Slashdot Mirror
Apple's Siri May Soon Process Voice Locally On a Device, No Cloud Required (appleinsider.com)
Proudrooster writes: "Apple wants Siri to become more useful to users when not connected to the internet, including the possibility of an offline mode that does not rely on a backend server to assist with voice recognition or performing the required task, one that would be entirely performed on the user's device," reports Apple Insider. Just give it 10 years and everything old is new again. Siri will join the ranks of Ford/Microsoft Sync and Intel Edison. Do any other phones/cars/speakers have this option right now? The new capabilities are outlined in a recently-published patent application that describes an "Offline personal assistant."
"Rather than connected to Apple's servers, the filing suggests the speech-to-text processing and validation could happen on the device itself," reports Apple Insider. "On hearing the user make a request, the device in question will be capable of determining the task via onboard natural language processing, working out if the requested task as it hears it is useful, then performing it. "
"Rather than connected to Apple's servers, the filing suggests the speech-to-text processing and validation could happen on the device itself," reports Apple Insider. "On hearing the user make a request, the device in question will be capable of determining the task via onboard natural language processing, working out if the requested task as it hears it is useful, then performing it. "
French toast, m'ladies
(tips toque seductively)
Welcome to 1998: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Speech_API#SAPI_4
Golf clap.
Sorry, I didn't get that...
20 years from desktop to pocket sounds pretty impressive to me!!
And frankly it will probably work better than the old desktop stuff did which moistly did not take off (though Dragon seems to have done well with desktop software).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This really shouldn't be patentable. We had the ability to control computers with voice a quarter-century ago. Not only would there have been patents back then, but those patents would have expired long ago.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
... can perform some tasks offline. I can send an email, navigate, and change phone settings (adjust volume, etc), probably more. I've tested these in aeroplane mode and they worked fine.
... "I'm having trouble with the connection"
That drives me insane. Siri should at least handle voice calls when not connected.
If so, how can they patent it?
Did you read the patent?
Did you read the claims section?
Do you have experience reading dense legalese?
Do you have subject matter expertise?
If the answer to any of these questions is "no", then the patent likely isn't what you think it is.
Disclaimer: I didn't read the patent.
The desktop computers doing it were 16MHz Macintosh LCII models with 4MB RAM
Let me check... nope still cool to have desktop software moved into mobile, even I the mobile processor is more advanced.
I have to think the stuff moving into mobile is a lot more accurate and can handle way more accents/languages than that ancient software though, so it's not like there has been no advancement that makes use of improved hardware.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because of course we all know that filing of a patent means the "invention" will hit the market real soon.
I discovered an open source project at https://snips.gitbook.io/docum... that already does this. This is not a turnkey device like Siri, but it seems to suggest the the cloud is not required to implement speech recognition.
The best way to think of Siri is as hot-key shortcuts for mobile devices. "Siri, call Mom" is a shortcut to scrolling through the contact list. Siri isn't particularly smart, but it does have solid use cases.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
half a year ago; reviewing how well ViaVoicehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CAkYs8PJT0 and Dragon Natural Speaking worked on vintage hardware back in the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
over half a year ago; reviewing how well ViaVoice https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and Dragon Natural Speaking worked on vintage hardware back in the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
My Garmin nüvi 3597LMTHD GPS has done this since I bought it in 2013. It's not connected to anything, not wifi, not cellular, and not bluetooth. Where I live (the boonies) the traffic features and even the map updates are pretty pointless, so there's never been a need to connect it to anything. Yet it understands me just fine. And unlike Alexa and others, it allowed me to rename it — it only responds to "yo, bitch", which is just how I like it. :)
Is the unit's understanding of language in general up to par with todays systems? No. But does it work for what it needs to understand? Yes. Very well.
For the home, when and if MyCroft gains a local speech understanding capability, that's the way I'm going. Everything I want to do is local, and the unit can be customized to run just about anything you put together (of course, commercial products aren't that easy to figure out, but that can be done in many cases as well.) Everything that depends on the "cloud" has failures, comm losses, and security concerns. Local is definitely the way to go.
Otherwise, everything you say ends up sent to Google, Amazon, Apple or whoever. And whoever they partner with / roll over for / get hacked by.
I trust Apple a little bit more as they've been pretty clear about being privacy focused, but that door is open for them to do "whatever" with your data, and it is best to keep that in mind. If they go local, that'd be nice. But inasmuch as it's a closed system, whereas MyCroft is an open system... yup, still going MyCroft if they can pull this off.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Disclaimer: I didn't read the patent.
I didn't read it either, but it took quite a while to scroll through it, so I think it's just a little bit more than "process voice locally without using the cloud".
I've always assumed that the real reason to send the sound for external processing is so that it can be stored and analyzed.
Smart phones have been powerful for a long time.
Maybe now they can just process the voice locally and then send the data to the collection center.
iOS already processes voice locally on the device. Cloud is only required for the Siri stuff. As proof, set an iOS device into flight mode, and open anything with an on-screen keyboard: edit a note, draft an email, etc. Tap the microphone icon, and talk. You'll see your speech transcribed with no resort to the cloud. (Misleading Headline is Misleading -- Film at 11.)
To your point, in notepad, the microphone works for text to speech, but voice commands won't play a local song on the phone or make a phone call.
Try saying:
Open iTunes
Play Playlist Chillout
After waiting 60 seconds:
"I'm having some trouble with the connection. Please try again in a moment."
So yes, it has speech to text, similar to the Commodore 64, but no commands work, even if the command doesn't need the Internet for anything such as playing a song loaded on the phone or opening the camera.
Sure -- cloud is required for the Siri stuff. And it makes sense that Apple would want to move Siri smarts for stuff that doesn't essentially require an internet connection (playing local music, etc) onto the device. My point is just that the Slashdot headline is misleading, conflating voice-to-text with Siri.
(And the C64 had (as you say) text to speech, but most definitely did not have speech to text, which is of course orders of magnitude harder.)
Doesn't Google's voice-typing essentially do this? It makes a quick guess at what you're saying and then refines it based on a more powerful cloud based scan - that's still trained using samples of your voice. It sure seems that way, since you get an immediate result on the screen that changes seconds later to a more accurate result. So all they're doing is using the local guess directly when the network is not available. Patentable? Really?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
But you can say "Siri call %USERNAME%" no matter what the username as long as it's in your address book. So by your explanation you should add all your contacts to your home screen ?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
You're confusing Apple and the rest of the Gafas. Apple doesn't care about your data, they don't display ads and don't sell them. Google, Facebook, Amazon and even Microsoft does that, but not Apple. And guess what? That's why their stuff is more expensive.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Apple users have been waiting for offline mode for ages. it will be really useful since we do not have all the time access to the Internet and cellular data. I can not wait for it to be accessible. https://showbox.software/ https://tutuapp.win/ https://mobdro.onl/