Slashdot Mirror
Siri Envy? Iris Brings Some Voice-Assistant Features to Android
Of all the upgrades that distinguish the new iPhone 4S from its predecessors, probably the feature that's gotten the most attention is the voice-based personal assistant app called Siri, which allows a user to accomplish certain tasks almost entirely by voice. A few days ago, as reported by TechCrunch, a team of Android developers came up with an Android equivalent to Siri called Iris (spell that backwards). It took them only 8 hours to have a working, if imperfect, app to play with and submit to the Android Market. This quick video review of Iris says the app is unpolished, but shows promise. For now, it generates some accurate results, and some amusing ones.
The core technology is available for download from SRI's website. Siri had exclusive licensing within a domain, but that was with the understanding that it would be cross-platform in the smart-phone sector. If Apple doesn't restart development for Android etc., it may make an interesting case whether they can keep exclusivity on non-iOs platforms.
Android voice recognition is equivalent to voice commands. "Open Internet Explorer... Highlight Search Box... Type 'weather, return.'"
Siri is a heck of a lot more interesting. Siri is a first grasp at understanding intent. "Is it going to rain tomorrow?" "Text my wife that I'll be there in 5 minutes." "Remind me at 6PM tomorrow to call the doctor." "How do I get home?"
Now, it's not perfect. Siri is damned slow, when it runs at all. And it works a lot better in the sorts of quiet places where you probably shouldn't be talking into a phone. And it was bought by apple, rather than being initially developed by them. But it's interesting in that it forms relational databases about the world around you, and starts to correlate bits of information. It's not just voice recognition, it's meaning recognition.
The ______ Agenda
Like Apple did when they introduced Siri? ...cuz, Android had voice recognition and commands long ago. Admittedly, Siri is superior... now. But, DON'T EVEN.
Are you sure about that? Apple released Voice control with the iPhone 3GS on June 19, 2009 and demoed it on Jun 8, 2009. Google followed with Voice Commands in Froyo (2.2) about a year later but supporting only a fraction of the languages supported by the Apple feature.
Siri is more advanced than Voice Control/Voice Commands in that it understands natural language, can remember things like who your wife is, where your work is and where home is and then follow commands in the future when you mention those things. It also is able to follow the context of a conversation. So if you ask about London, England in the previous question and then ask "What's the weather like today", Siri infers that you are asking about London instead of where you currently are unless if you say "What's the weather like here?".
Siri is the off shoot of work at DARPA with SRI international on the PAL/CALO project. PAL stand for Personal Assistant that Learns. Good luck implementing AI in a couple of days.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.