an hour is probably a bit lazy (for a couple of reasons), but the reminder to get light bulbs at Home Depot is pretty awesome. More than once I've gone "oh yeah, that!" when I've wandered into a store.
When I'm in a quiet environment, I also do a lot of "OK Google - Wikipedia $semi_famous_actress" to figure out who some guest star on a TV show
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I mainly use it for reminders...
"Remind me to clean my AC filter in 2 weeks"
"Remind me to pay my car taxes on October 25th"
"Remind me to do the laundry when I get home"
Stuff like that and it works great. I don't really use it for texting or notes since it makes too many mistakes but I think that's more of my problem. I feel weird talking to a computer so I talk weird and not loud enough.
Directions while driving, or just for an ETA, you can say "ETA to work" if it has your work address.
Sending a quick text while driving "Be there 20 minutes late" "send it" is better than actually texting, or calling - if you don't have hands free.
I've used it to do some quick math while I was driving, milage maybe? It's all stuff you can do with a little tapping, you just need to get over the notion that you're asking someone to do these dumb/lazy things for you. Even for stuff you would be ok asking so
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Car taxes? The fuck dystopian country do you live in?
I know counties in Virginia do it
http://www.pwcgov.org/governme... [pwcgov.org]
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/d... [fairfaxcounty.gov]
Apparently the state started doing it recently
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/v... [virginia.gov]
Maine has done it as long as I remember, and your town gets the money.
http://www.maine.gov/revenue/p... [maine.gov]
I felt these were nice places to live...
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Setting egg timers and alarms. For that use case, I can skip over a lot of menu taps. For just about anything else, its useless.
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I hadn't realized this was an option in Now. Thanks for the tip.
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/qui... [cnet.com]
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I use Google Now fairly regularly. Mostly to ask my phone to set an alarm.
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I can take notes with it, read (and carefully send) texts and call people while stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.
It's not perfect, but better than nothing.
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Oh and it's actually amazing at adding columns of numbers. No need to take your eyes off the paper. E.g., "What's 34+52+1324+53+6+23+11+43..."?
For smaller calculations, it's ridiculous.
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Siri! What does Betteridge say about this? (Score:2)
Seriously, do you really think that Apple would allow one of its flagship technologies to be compromised by another company?
Re:Siri! What does Betteridge say about this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Like Google did with Maps? Like Motorola did with the PowerPC? Like Microsoft did with Internet Explorer? Nah, Apple would never let things like that happen.
Samsung has worked with Nuance forever (Score:4, Informative)
An ancient Samsung flip-phone I had, gosh, 10 years ago maybe, had a sort of rudimentary voice command operation powered by Nuance. Between that and other similar things Samsung has done, they were working with Nuance long before SRI and Siri came along.
Rather than being something to damage Apple, I would say the current idea of buying them probably has more to do with "OK Google" now being mandated on devices, which in turn cuts Samsung and Nuance out of the game. I am not sure what buying Nuance is supposed to do but it has to be a defense of some sort.
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I am not sure what buying Nuance is supposed to do but it has to be a defense of some sort.
Buy Nuance, raise licensing fees charge to Apple for Siri, make iCrap more expensive, make back money lost in court, make Apple pay for its own court victories.
It's poetry.
Apple hates being dependent on other companies.... (Score:2)
History shows that Apple likes to own any tech they depend on....
http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/30/... [9to5mac.com]
Meh. Patents. (Score:2)
This is not a big deal. Even if it does happen, there is likely a preexisting licence, or they will just licence the tech from Samsung. Both devices licence each other Apple/Samsung, along with a host of other companies that have various patents on technology. Or what will happen is the Apple will just continue to use it, refuse to pay the licencing fees as Samsung has set them too high per device, then they will eventually go to court over the whole thing 5 years later, and a army of lawyers will get rich
I can see it (Score:2)
"Siri, direct me to the nearest Apple store."
"Oh, you don't want to go there. Let me direct you to a place where you can buy a nice Samsung Galaxy Note Edge."
I'm worried about their other stuff (Score:2)
Nuance ate Scansoft and several other companies. Nuance now owns Paperport, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and Swype. Will Samsung ditch the desktop products if this goes through?
This will fail (Score:2)
Even if they get Nuance, and put it on their devices to replace S-Voice; I predict it will be completely useless, because they're still going to wrap it with their craptacular TouchWiz interface.
They will attempt to force-tie it in to other craptacular Samsung apps, and it will die because NOBODY LIKES VENDOR LOCK-IN, STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!
Samsung still copying apple? (Score:2)
Hopefully there will be improvement (Score:2)
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it's means it is
I'd be grateful if someone could come up with Dragon Natural Apostrophe.
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Re:Say what? (Score:4, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm a developer that worked for Lernout and Hauspie that originally developed the ASR/TTS engine that have been sold to Scansoft/Nuance.
PS: Good luck for Samsung because when we bought certain American companies that also did Pentagon contract work, some Americans weren't that happy about it. I'm even personally convinced that they had some hands in the rapid downfall of Lernout and Hauspie.
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Powered by Nuance... Sorry, try again.