Apple Acquired Speech Recognition Firm Novauris Last Year for Siri Team

[LordVic]

I guess I have a similar experience with the iPhone/Notification Center.
The other day I looked at it and saw it said it would take me 7 minutes to get to this address. Odd, I thought, I have no appointment there or calendar event. I click and look, I see it figures out I normally go to the grocery store that day around that time. It made me laugh. I understand it knows me going to work and coming home as those are 5 out of 7 days but for the grocery store that is one day a week, thought it was neat.

these personal assistants have come so far in such a short period of time. Siri or Google Now, both provide excellent features. To be honest, as I pointed out, between Siri and google now. we have a hard time finding Anything that one does that the other doesnt

Siri does a slightly better job currently at interacting with the phone (for example, siri can turn on bluetooth, google now cant)

But google now does a lot more "searching" of information.

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Tim Cook - "No time to innovate. Buy a company that has the technology we need and slap the Apple logo on it."

Sorry to burst your bubble. This was as true under Steve Jobs as it is under Tim Cook.

Many of the technologies that people claim apple invented for the iphone were actually purchased or licensed from other companies.

There's nothing inherrently wrong with this practice, it just destroys the RDF that surrounds apple when you actually realize this

 

[Millah]

If you mean giving you witty non-answer answers, sure. If you mean by predicting what you need before you ask for it, (which is what the applicability of AI in this field is), then you are most assuredly incorrect.

No. The magic in Siri's AI is its understanding of context and perceptual ideas. Things Google Now basically doesn't do at all.

The services in Google Now could all be accomplished without a voice activated assistant. Predicting your behavior, that's just Google watching your activity. That is not the same as the AI in Siri and Cortana which understand context and more human ideas. Like being able to follow along in a conversation. I could list dozens of things that Cortana and Siri do that Google Now doesn't even come close to, and none of those things being "witty answers."

 

[nagromme]

Siri's awesome for a number of things... enough to give me a taste and wish it were expanding faster to do more and more.

 

[jettredmont]

Hope this means major changes in iOS 8!!

And it's no coincidence this news "leaked" a day after Cortana was announced.

The innocent explanation is that the reporters were calling these guys to get a comment on Microsoft's move, and stumbled on the change in ownership story.

 

[samcraig]

No. The magic in Siri's AI is its understanding of context and perceptual ideas. Things Google Now basically doesn't do at all.

The services in Google Now could all be accomplished without a voice activated assistant. Predicting your behavior, that's just Google watching your activity. That is not the same as the AI in Siri and Cortana which understand context and more human ideas. Like being able to follow along in a conversation. I could list dozens of things that Cortana and Siri do that Google Now doesn't even come close to, and none of those things being "witty answers."

I don't use Google Now a lot - but it is useful when I do. And it has been improving just like Siri - you can ask follow up questions or clarifications.

 

[pittpanthersfan]

Tim Cook - "No time to innovate. Buy a company that has the technology we need and slap the Apple logo on it."

Worked pretty well with Touch ID.

 

[mono1980]

Siri has been working great for me lately. My only real complaint is that it is still a little slow.

 

[Lesser Evets]

Siri is (was) Apple's biggest potential killer app. It can become something so powerful and necessary and complex that it can be sold out to a million different businesses in the world in order to simplify and streamline just about anything you can do via electronics. Apple should be blowing their load on that very necessary future technology, in order to make it nearly indistinguishable from a real person conversing with the user.

 

[BJMRamage]

It makes me wonder a bit with Siri.

Throw it on a phone and call it Beta...get people to test it in natural settings.

Finally upgrade the backend and launch it non-beta. Then use Siri as the easy touch-point for the CarPlay or whatever it is called.

Then use this for potential future devices...iWatch, iBand, AppleTV, etc.

 

[jettredmont]

Sorry to break it to you bud but you are actually the one that is incorrect. Siri does not do all that. I have both a 5S and an N5. Key differences:

1.) Siri processes requests absurdly slower since it is tied to network connectivity for processing requests. - Winner Google Now
2.) Siri handle chained context better. For example "any messages from my mom?" "What about my dad?". - Winner Siri
3.) Siri doesn't give you information ahead of time.

