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Siri Acquisition Brings Apple Much Closer to the 'Knowledge Navigator' Concept

knewsom said:
Edit: Think about it - look at an icon or mini-display that relates to you INSTANTLY how many messages you have and from whom
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Yeah, but think how much easier it gets with an electronic butler.
Now all you have to do is type "How many new emails do I have?" and the butler will swiftly respond "You want to buy 2 plane tickets to Egypt - Confirm / Cancel".

Seriously, AI crap like this has always sucked, from Eliza to Babelfish, and while I credit Apple with sometimes having revived failed concept X and pulled an "X done right", I have serious doubts about this one.
 
knewsom said:
The real problem is that by the time I tell a computer what to do, and the computer figures out what I'm saying, and does it, with my hand on a keyboard and mouse, I'd have accomplished it in half the time it even took me to SAY it. Computer interfaces are SO GOOD, and SO EFFICIENT, most tasks would be cumbersome and annoying to have to go through some lame conversational interface to get done.

I don't want to TALK about getting s**t done, I want to get it DONE.

Edit: Think about it - look at an icon or mini-display that relates to you INSTANTLY how many messages you have and from whom, or sit there while some stupid computer voice tells you the whole list. Ugh.

When I search for something, I can visually sift through dozens of hits to find exactly what I wanted, even if I want something different than what a program might assume I want - my brain does these things automatically.

The REAL problem is not that computers haven't evolved enough to do this - the REAL problem... is that people have evolved enough to not need it.
Click to expand...


Wrong, the majority of people do not know what they want (what is BEST for them), otherwise there would be less stupidity on TV and figures like Britney Spears and Jay-Z would have not the attention and money they got..
 
Next Year!

If you listen in the video, the article referenced in the video "was" published in 2006, which was 5 years ago along the time line of the video. That means the knowledge navigator was predicted to come out sometime next year. And now the acquisition of Siri... Coincidence? I think not! (lol)
 
This interface is almost too natural... so natural, it's inefficient. I also don't like the idea of needing to talk to my computer-- if I'm up late doing research, I don't want to wake up everybody so I can converse with my computer. I much prefer a keyboard and mouse to voice recog, no matter how good said technology is.
 
funny-pictures-bird-window-fail.jpg


This fails to such an epic degree. It makes me puke when such morons with tunnel vision can't see faults in the practicality of their ideas, yet I can see them from MILES away.

Wow, this is a spectacular interface! Oops, I mean if you don't mind never having privacy, as everything you do via voice commands can be heard by others.

Oh well, if that's the only problem, it's fine by me! Uh...except that you also run into problems when trying to use it in a noisy environment. "Can everybody in the airport terminal PLEASE, SHUT THE F*** UP?! I'm trying to talk to my computer, dammit! Gaw!"

It takes that long to find out what your emails are about? "You have 132 messages. Pfizer wants to improve your performance." "No, computer just read the messages from..." "AsianLoLi's R Us wants you to renew your subscription." "I'm really just interested in...." "Angi Niwatzumanapon would like to offer you a way to make money from the comfort of your home. Nahten Mjorju is requesting help in securing his inheritance from his father, the prince of Awzbakia." " -.-' "
It's far FAR more convenient to VISUALLY skim your emails in Mail.

Stupid.

Besides, how many times have you had somebody relaying information to you in this way? You're on the phone with your aunt, trying to solve her computer disaster. "There's a little marble in the bottom of the screen." "A marble? Click it! See what it says." "Ok, I click it and these words come up." "Come up? Like in a window or in a list? What?!" "Yes." "YES WHAT?!" "Yes...I don't know." "Pam! Put down the mouse and hang up the phone, I'll be there in ten." Then you show up to find she meant the Vista Start Menu!

Relaying information is just AN-NOY-ING! I can't imagine having to have THAT kind of conversation with my computer every morning just to get my browser to a webpage.

FAIL concept.
 
sladey said:
Yeah. Then maybe they could make it good.
Every search I've tried on Wolfram Alpha has given me rubbish results.

Waiting for Wolfram Beta to give it another go.

If SJ buys it then Wolfram 1.0 will work well.
Click to expand...

What did you search for? For me, it's been a partial life saver. It's helped my science (I do all three major sciences) and maths studies.
 
MrCheeto said:
funny-pictures-bird-window-fail.jpg


This fails to such an epic degree. It makes me puke when such morons with tunnel vision can't see faults in the practicality of their ideas, yet I can see them from MILES away.

