Apple's New Data Center Focus of Nuance Voice Recognition Partnership?

[Analog Kid]

I'd be happier without a server in the loop. Data costs, performance, privacy... Would be much nicer if it were all on the phone.

I used to think it was silly that Google felt the need to compete with Apple at everything. Now I think it's even sillier when it looks like Apple is trying to compete with Google.

 

[marksman]

I think what most people who are naysayers are forgetting is...

It already exists. My friends' droid X does voice dictation for texting. My WP7 can search for things using voice recognition, and it's capable of picking up obscure words while a trashtruck drives past. With the 7.5 'Mango' update, WP7 will also have voice recognition system wide.

What Apple is doing isn't "revolutionary" or "Magical", it's just catching up to everyone else.

I don't think you understand the scope of what people are talking about here.

 

[NAG]

I think what most people who are naysayers are forgetting is...

It already exists. My friends' droid X does voice dictation for texting. My WP7 can search for things using voice recognition, and it's capable of picking up obscure words while a trashtruck drives past. With the 7.5 'Mango' update, WP7 will also have voice recognition system wide.

What Apple is doing isn't "revolutionary" or "Magical", it's just catching up to everyone else.

This can be said for about everything Apple has done recently. Heck, just ask the Nokia guys and they'll go on and on about how they did it all first. They failed to do it in a way that is usable, though.

 

[toddybody]

I just feel wary about these kinds of innovations. Yes I want things faster/lighter/more efficient/powerful...but these kinds of new functions border creepy. Please keep voice recognition outta my iPhone.

 

[Cheerwino]

SEAL Team Six secretly operates out of the Apple NC data center.

 

[KnightWRX]

This can be said for about everything Apple has done recently. Heck, just ask the Nokia guys and they'll go on and on about how they did it all first. They failed to do it in a way that is usable, though.

Some Apple users think only Apple makes usable stuff though. Blinders, take them off. This voice stuff has been around and usable for ages.

 

[eoin3-]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

voice recognition is so useless and dumb, can u imagine all those ppl talking to their gadget on the tram

Yes - The thing I LEAST want in iOS 5 is voice recognition.

Tony

I'd really like some solid voice recognition for home automation.

 

[pithy]

100% right

Short sighted people are always amusing to point at when everybody's adopted the new technology they said was useless and dumb just months prior to it becoming a hit.

Voice recognition hasn't taken off for a couple of reasons:

1 - It's not quite accurate enough so you have to speak at an unnatural speed and tone.

2 - Current technology is mostly one way so you still have to view the screen to communicate properly because you can't yet trust that the system will be correct within an acceptable ratio.

Apple's acquisition of Siri solves both of these.

Imagine having a conversation with your iPhone without thinking in pre-determined commands and being confident that it understands you and will act appropriately.

Instead of:

- Click and hold a button
- Wait for prompt
- "Play Song 'Beat it' "
- Verify that it got it right

- Begin next command...

You'll be able to do this:

"iPhone, play 'Beat it', make an appointment for lunch with Wendy on Tuesday at noon. Oh, also I need to get groceries today. I need potatoes, pasta, steaks and apples and send this to my wife too."

iPhone replies: Playing 'Beat It' by Michael Jackson. I've created an iCal appointment for 12pm this Tuesday for 'Lunch with Wendy'. I've set up a Task named "Groceries" and listed "potatoes, pasta, steaks and apples" and have shared it with Debbie.

This kind of real time interpretation requires a lot of power and constant refinement not possible in a battery powered mobile device. Instead, a small file containing a mono audio snipit can be sent to Apple's servers, interpreted and commands sent back within a few seconds, making this possible.

Look to iOS5 as being the beginning of a true personal assistant that you can speak to but that is also able to speak with you in a natural conversation.

Apple was indeed years ahead of the competition with the introduction of the iPhone and I doubt they've been sitting on their hands waiting for Android to catch up.

They've been working on the next killer feature that will once again push the boundaries and propel Apple way ahead of the pack. This type of conversational speech recognition definitely has the ability to do this.

100% right

 

[pithy]

To be fair, a major issue you didn't list (and probably the other guy's point) is being in public with other voices around. The voice software can't exactly control the microphone to block other voices. Not yet, anyway. And it will never be able to cope with noise that simply drowns out parts of your speech.