Just FYI, my Notification Screen (not sure what the boundaries of "Google Now" are, but when I think of Siri I think the voice, not the other AI aspects of the phone, but I'm including it all here because people apparently cal all that stuff Google Now) includes "Right now, it would take you about 43 minutes to drive to work." as I am working from home (and tapping that takes me to Maps with the route calculated). I don't have any appointments at work, etc, so it isn't reacting to my upcoming appointments.

I don't have a routine enough life that I always visit the grocery store the same day of the week etc, so I'm not sure if Siri is being smart about what I do do on a daily (M-F) basis or if it is just assuming that from 8-3 on weekdays the time to get to work would be relevant and from 3-7 the time to get home would be relevant. Not sure. But, it definitely does calculate driving times without being asked.

 

[CrazyForApple]

Yes, turn it off! Simple!

I meant that i don't want to forget about it. I want it to be actually useful to me

 

[newagemac]

by this comment alone, it is clear you have not used Google Now since at least 4.2 or earlier.

Google now in 4.4 is right up there, doing all those things you mentioned and more.

I have an iPhone and the latest version of Kitkat on my Motorola and Google Now most certainly does NOT do what Siri is capable of. Siri and Cortana are using AI while Google Now is just a glorified search engine. So it can find stuff in your email or know your location and tell you how long it will take to get home (which the iPhone already does in notification center), but it is absolutely clueless when you ask it anything more than the most simplistic questions and then it doesn't know how to follow up with intelligent context based questions to further assist you. Siri and Cortana actually understand the context of your questions and provide additional options and take additional actions based upon your conversations. Google Now is simply unable to do those sort of things at that kind of advanced level.

The example I gave of the kinds of things you can ask Siri to do was to refute the other guy referring to Google Now predictive behavior. Google Now can certainly not predict that I want to schedule something at a particular time or that I want to eat at a seafood restaurant. I wasn't saying it couldn't schedule anything just that predictiveness is useless for the vast majority of scenarios. The cards just pull information out of your emails. That's nothing compared to understanding context of questions. And then you have to use gmail to even get that behavior.

And most of its "predictive" features are redundant and extremely limited. Amazon and any other respective shopping site already pop up email notifications in the iPhone NC when my package arrives without me having to pull up Google Now on my Android phone. The iPhone Notification Center automatically tells me how far I am away from home or work and how long it will take me to get there. The Southwest Airlines app on the iPhone gives me far better information, updates to flight changes through Notification Center, and power to act on those notifications than the Google Now card. I guess if you didn't have good iPhone apps like the Airline apps on the iPhone then maybe you would need Google's more limited feature.

The thing most useful about these voice assistant is things you can't find in an email or from a notification from an app already. And those kinds of things require artificial intelligence to understand the context of your questions and commands. Something that Siri and Cortana excel in but Google Now fails at miserably.

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No. The magic in Siri's AI is its understanding of context and perceptual ideas. Things Google Now basically doesn't do at all.

The services in Google Now could all be accomplished without a voice activated assistant. Predicting your behavior, that's just Google watching your activity. That is not the same as the AI in Siri and Cortana which understand context and more human ideas. Like being able to follow along in a conversation. I could list dozens of things that Cortana and Siri do that Google Now doesn't even come close to, and none of those things being "witty answers."

Ding. Ding. We have a WINNER. I think most of these people posting haven't ever actually used Siri for anything other than asking silly questions to get "witty answers". Google Now is a glorified search engine. Siri and Cortana run rings around Google Now with their capabilities because they actually understand context and follow along in a conversation. True AI. Google Now is pretty dumb by comparison unless you consider its search and retrieval from email "smart". It's not. Written words in an email are far easier for a machine to process and take action on than spoken words on the fly and following conversational multi-step tasks like Siri is capable of doing. Google has a long way to go to catch up.

 

[newagemac]

As for Google now's scheduling and planning. it's actually a little scary. I have never put in my calender or entered into my phone a lot of my personal scheduled activities. Yet, my phone knows, Tuesday evening, give me directions and time of traffic to my Hockey game. Sundays it knows i usually visit my parents, and gives me time and traffic ((including time to leave to get there by 4pm, which i usually get there for). its actually very scary how much google has figured out about my life without me ever telling it these things. Last I checked, Siri does not have this capability. It does all this without you ever having to ask it or tell it to. it just... knows.

