Apple’s SVP Phil Schiller discusses Siri. Getty Images/Kevork Djansezian
Apple’s voice recognition-based personal assistant Siri has become associated with the most modern capabilities of voice technology. Commanding a mobile device to look up directions, mark a birthday, or add an item to a virtual grocery list are the commonly associated functions of a voice command application — all of which Siri can do — but other technologies in play are expanding the idea of what a digital personal assistant should do.
Google Now is Google’s answer to the voice-activated predictive search application, and many claim it works better than Siri in that it is better able to predict what the user will want to know before the application is activated. While predictive analytics is not new software (it’s been around for years, used in interactive voice recognition services and chat functions for contact centers), it made a prominent entrance into the consumer tech field with Google Now. Proponents of Google Now over Siri claim Google’s service provides a more comprehensive app through its Knowledge Graph and text-to-speech software — and, until April 29, smartphone users were given access to either service depending on whether they bought iPhones or Android-based devices. But Google has brought Google Now out of Android and issued an iOS-ready version for iPhone and iPad users, stepping up the competition for the voice-activated personal assistant application on Apple’s own devices. While these two major tech companies vie for the top spot in the voice-powered search arena, a third competitor could be in development.
Intel, Samsung, and Spanish telco Telefonica have revealed their mutual interest in a predictive computing technology being developed by California-based Expect Labs. While the end product is not in sight for Expect’s research and technology, reports have noted that the company is working on making all computing search functions voice-controlled. With the backing of companies that make chips, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and provide wireless connectivity, Expect’s research gets a big boost to figure out how to get computers themselves to know what users want to search before they search for it. So far, Expect has worked to devise technology that will mine real-time conversations, and the company aims to use voice-to-text technology to introduce data that can read users’ intent in search. (Should Expect be successful in mining voice conversation data over wireless networks, there will necessarily be a cloud computing element introduced to integrate that data with a user’s computer, as well as privacy issues concerning reading voice calls, we speculate.)
Expect Labs’ developing work speaks to the exciting to places voice recognition technology has yet to go — such a real-time multi-device technology could make Siri seem like a dinosaur. And its work highlights the important notion that the tech world is still on the cusp of what really can be done for businesses and consumers with voice recognition software.