Wow, this is a spectacular interface! Oops, I mean if you don't mind never having privacy, as everything you do via voice commands can be heard by others.

Oh well, if that's the only problem, it's fine by me! Uh...except that you also run into problems when trying to use it in a noisy environment. "Can everybody in the airport terminal PLEASE, SHUT THE F*** UP?! I'm trying to talk to my computer, dammit! Gaw!"

It takes that long to find out what your emails are about? "You have 132 messages. Pfizer wants to improve your performance." "No, computer just read the messages from..." "AsianLoLi's R Us wants you to renew your subscription." "I'm really just interested in...." "Angi Niwatzumanapon would like to offer you a way to make money from the comfort of your home. Nahten Mjorju is requesting help in securing his inheritance from his father, the prince of Awzbakia." " -.-' "
It's far FAR more convenient to VISUALLY skim your emails in Mail.

Stupid.

Besides, how many times have you had somebody relaying information to you in this way? You're on the phone with your aunt, trying to solve her computer disaster. "There's a little marble in the bottom of the screen." "A marble? Click it! See what it says." "Ok, I click it and these words come up." "Come up? Like in a window or in a list? What?!" "Yes." "YES WHAT?!" "Yes...I don't know." "Pam! Put down the mouse and hang up the phone, I'll be there in ten." Then you show up to find she meant the Vista Start Menu!

Relaying information is just AN-NOY-ING! I can't imagine having to have THAT kind of conversation with my computer every morning just to get my browser to a webpage.

FAIL concept.
Click to expand...



That is all you can conjure?
I cannot see the future regarding this (although we all know that in the future computer and human interaction will be seamless.) but your sight is way blurred.
 
wizard said:
What we should see in a year or two is some highly optimized silicon to enable this sort of software. Most likely powering a tablet, but not an IPad style tablet as the lack of multitasking would make some of the benefits of such a facility impossible. Mostly because a VPA could take sometime to complete it's search.

I'm actually having problems visualizing just how this would work well for me. Crafting targetted searches is already pretty efficient for solving problems. Maybe it could be used to find a date. That should be pretty easy actually as the preferences would be legal, breathing and um healthy.

In any event back to reality. I think you will see Apple try to get this tech into it's portable devices before Mac OS/X. For one it would work better with the voice handling capabilities of a cell phone. For another it would be highly useful for people on the move as it would reduce distracted driving and allow for work to get done without a desktop.

All in all pretty cool.


Dave
Click to expand...

Dude, the software is already here. Have you tried the Siri app? In just the few minutes I have played with it, it has blown me away. I can make a restaurant reservation in a matter of seconds just by telling my phone what I want to do. And I can do it all from one app.

Here is what I see. Apple is going to more fully integrate this technology into the phone, and ipad. You will activate voice control, tell it what you want to do and boom (pun intended) you have what you want. I see this hitting iphone os5 next summer or possibly in an update prior to, but not fully featured.
The fact that this thing is amazing as a stand alone app is one thing, but when (and hopefully it will) is fully integrated into the OS, then you will have a true killer app/functionality that can create an amazing user experience as well as something that keeps the iphone one step ahead.
 
MrCheeto said:
funny-pictures-bird-window-fail.jpg


This fails to such an epic degree. It makes me puke when such morons with tunnel vision can't see faults in the practicality of their ideas, yet I can see them from MILES away.

Wow, this is a spectacular interface! Oops, I mean if you don't mind never having privacy, as everything you do via voice commands can be heard by others.

Oh well, if that's the only problem, it's fine by me! Uh...except that you also run into problems when trying to use it in a noisy environment. "Can everybody in the airport terminal PLEASE, SHUT THE F*** UP?! I'm trying to talk to my computer, dammit! Gaw!"

It takes that long to find out what your emails are about? "You have 132 messages. Pfizer wants to improve your performance." "No, computer just read the messages from..." "AsianLoLi's R Us wants you to renew your subscription." "I'm really just interested in...." "Angi Niwatzumanapon would like to offer you a way to make money from the comfort of your home. Nahten Mjorju is requesting help in securing his inheritance from his father, the prince of Awzbakia." " -.-' "
It's far FAR more convenient to VISUALLY skim your emails in Mail.

Stupid.