You know, Siri doesn't do that one. You know why? Because its actually built into the iPhone itself. Apple chose to put that predictive travel information directly into Notification Center. The iPhone... just... knows. And it's just as scary. What's funny is so many people who don't use an iPhone think that Google Now is the only one offering that kind of experience. I have an iPhone and an Android on the latest version so none of this is news to me. I can compare to the two directly. And Google Now blows for anything other than a dumb simple question with a straight answer with no followup necessary. It's improving a bit, but its far behind Siri and Cortana. Until Google Now catches up, it will be relegated to third place.

 

[Terrin]

Google Now doesn't hold a candle to Siri. It's still trying to play catch up but is far behind currently. Have you ever even used both?

I use Siri regularly. It is much better at understanding me than Google Now. I use it daily for reminders, and doing things like setting timers. What would make it stronger is integration with third party software. I suspect that is coming.

However, where Google is the strongest is at the speed of which it performs its tasks. Google apparently starts analyzing speech immediately while it is being spoken, while Apple waits until the speaker is done speaking. Apple's method does result in a slower response time. Siri has speed up since iOS 7, but it still is not as quick as Google Now.

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You know, Siri doesn't do that one. You know why? Because its actually built into the iPhone itself. Apple chose to put that predictive travel information directly into Notification Center. The iPhone... just... knows. And it's just as scary. What's funny is so many people who don't use an iPhone think that Google Now is the only one offering that kind of experience. I have an iPhone and an Android on the latest version so none of this is news to me. I can compare to the two directly. And Google Now blows for anything other than a dumb simple question with a straight answer with no followup necessary. It's improving a bit, but its far behind Siri and Cortana. Until Google Now catches up, it will be relegated to third place.

Just curious how you know it is behind Cortana. As somebody who doesn't own a Windows Phone, I haven't had a chance to play with it.

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Siri has been working great for me lately. My only real complaint is that it is still a little slow.

Agreed, that is the one thing Google's app performs better at: namely it is faster.

 

[mrfoof82]

How do the ballerinas play into this?

 

[newagemac]

I use Siri regularly. It is much better at understanding me than Google Now. I use it daily for reminders, and doing things like setting timers. What would make it stronger is integration with third party software. I suspect that is coming.

However, where Google is the strongest is at the speed of which it performs its tasks. Google apparently starts analyzing speech immediately while it is being spoken, while Apple waits until the speaker is done speaking. Apple's method does result in a slower response time. Siri has speed up since iOS 7, but it still is not as quick as Google Now.

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Just curious how you know it is behind Cortana. As somebody who doesn't own a Windows Phone, I haven't had a chance to play with it.

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Agreed, that is the one thing Google's app performs better at: namely it is faster.

I agree that Google Now is slightly faster but that's because it's doing less than Siri. Siri has to wait until you finish talking because it is actually attempting to understand the full context of what you are saying rather than just the raw words currently coming out of your mouth. Google Now is the rude person getting what you are saying wrong because its not waiting for you to finish what you are saying. Context matters.

But here's something that most people don't know. You can go into the settings for Siri and turn off the voice replies to make it more dumb like Google Now. And that simple change speeds it up significantly and you still get more intelligent AI backed conversational replies and followup actions than Google Now.

And now in iOS 7.1, you can continue holding down the home button while you are speaking and release it when you finish talking. This simple improvement did wonders to how fast Siri worked for me. Especially in noisy environments when Siri was still attempting to listen when I stopped talking. But even when it is completely quiet, using the home button change in 7.1 is a very noticeable improvement in speed.

As for Cortana, I'll be honest I haven't actually tried it yet. But I watched the videos and saw it does the same type of intelligent AI stuff that Siri does but Google Now is too dumb to do. Microsoft obviously shot for the leader rather than settling for a Google Now clone. In fact, their 3rd party integration might make it better than Siri but I would have to actually use it to compare the two in total.

 

[LordVic]

your hole post is as clueless as you claim Google Now to be.

Siri and Cortana are using AI while Google Now is just a glorified search engine

AI? last i checked humans haven't quite figured out real AI. All of them are using glorified algorithms to accomplish similar tasks. Calling Siri "AI" and discounting google as "glorified search enngine" really shows your reality distortion field.

but it is absolutely clueless when you ask it anything more than the most simplistic questions and then it doesn't know how to follow up with intelligent context based questions to further assist you.

please explain these "context aware responses" and what they are, versus a straight question with answer. Cause you know. Answering a question, no matter which way, is still answering the question.

