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Creators Of Siri Demo Their Next AI Assistant Viv, It's Far More Open Platform (twitter.com)

A small company called Viv on Monday unveiled a "frictionless", artificially intelligent software also called Viv, which understands complicated human queries and connects with other apps to get your work done more conveniently and efficiently. Viv was demonstrated live at TechCrunch's Disrupt NY conference on Monday. Dag Kittlaus, co-founder of Viv, and creator of Siri, said that the idea behind it is to open the app to all developers so that they could leverage their technology. (Interestingly, under the realm of Apple, Siri, five years since first launched, is still not open for developers.) Ben Popper, reports for The Verge: The major difference between Siri and Viv is that the latter is a far more open platform. One of the biggest frustrations with Siri is that it has only a small number of tasks it can complete. For the vast multitude of requests or queries, Siri will default to a generic web search. Viv's approach is much closer to Amazon's Alexa or Facebook's Messenger bots, offering the ability to connect with third party merchants and vendors so that it can execute on requests to purchase goods or book reservations. The company's tagline -- intelligence becomes a utility -- nicely sums up its goal of powering the conversational AI inside a multitude of gadgets and digital services.You can watch the demonstration here.

7 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What does that mean by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    It means "easy to use". Plus it leaks all your personal information to everyone frictionlessly.

  2. Apple Lawsuit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is so obviously copying Apple's Siri, I wonder when Apple will sue.
    They even claim they invented Siri!
    Everyone knows Apple did for they invent everything (and the things they didn't invent aren't worth it by nature of not being invented by Apple)

  3. The Demo is awesome. by Wargames · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Awesome demo, when is it going to be released? These are some of the things I been expecting ever since they got decent VR. It's a wonder to me why Siri can't accomplish these things like they intentionally dumbed it down for the masses. There is no excuse why this can't run locally on the phone.

    "Read me the front page of the New York Times."

    "Read me the first chapter of Moby Dick"

    "Tell me who just sent the last text message."...
    "Read it to me."

    "Every weekday morning at 6AM, Wake me up and Play me headline news from Agogo."

    --
    -- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
  4. Re:What does that mean by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 2

    Alexa has some limits when it comes to multiple alarms too, but "Alexa delete all alarms" does work to delete your alarms.

  5. Re:Hopefully it doesn't have Siri's biggest proble by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 2

    Alexa has the same problem, since voice recognition happens on the Internet.
    Is it possible to do full untrained voice recognition on a platform as limited as a smartphone?
    Google supports offline voice recognition, but only for a very limited set of commands. http://www.zdnet.com/article/g...

  6. High Hopes by s.petry · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I view a different reality from the world you assume.

    "Read me the front page of the New York Times."

    Viv - "Ad brought to you by McDonald's. You deserve a break today. Present this device and receive a 1% discount on any purchase of 5.00 or more for lunch. First Story - Brought to you by SnapOn Tools -" and you get treated to the exact portrayal of the story the propagandists dream of, with all the emphasis and pregnant pauses in all the right places.

    "Read me the first chapter of Moby Dick"

    Viv - "People who read this book also read of Mice and Men. I do not show you as a registered owner of reading rights for that book, would you like me to buy a copy for you? Please wait while I verify your ownership of rights to read Moby Dick - You have 2 reading rights remaining to this book - First page, brought to you by Kelloggs" *commercial spot*

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  7. Rotten apple by Elixon · · Score: 2

    By the nature of the demo it is clear what they aim at.

    4 demoed transactions in 2 minutes: 1. show weather, 2. spend money on tulips, 3. spend money on hotel, 4. spend money on cab. VIV obviously stands for
    Valuable Information Value.

    Definitely something you will not install on your wife's phone.

    --
    Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.