Besides, how many times have you had somebody relaying information to you in this way? You're on the phone with your aunt, trying to solve her computer disaster. "There's a little marble in the bottom of the screen." "A marble? Click it! See what it says." "Ok, I click it and these words come up." "Come up? Like in a window or in a list? What?!" "Yes." "YES WHAT?!" "Yes...I don't know." "Pam! Put down the mouse and hang up the phone, I'll be there in ten." Then you show up to find she meant the Vista Start Menu!

Relaying information is just AN-NOY-ING! I can't imagine having to have THAT kind of conversation with my computer every morning just to get my browser to a webpage.

FAIL concept.
Click to expand...

So how is this any different than calling up a restaurant to make a reservation and talking to them over the phone in person? How about a transaction where you have to give your credit card number over the phone. With this app, you can save a payment information.
I only see this as somewhat limited by participation of local vendors. For example, I cannot purchase movie tickets on Fandango for my local theater.
 
Nice try, but you're comparing 20th century methods of conveying information. There are soooo many iPhone apps that can perform such tasks with such ease. I guess you've never seen an iPhone ad?

Using the iPhone: Enter app, choose your reservation, done.
Using James Cameron's asstastic method: "Excuse me, everybody on the city block, yeah you. Can you shut the hell up for a moment, I gotta make a reservation at..." "Eff you, buddy!"
 
MrCheeto said:

It takes that long to find out what your emails are about? "You have 132 messages. Pfizer wants to improve your performance." "No, computer just read the messages from..." "AsianLoLi's R Us wants you to renew your subscription." "I'm really just interested in...." "Angi Niwatzumanapon would like to offer you a way to make money from the comfort of your home. Nahten Mjorju is requesting help in securing his inheritance from his father, the prince of Awzbakia." " -.-' "
It's far FAR more convenient to VISUALLY skim your emails in Mail.
[b]FAIL[/b] concept.[/QUOTE]

That depends on the user. Imagine the non-tech-savvy grandma (they're getting more computer-literate every day, it's scary!) that only receives an e-mail once or twice a day, usually from you or another dear family member. Let's say a new message from one of her grand-children comes in, the assistant could say "you have a new e-Mail from your grandson Kyle". If the response said with a happy inflection ("Is is a picture of his birthday party? Yay!"), the assistant will guess that grandma wants to take a look at the e-mail, look for keywords (birthday, picture) and respond to the question accordingly while opening the picture. If grandma's response however is "I don't care, Kyle is dead to me", then the assistant will assume that grandma is not interested in Kyle's future e-mails and stop notifying her about new messages from Kyle. Furthermore, the assistant could ask, if grandma wants to remove Kyle from her will and set an appointment with a notary if necessary.

The assistant will eventually know its users pretty well and give you information before you even think to ask. For instance when you're using it in your car (it knows because you're moving at car speed, taking turns, etc.) and you say "I'm hungry, but I only have 5 bucks on me", it can check the nearby fast food chain specials, match it to your preferences and guide you there. It could even display the possible orders within your budget and constraints so you don't have to do math at the drive-in window.

Early adopters will fully trust their VPA and just have it active on an earpiece all the time. It will hear and see everything you hear and see and cheer you up when you're blue, calm you down when you're angry, motivate you when you need it, set the alarm clock right because it knows your routine and schedule, etc.
Click to expand...
 
...does this not remind you of the annoying "mama's boy" mother?

"Mom! I told you I'm playing dragons with my friends in the basement!" "Oh, would your friends like some rice cakes?" "Mom! Orks don't eat rice cakes, gaw!" "Oh, well how about..." "MOM! Leave me the hell alone!" "Ok I'll get back to your laundry."

The LAST thing I need is for my computer to annoy me with "friendly" advice.
 
Lukas89 said:
i think its amazing that in a video from 1987 they show a situation in the year 2010 (you can see the year 2010 in the second graph of brazil and the guy says 'the past twenty years'") and 23(!!) years later exactly in the year 2010 they release a product which actually is just like this?!
Click to expand...

I think it's actually set in 2009 cause the calendar shows "Wednesday September 16" which would have to be 2009. But still pretty amazing esp. since it predates the internet. Only those with great foresight could see how easy it would be to access all this information quickly and from all over the world.
 
2011

one should mention, that in the video, john flemming's article was published 2006, and it is approx. "5 years ago". So, we'll see big news in 2011 :) ;) :D
 
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