So it can find stuff in your email or know your location and tell you how long it will take to get home (which the iPhone already does in notification center),

Google now puts all the same information into the notification centre as well. this isn't a victory for either as it is virtually identical in the information, and how it relays it.

Google Now can certainly not predict that I want to schedule something at a particular time or that I want to eat at a seafood restaurant.

Are you implying by this that Siri somehow knows to schedule into your calender events you never tell it to schedule? it just.. Knows? hey, I made a doctors appointment, i just got off the phone, WHY ISNT IT IN MY CALENDER?!?!?
hint, there is no device or software that has yet hit this level of "prediction". Neither Google Now nor Siri have such predictive behaviour. Both Siri and Google can learn from repeated behaviour and make assumptions, But neither can predict and schedule for you random events.

the entirety of the rest of your points are "siri is context aware AI and google is nothign more than a glorified search engine". you have not backed that up. you have no evidence to either. In fact you seem to claim that Cortana does without having ever gotten your hands on it. Your posts reaks of Reality distortion field and is laughable at best

I'm not saying google now is better than Siri. or cortana, or s-voice (which is pretty bad). But Google now isn't some "Distant third pathetic attempt" by google. Siri and Google now are in a really strong race, where they are constantly trumping eachother with added features and benefits. some aspects siri does do things bette,r and some Google now exceeds.

but blind devotion is just silly. especially when you can only resort to buzzwords with no technical details to back them up

 

[shk718]

Wouldn't it be incredible if they baked SIRI into the new apple tv. Give it a small speaker and have it always on. It would be Star Trek for the room.

 

[recklesslife85]

Some of you have clearly never used Google Now if you think it doesn't do what Siri does and more. Google Now is far superior. Siri isn't half as useful and yes I use both.

 

[teknikal90]

your hole post is as clueless as you claim Google Now to be.


AI? last i checked humans haven't quite figured out real AI. All of them are using glorified algorithms to accomplish similar tasks. Calling Siri "AI" and discounting google as "glorified search enngine" really shows your reality distortion field.

okay....Play Fifa 14 on the playstation 4. The players independently react to situation presented to them. That's artificial intelligence.
Yes, we have figured out AI. Yes, we did it by way of algorithms. In the same vein as how our intelligence comes by way of electrical pulses sending messages to different sections of the brain.

 

[mdelvecchio]

yesterday we were playing "Siri (or google), what is the longest river". Google Now answered out loud the top 5 and their distances. Siri took him 10 tries before it understood his accent. Google now got it the first one.

worked flawlessly for me on the first try. problems sounds like user.

google has figured out about my life without me ever telling it these things. Last I checked, Siri does not have this capability. It does all this without you ever having to ask it or tell it to. it just... knows.

incorrect -- siri/ios knows your general routine and also gives traffic suggestions on the Today pull down.

 

[Viantef]

Sorry but Google now is just Google Search + Voice. Also, if you bought Android, can you just use it and shut-up? I mean, all Android users seems to be not like their system, they just hate other's systems

You wouldn't have batted an eye if I said Siri was first place, you iSheep.

P.S. I use Google Now on my iPhone, since ya know, Google isn't stingy with their products.

 

[mdelvecchio]

Example 1: When a package ships and I'm sent a notification email, if I invoke Google Now it listed as one of the cards that appears with all the packages that I am tracking or expecting; 1 card per package so I can track them all. It keeps those cards as a part of the daily updates so I can continue to track until the package arrives and then it automatically no longer shows up in my daily cards. Siri does NOT do all that.

Example 2: When my flight is delayed or has an update, or even when I've confirmed my flight online it automatically appears as a daily card within Google now so you can track it and it updates real time. No 3rd party app to download and/or configure push notifications within that app. It's all apart of your updates you get from Google now. Siri does NOT do all that

your examples require giving an ad company access to read your emails -- in effect third-party access. it cant do it magically by itself. example #2 is akin to my using a third-party (air line) app, and asking it to use passbook.

 

[seaninbath]

You've all missed the point....

Rock chalk, Jayhawk! Watch the video.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Apple Acquired Speech Recognition Firm Novauris Last Year for Siri Team

Sounds like a fair trade to me.