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Samsung May Acquire Nuance, the Company That Powers Siri

Me: "Siri, [anything i ever asked it, besides 'tell me a joke']..."
Siri: "Hmm.. let me check on that.. here, just search google."

Yep.
 
Nuance, or the people who founded it, were pioneers in the technology of speech recognition. Ground-breaking.

But in the last decade or so I have not seen anything amazing from them. They essentially have benefited from advances in computer processing.

They have not really benefited from the advances in mobile processing. For example, their voice recognition for Siri does not use the iPhone's processor--it uploads the speech and utilizes offline processing. No internet connection and Siri becomes deaf and mute (aside from the few "I'm sorry..." phrases). Personally I think Apple would be better off without Nuance for Siri.

Google, on the other hand, has had huge advances in speech recognition. It recognizes on-the-fly, and will fallback to full on-device recognition if there is no net connection. It also seems better at understanding speech--especially when you see it correct itself as you speak (as it better understands the context of what you are saying).

On the other hand, Nuance has got to be better than whatever the heck Samsung uses for S Voice. So let them have it.



Michael
 
I wish Apple would buy voice recognition services from Google. Google voice recognition is better than I thought I would see in my lifetime. I'm being completely serious.
 
Windlasher said:
Why the hell does Samsung need this? Their devices run Android so don't they already have this with S Voice?

Are they doing it just to piss off Apple?

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Interesting.....😱
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Samsung has long been interested in moving away from Android. This may be another step in that direction.
 
That seems like a stupid acquisition to make.

Nuance Communications has a market cap of about $6 billion, so purchasing the company may cost $7-$8 billion - and this is for a company that makes no money. They actually lost $115 million last year.

And seeing as how Samsung already partners with them, I don't see any reason for Samsung to make this acquisition. It seems like nothing more than an attempt by Samsung to get Apple more reliant on them. But $7-$8 billion is an awful lot of money to spent on that, given that Apple has been working on developing their own internal Nuance alternative for a while now.
 
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Well for the sake of Argument....

Lets say.

1: Apple has a contract with Nuance. Right?

2: Nuance will have to honor that contract for a specified time period. Right?
 
iLoveiTunes said:
oh boy....they are really into this copying game.
😉

Siri : How's the weather like ?
Sorry, your Samsung device was not recognized...change it and try again
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Your hypothetical joke scenario confuses me. What would Siri be feeling you to replace? The device it's running on?
 
I'm all for them moving to an internal solution for voice recognition/personal assistance, so long as it doesn't move iOS backwards the way 86'ing Google Maps did.
 
Well...

I mean if you are going to partner with a company and then decide to break ties and move development in-house it only makes sense for Nuance to look to sell to the closest competitor.

Of course the only reason why Samsung is looking at this is they think they might be able to get Apple into some crippling licensing agreement, but I am sure that by the time Samsung owns Nuance, Apple will use their own proprietary technology.
 
BC2009 said:
The problem is that Apple tried to buy them when Steve was still alive and Nuance refused to sell at whatever Apple was offering (same with Dropbox). Steve was not a magician that could wave a wand and always get his way. The real problem is people who keep thinking he was and put him on a pedestal.
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150 Billion is a hell of a magic wand if you ask me.
 
To all who are asking why hasn't Apple bought them already...maybe they don't want to be "acquired". A company has to *want* to be bought ya know?

Apple tried to buy Dropbox several times but they wouldn't budge sources have reported. Now look what Apple is planning...a dropbox of their own! HA!

Either you're with us, or you're against us. LOL
 
rwilliams said:
Why the hell hasn't Apple bought them by now?
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They tried, but Nuance wanted even more $Billions than Apple was offering. Samsung would have to empty a large amount of it's cash war chest to beat that.

But Nuance is reported to have invented or have purchased a vast amount of the key patents in voice recognition field (including many of IBM's), so this would give any purchaser a massive patent war chest to use against anybody that doesn't already have a long term (e.g. till the patents expire) cross-license.
 