I would think that someone who follows technology closely would know better than to say "never". Computers will be as good or better than you at understanding language, it's just a matter of time.

 

[Aquaporin]

Some Apple users think only Apple makes usable stuff though. Blinders, take them off. This voice stuff has been around and usable for ages.

You know who doesn't have this voice stuff, Nokia. The Nokia N8's speech recognition is garbage.

 

[eoin3-]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8C148)

Short sighted people are always amusing to point at when everybody's adopted the new technology they said was useless and dumb just months prior to it becoming a hit.

Voice recognition hasn't taken off for a couple of reasons:

1 - It's not quite accurate enough so you have to speak at an unnatural speed and tone.

2 - Current technology is mostly one way so you still have to view the screen to communicate properly because you can't yet trust that the system will be correct within an acceptable ratio.

Apple's acquisition of Siri solves both of these.

Imagine having a conversation with your iPhone without thinking in pre-determined commands and being confident that it understands you and will act appropriately.

Instead of:

- Click and hold a button
- Wait for prompt
- "Play Song 'Beat it' "
- Verify that it got it right

- Begin next command...

You'll be able to do this:

"iPhone, play 'Beat it', make an appointment for lunch with Wendy on Tuesday at noon. Oh, also I need to get groceries today. I need potatoes, pasta, steaks and apples and send this to my wife too."

iPhone replies: Playing 'Beat It' by Michael Jackson. I've created an iCal appointment for 12pm this Tuesday for 'Lunch with Wendy'. I've set up a Task named "Groceries" and listed "potatoes, pasta, steaks and apples" and have shared it with Debbie.

This kind of real time interpretation requires a lot of power and constant refinement not possible in a battery powered mobile device. Instead, a small file containing a mono audio snipit can be sent to Apple's servers, interpreted and commands sent back within a few seconds, making this possible.

Look to iOS5 as being the beginning of a true personal assistant that you can speak to but that is also able to speak with you in a natural conversation.

Apple was indeed years ahead of the competition with the introduction of the iPhone and I doubt they've been sitting on their hands waiting for Android to catch up.

They've been working on the next killer feature that will once again push the boundaries and propel Apple way ahead of the pack. This type of conversational speech recognition definitely has the ability to do this.

100% right

Me likey!

 

[DeepIn2U]

Not sure if you knew or not but Dragon Dictation is nuance technology.

Voice recognition will be critical in vehicle integration. I think its great for exercising/sports. I use voice commands while snow skiing and love it.

Voice recognition in general has been pretty shotty throughout the years so I agree that it has limited uses but if this technology ends up being really good I think it will the next big step in terms of HCI.

NOT sure if YOU knew but Nuance Technology controls 93% of the Text Entry and Voice direction software of the entire mobile phone software since mid 2009 after acquiring Zi Corp ... prior to that they owned 70-73% (T9 based phones included)!!

Now do they REALLY need more control over the phone market? No thanks. Apple has surpassed what they've accomplished with what is already in the iPhone itself. You wanna see just how shoddy Nuance Technology is without Dragon Naturally speaking - which is a PC based Voice Recorder translation software originally? Then use a BlackBerry and watch those tears of yours POUR down you face.

Without competition the market in this regards becomes stagnant.

I dont care for voice recognition, never used it. I find it stupid.

Well roughly 85 million US citizens find it VERY useful if not necessary! Sucks as your vote is but 1.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Right! To heck with those disabled people using up all our bandwidth!

You completely misunderstood my point. I meant that THEY require it and it should NOT be dependant (this resource) based on Bandwidth. What if you're in a subway without carrier signal or wlan?!

sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[DeepIn2U]

You mean something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRH8eimU_20

Exactly like that.

It's been said that the iPad is the culmination of Steve's dream of a personal computer that anybody can use intuitively. Interacting naturally as if it were another person is the next step up in that direction.

@notjustjay,

Still love that!!

However notice that its doing the voice recognition and response natively NOT connecting to the internet to do so?! It's looking at the internet for the data in its responses ... latencys would still affect this.

 

[coder12]

Voice technology? This is clearly where all of the Powerbook G5s are being kept!

 

[louis Fashion]

Yes - The thing I LEAST want in iOS 5 is voice recognition.

Tony

and a 3D iPad. No thanks.

