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Voice Tech Like Alexa and Siri Hasn't Found Its True Calling Yet (recode.net)
An anonymous reader shares a report: As the holiday shopping season approaches, voice-powered smart speakers are again expected to be big sellers, adding to the approximately one-quarter to one-third of the U.S. population that already owns a smart speaker and uses a voice assistant at least once a month. Voice interfaces have been adopted faster than nearly any other technology in history.
While some of this will likely come to pass, the hype might be disguising where we really are with voice technology: Earlier than we think. About a third of smart speaker owners end up using them less after the first month, according to an NPR and Edison Research report earlier this year. Just a little more than half said they wouldn't want to go back to life without a smart speaker. While people are certainly enthusiastic about the new technology, it's not exactly life-changing yet. Today, voice assistants and smart speakers have proven to be popular ways to turn on the radio or dim the lights or get weather information. But to be revolutionary, they will need to find a greater calling -- a new, breakout application.
Smart speakers, like training wheels, are getting people more used to talking to their devices. However, the future of voice probably won't be on speakers at all. The major speaker makers have all added screens to their assistants. Samsung, smartly, is putting its voice assistant Bixby on its TVs, which have the potential to become the smart assistant hub of choice. The key element is the voice assistant, regardless of what device it resides in. Smart assistants will creep into every aspect of our lives and will be available at home and away.
While some of this will likely come to pass, the hype might be disguising where we really are with voice technology: Earlier than we think. About a third of smart speaker owners end up using them less after the first month, according to an NPR and Edison Research report earlier this year. Just a little more than half said they wouldn't want to go back to life without a smart speaker. While people are certainly enthusiastic about the new technology, it's not exactly life-changing yet. Today, voice assistants and smart speakers have proven to be popular ways to turn on the radio or dim the lights or get weather information. But to be revolutionary, they will need to find a greater calling -- a new, breakout application.
Smart speakers, like training wheels, are getting people more used to talking to their devices. However, the future of voice probably won't be on speakers at all. The major speaker makers have all added screens to their assistants. Samsung, smartly, is putting its voice assistant Bixby on its TVs, which have the potential to become the smart assistant hub of choice. The key element is the voice assistant, regardless of what device it resides in. Smart assistants will creep into every aspect of our lives and will be available at home and away.
It feels like I'm alone in my opinion that Siri is a terrible voice-activated, virtual assistant technology. More often than not, Siri can't get simple commands right, often due to the iPhone's poor natural-language user interface. I don't think I've ever had a dictated message turn out correctly using Siri and any of my iPhones (generation 5-8). I'm actually a bit jealous when I see how easy my friend's Android phone understands voice commands and natural language dictation. Google's natural language processing, works nearly flawlessly.
I'm just throwing this out there because I'm wondering if anyone else thinks, for lack of a better criticism, Siri simply sucks.
Voice interfaces have been adopted faster than nearly any other technology in history.
Really? I find that curious because I almost never see anyone actually using them. Seriously, I just never see anyone using Siri or any of the others and I'm around people using smartphones and tablets constantly. Once it while I see someone do a search on their iPhone or dictate a text message. But if I see it happen more than once a week that's a lot.
I don't have any problem with the idea of them but in my experience they don't generally work very well outside of a few niche applications. It's almost always faster for me to type what I'm searching for because they screw up the transcription most of the time. (I have the most generic US midwestern accent you can imagine and no speech problems either) I also cannot imagine any practical use for something like Alexa in my house. Your mileage may vary of course but I don't really see the appeal. I have an iPhone and I find Siri nearly useless to the point of it actually being a hindrance at times. I've never used Cortana on any Windows 10 machine and see no point to it. I haven't played with the Google versions much but similarly I don't see much value in it. I also don't like the idea of announcing what I'm searching for in public even when it isn't anything sensitive.