Siri to Google : The voice-controlled personal assistant battle is getting hotter

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKEivL3hm7PuLs9e4Tx88yUGDHkMIVaePwGVx17n7B67jKCpIlN7manEJAHhZpcHNXkdPUZDo1Xzhm5ZLTkFaqwa4EnJLUfa1Z7SlZTzPBnOIil2Jp1-5pp337svrkXf8BSQrAaxoxLw/s1600/siri-voice-assistant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKEivL3hm7PuLs9e4Tx88yUGDHkMIVaePwGVx17n7B67jKCpIlN7manEJAHhZpcHNXkdPUZDo1Xzhm5ZLTkFaqwa4EnJLUfa1Z7SlZTzPBnOIil2Jp1-5pp337svrkXf8BSQrAaxoxLw/s400/siri-voice-assistant.jpg" width="400" /></span></i></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Siri is improving but Google Now is catching up in the battle of voice assistant</i>s.</span></span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Google and Apple are leaving no stones unturned to make sure that the smartphone will be smarter in the near future. And a key factor in gauging the how smart is the smartphone is the voice-controlled personal assistant.</span></span></div> <div style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Both Apple and Google are injecting hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to develop their respective personal assistant software - Siri and Google Now. Which means, in the future you'll be able to tell Siri/Google Now to book a seat on a flight or fix an appointment with your doctor, and not just engage the personal assistant in rudimentary conversations to kill time.</span></span></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In other words, it will be a clash of tech titans in terms of voice-controlled assistants. Both Google and Apple want to make sure that the personal assistant will understand clearly what the humans are saying, then search for the best answers to their queries, and filter the choices. In fact, both the companies have created teams to achieve these goals.</span></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">While Google and Apple are making giant strides, the former might have an edge as it already has a powerful search engine with an algorithm in place determining the best search results. Google envisions a Google Now that will mimic the mainframe of Star Trek's Starship Enterprise. Yes, perhaps it cannot teleport users anywhere, but Google is determined in revolutionizing how users interact with their mobile devices.</span></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The reason we feel pretty good in terms of competition is because what we're seeing and everything we're building today is built on top of the foundation of core web search rankings," <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/10537562/Google-and-Apple-gear-up-for-next-mobile-battle.html" rel="nofollow" style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">said</a> Google engineering director Scott Huffman. <span style="list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">"It does feel like a bit of a race. For us the race part often has a lot to do with talent, a little more than finding a start-up with a magic idea that we have to buy before anyone else. It's more about the engineering talent in this being in a lot of demand."</span></span></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Huffman might be hinting at how Apple might utilize the technology of Topsy acquired, which Apple for $200 million. The latter has the technology that can help Apple determine trends and patterns on Twitter, something that can help Siri understand queries better.</span></div> <div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 22px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"> <i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Source : <a href="http://www.techtimes.com/articles/2299/20131227/siri-versus-google-now-voice-controlled-personal-assistant-battle-getting-hotter.htm">Tech Time</a></span></i></div>

Siri to Google : The voice-controlled personal assistant battle is getting hotter

Siri is improving but Google Now is catching up in the battle of voice assistant s. Google and Apple are leaving no stones unturned to ...

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Google, beat Siri

<div class="separator tr_bq" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPW0GuYfd6ly4MqyaJUJfV3bYgm2xk3mGq3dtVTKKAj7CgLDov4dTTXsfDugRReUdfj2sdHADyYMb60rXu24esl6xJgiM7PgZlUYgf_TR-HO7U-bI2p5takxrqzXmsoQbS_nLdt7Q3-eew/s1600/siri-iphone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPW0GuYfd6ly4MqyaJUJfV3bYgm2xk3mGq3dtVTKKAj7CgLDov4dTTXsfDugRReUdfj2sdHADyYMb60rXu24esl6xJgiM7PgZlUYgf_TR-HO7U-bI2p5takxrqzXmsoQbS_nLdt7Q3-eew/s640/siri-iphone.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Over a year and a half ago I was beyond excited with Siri and the possibilities Apple could explore with it. I wrote <a href="http://www.uxmindset.com/2011/11/between-apple%E2%80%99s-siri-and-google%E2%80%99s-voice-actions-there-is-wilson/" style="color: #ef3320; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">this article</a> and argued that Siri took a more personal approach to digital personal assistants and thus could engage and learn more about the user than ever before.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I even risked saying that the search game could be changed with a service like Siri, as Siri would learn about you in a unique way and then start to anticipate results that were more relevant to you.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I clearly remember one night when Siri surprised me in an unprecedented way. I was used to asking her to wake me up in the morning. I believe it just felt better, psychologically,  to ask “wake me up at 7am” than setting up the alarm app manually.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One night I was going to bed unusually late and asked her the same question. To my surprise she added to the default message “don’t worry, I won’t forget it”. Isn’t this the reassuring message that you want to hear when you fear that the alarm might not work and then you might sleep-in due to the short night of sleep? I thought that was an amazing touch, a sign that some layer of intelligence was indeed being added to Siri.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unfortunately though, that was the only moment of bliss in my relationship with Siri.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I still use the service on occasion, but for the most part, I get annoyed with the Siri’s delay in simply understanding what I am saying. A recording of my voice needs to hit the cloud in order to be translated to text back to me before Siri replies. Also, my accent still sometimes gets in the way, and she didn’t learn even a single thing about me or my personality. Generally, it appears that her abilities only grow in incremental bits whenever Apple decides to do so.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One night in New York I was packing for a trip to Brazil and asked Siri  what the weather was like in São Paulo. To my dismay she replied, “Here’s the weather for Brasilia, Brazil, through Wednesday next week.” Well, Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, is 500 miles away from São Paulo, and its weather so distinctive,  we could say it’s a different country.</span></div><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">“OK Google, what’s the weather like in São Paulo?” — and I see the words being interpreted by Google as I say them, which is great. An instant later, I hear back:<br />“Here’s the weather forecast for São Paulo, Brazil, for Sunday night.” Oh, wait, do you know that I am traveling on the morning flight and getting there at night? Also impressive, Google used a web service to correct what it had understood initially from my question to something that made complete sense. Siri usually apologizes for not getting what I said.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Source : <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/24/google-siri/">VentureBeat </a></i></span>

Google, beat Siri

Over a year and a half ago I was beyond excited with Siri and the possibilities Apple could explore with it. I wrote  this article  and argu...

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