 

[ipedro]

Never said it was going to send an entire recording of my voice.

The low end plan has 200 MB per month, or about 6.5 MB per day. Are you saying that extensive use of this will not take up a good bit of this per day? If it uses 1 MB per day, then it will take ~15% of the data package.

Let's first establish that if you don't have enough data to use the iPhone, then why have an iPhone to begin with? A phone is low on the hierarchy of uses of this device. It's first and foremost a data appliance. Do you use Safari? GoogleMaps? You then use a lot more data than this feature will probably use.

Regardless, I don't predict this being bandwidth heavy. There is the likely option that the voice will be analyzed locally, converted to words and sent as text. The longest of voice commands would be smaller than most SMS text messages, just a few kb.

A round trip would be no more impressive than a Google search. It will be instant.

 

[ShiftyPig]

I like how many bites Full of Win got even though Android devices use the same amount of bandwidth in the way it manages voice recognition.

 

[sunspot42]

Hello, Computer?

Now we know why Scotty was trying to talk to that Mac. He saw the Apple logo and just assumed it spoke and understood English, like all the old iPhones he'd played with as a kid at his grandpa's house...

Where the heck is my transparent aluminum, though? Hasn't the tubby guy worked out the matrix, yet?

 

[notjustjay]

Exactly like that.

It's been said that the iPad is the culmination of Steve's dream of a personal computer that anybody can use intuitively. Interacting naturally as if it were another person is the next step up in that direction.

I agree. It's coming, and they're going at it from multiple directions.

Remember HyperCard? (And to some extent, AppleScript) A programming language that allowed the use of optional articles like "the" to make the instructions seem more like plain English: "Tell the application to quit". So Apple has already been playing with English-like command constructs.

We've got pretty accurate voice dictation software now like Dragon, so it's getting easier to transcribe sentences spoken at a fairly normal pace. Now all we need to do is work on natural language text processing.

The rest of the infrastructure is coming together too. The concept of a device that was always connected with everything else may have been far-fetched in the days of the Knowledge Navigator video, but today the internet connects everything. The hardware concept looks like an iPad.

 

[newdeal]

...

I am sure apple will make it cool but that wont stop the phone from calling mom instead of bob and constantly asking you for confirmation when you just want it to do something already. Voice recognition has been around for years and it has always sucked. Steve wozniak thinks its cool though so he will probobly buy three of them to carry at all time

 

[scottnj1966]

Voice recognition has been out for a very long time.
It has never done well.

I understand how important it will be using the phone while driving when your not allowed to touch the device. Many states already have laws against it.

The problem voice recognition is not accurate enough nor easy enough to use. You have to remember many command words just to get to certain area's. Most of the time you end up giving up.

I sure hope Apple is not giving this one feature all of its time and money. We need them to push forward with so many other areas first.

With regards to their new (not so new anymore) network center, when will it actually do anything for us? well without costing us even more money.

Apple please dont start tripping over yourself. Keep showing us the amazing things you can do.



I wanted to edit my thoughts some after trying out Dragon Dictation again on the iPhone. They have come a long way. I tested a few times with no mistakes. I didnt even have to speak loud. So that very much impressed me.
But again, the software still makes you have to touch buttons so it will not be a hands free experience. I have a feeling maybe that is what Apple is working on. Making this part of the email, mms, or anything on the phone so you would not have to touch the screen. We will see.

 

[Dr Kevorkian94]

I only use voice recognition when I'm using my headphones and want to know the time (yes I'm very lazy). But I wonder what new actions apple will put in that will make me more lazy!

 

[WestonHarvey1]

Some Apple users think only Apple makes usable stuff though. Blinders, take them off. This voice stuff has been around and usable for ages.

It's not about just speech recognition... it's not about the words. That's 100% Nuance and there's no way Apple can improve on that. Nuance is pretty good at picking up the words.

It's about what is done with those words. It's the natural language processing. The artificial intelligence. The computer trying to understand what it is you want to do and then doing it.

That's something no one has done to any degree of success. That's why Apple bought Siri, and that's where Apple is going to innovate.

 

[The Beatles]

Some Apple users think only Apple makes usable stuff though. Blinders, take them off. This voice stuff has been around and usable for ages.

Yeah right thats why its so widespread. I hope apples implementation chagnes all that, i could really use a personal assistant.