Z400Racer37 said:
I can't understand why Apple hasn't bought them already... Like Steve always said, "Own the technology."
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Too much development would be necessary. Things like Dragon NS/Dictate and other Nuance products need a lot of legacy support, and there would be utter outcry if Apple was to drop those.

Nuance play a huge part in the disabled industry, and it's not just the good you take when you buy a company -- it's the rest that goes with it.

That's why Apple would rather licence Nuance's speech engine than take on the burden of a lot of problems they have.
 
keysofanxiety said:
Too much development would be necessary. Things like Dragon NS/Dictate and other Nuance products need a lot of legacy support, and there would be utter outcry if Apple was to drop those.

Nuance play a huge part in the disabled industry, and it's not just the good you take when you buy a company -- it's the rest that goes with it.

That's why Apple would rather licence Nuance's speech engine than take on the burden of a lot of problems they have.
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Buy Nuance, Keep the VR, sell the rest or run it as a stand alone like they do with Filemaker.
 
Jsameds said:
Well since S Voice is also powered by Nuance, technically they already did 🙄
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Are maybe they licensed it, so technically you are talking out of your "insert appropriate body Part".

You don't get extra browny points for slagging off Samsung... Oh hang on..
 
Bill Poulos said:
I really don't care who owns it, but I suggest Apple either fix it to be useful or trash it.
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I find Siri incredibly useful.

I think the people who claim Siri blows are those who first tried it on the 4S, got frustrated after a few hiccups and never touched it again. Siri has come a long way since then.

The recognition even in a crowded car on my 5C is extremely accurate and the hands-free "Hey Siri" works well there too. Shazam integration is awesome and I use Siri constantly for reminders.

Much easier to hold the home button and say "Siri, remind me to (insert action here) when I get home" than to unlock the device, go into the reminders app and type it all out.

IMO, the reminders feature is the main thing I much prefer Siri for versus Google Now.
 
Wait a minute... So you plunk down 3 billion on Beats, but don't acquire something as integral to iOS' Siri as Nuance? Pony up Apple and get it done... UNLESS you've been working on Siri inhouse all this time then I guess there's no issue.
 
Windlasher said:
Buy Nuance, Keep the VR, sell the rest or run it as a stand alone like they do with Filemaker.
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Not a viable option. Nuance aren't exactly niche, they're massive. It's like buying Sony and suggesting to keep the bits you like, while selling off the headphone, speaker, TV, phone ...

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jm001 said:
Wait a minute... So you plunk down 3 billion on Beats, but don't acquire something as integral to iOS' Siri as Nuance? Pony up Apple and get it done... UNLESS you've been working on Siri inhouse all this time then I guess there's no issue.
Click to expand...

Again, not sure you understand how much baggage buying Nuance would cause.
 
jm001 said:
Wait a minute... So you plunk down 3 billion on Beats, but don't acquire something as integral to iOS' Siri as Nuance? Pony up Apple and get it done... UNLESS you've been working on Siri inhouse all this time then I guess there's no issue.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same. Why didn't Apple acquire Nuance as "Siri" is a key iOS (and rumored future OS X) feature?

keysofanxiety said:
Not a viable option. Nuance aren't exactly niche, they're massive. It's like buying Sony and suggesting to keep the bits you like, while selling off the headphone, speaker, TV, phone ...

Again, not sure you understand how much baggage buying Nuance would cause.
Click to expand...

How much baggage? I'm asking seriously as I don't know the exact specifics on the company aside from their commercial dictation software. Regardless, Apple has plenty of cash, why not do what Google did with "Nest" (and "beats"), buy it but allow the company to run independently yet "overseen" by Apple?
 
To all of you saying why didn't Apple buy Nuance, they tried. Nuance wanted more money...even though they were making negative profit. Tried to play hardball because they figured they could fleece Apple a little. That and Nuance is quite convoluted anyway.

Hence the rumour that Apple trying to move things in-house. They've acquired Nouvaris instead.
 
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One would think that Apple had anticipated this scenario and there is a contingency plan. There's plenty of things that could take Nuance out of the equation, and there's no way Apple would allow one of their signature features to rely on a single point of failure.
 
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