Siri-like voice assistant turns up in latest BlackBerry 10 alpha update

By Cody Lee on Jul 21, 2012

No matter what your opinion of Siri is, you have to admit that it has really sparked an interest in digital assistants. Voice commands and recognition obviously existed long before the feature, but not like this.

And you don’t have to look any further than the competition for proof. Shortly after Apple unveiled its Assistant last fall, other manufacturers started beefing up their voice technology. Samsung, for example, now has its S-Voice, LG has Quick Voice, and there are several others bubbling up… Read More

 

Nuance launches ‘Siri for cars’

By Christian Zibreg on May 22, 2012

Nuance, which provides world-class voice recognition technology behind Apple’s Siri personal assistant, today announced its entrance into the fast-growing connected cars market.

Their new automotive platform combines Nuance’s Dragon software and natural language understanding technologies to allow drivers to dictate messages, search for content, control music playback, navigation and more.

Was this an iCar solution Steve Jobs was dreaming about in his final days? Read More

 

Nuance exec: Siri set “a new bar”, could get “more personalized”

By Christian Zibreg on May 16, 2012

Digital secretary Siri was, and still is, the headline feature of the iPhone 4S. It owes some of its allure to the vast processing power of Apple’s servers that run a remarkably sophisticated voice recognition software licensed from Nuance, a Burlington, Massachusetts-based provider of arguably the best voice technology money can buy.

According to Nuance’s marketing honcho, you can bet on Siri to improve over time. Upcoming developments in personal assistants will enable new stuff, such as more accurate voice recognition and personalization. So yeah, eventually you’ll be able to ask Siri “Is my favourite movie on tonight?” Read More

 

Motorola goes after Siri with its Android Voice Action feature

By Cody Lee on Feb 27, 2012

We’ve seen Motorola take on Apple in the courtroom, now it’s taking on its popular digital assistant feature. The company just posted three videos to its YouTube account of three of its handsets taking on the iPhone 4S in voice-control.

The videos star the Motorola Atrix 2, the Photon 4G and the Electrify using Android’s Voice Action component. The sentiment here seems to be that Motorola believes that its feature is superior to Siri, but we’ll let you be the judge of that… Read More

 

DismissSiri: Cancel Siri using a voice command

By Jeff Benjamin on Feb 26, 2012

Want a quick and easy way to dismiss Siri? Then try the aptly named DismissSiri — a jailbreak tweak that makes Siri scram with a few simple voice commands.

As long as you don’t set your expectations to high, and you don’t have a tweak like MyAssistant, which makes DismissSiri redundant, then you may enjoy the functionality that this tweak has to offer… Read More

 

How to Install Siri on iPad 2

By Jeff Benjamin on Jan 23, 2012

Siri on the iPad 2 is now a reality, courtesy of the iPad 2 untethered jailbreak. It became a lot more compelling with the release of tweaks like SiriToggles, and updates to Hands-Free Control.

We’ve already shown you how to install Siri on the iPhone 4, so we’ll use that tutorial along with some additional key information to help you get Siri running on the iPad 2! Read More

 

TV Industry Scrambling to Beat Apple to the Punch

By Cody Lee on Dec 9, 2011

The rumor mill can be fairly accurate when it comes to predicting major Apple products. There was tons of gossip regarding an Apple smartphone for at least a year leading up to the iPhone announcement. And the same goes with iPad rumors.

Manufacturers, for some reason, have always ignored the chatter surrounding Apple rumors. But it looks like the folks in the TV industry aren’t going to make that mistake this time around, as reports are coming in that TV-makers are already working on implementing voice control technology to beat Apple to the punch. Read More

 

Hacker Uses Siri to Turn on Fireplace and More

By Cody Lee on Dec 3, 2011

By now most of you have heard about SiriProxy. The server hack enables knowledgeable users to create custom Siri commands that can make the digital assistant do things well outside of what Apple programmed it to do.

We’ve already seen several uses for the Proxy. We’ve even spoken with the mastermind behind it. Now, we’ll take a look at Mark Hodder’s setup in which he uses Siri to control his fireplace, Christmas lights, and other appliances… Read More

 

Meet Siri’s Competition on Android: Cluzee

By Alex Heath on Nov 30, 2011

Android has its own Siri, at least that is what the creators of Cluzee would like you to believe. The new app is even called your “intelligent personal assistant,” and Cluzee tries to mimic many features that Siri users will recognize, including the ability to dictate text in emails and set up appointments using natural, everyday language.

Cluzee is a third party service for Android, meaning that it isn’t backed by Google. The service looks to work exactly like Siri, but the voice commands that Cluzee recognizes are much more limited than Apple’s technology. Read More

 

Siri vs. Microsoft’s Tellme Voice Control Feature

By Cody Lee on Nov 25, 2011

Microsoft and its chief strategy and research officer Craig Mundie have been taking a lot of smack over the past couple of days. Mundie made some controversial comments regarding Apple’s new Siri feature during a recent interview with Forbes Magazine.

The executive claimed that Microsoft has had Siri-like technology on its Windows Phone platform for over a year, and that Apple’s success with it has been the result of “good marketing.” But the two systems are miles apart, and here’s a video to prove it… Read More

 

FastPdfKit: First Siri-Controlled App Hits the App Store

By Oliver Haslam on Nov 25, 2011

Apple’s Siri is certainly the hot property these days, and it is at its best when in the hands of hackers who create tools like SiriProxy. Offering a way of making Siri interact with pretty much anything on a network, SiriProxy has opened doors left and right, and now app developers are getting in on the action.

FastPdfKit, an app now available on the App Store, claims to be the first to offer Siri integration using SiriProxy. More accurately, FastPdfKit’s developer, MobFarm, is the first to spend the time to create the commands required to interact with its app, but we’ll let them off with their bold claim just this once.

The result is the ability to ask Siri to complete in-app tasks, such as paging forward or searching for text. The app even has a party trick, with Siri on an iPhone 4S being able to control the FastPdfKit app on an iPad… Read More

 

Microsoft: We’ve Had Siri for Over a Year!

By Cody Lee on Nov 23, 2011

Since Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S last month, everyone has been talking about one thing: Siri. The lovable assistant is the product of over 40 years of artificial intelligence research and the US CALO program (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes).

Siri isn’t apparently exclusive to Apple’s handset. Microsoft’s chief strategy and research officer Craig Mundie recently told Forbes that Microsoft has had similar voice control tech on its Windows Phone platform for more than a year!

We know, we didn’t see that one coming either… Read More

 

Hackers Are Able to Control Siri With Their Minds

By Alex Heath on Nov 11, 2011

The geniuses behind Project Black Mirror have created a way to control Siri with their minds. By constructing an elaborate system involving the Arduino prototyping platform, a MacBook Pro, and ECG pads to capture analog brain waves, these hackers can have Siri make a call by merely thinking.

Yeah, we’re not kidding. Read More

 

iTeleport Lets You Use Siri to Launch Apps on Your Mac

By Alex Heath on Nov 9, 2011

Have you been itching to control your Mac with Siri your iPhone 4S? iTeleport for iOS and the Mac lets users launch Mac apps with their voice via the miracle of VNC technology.

While other popular VNC apps, like Screens, let you control your Mac from your iPhone or iPad, iTeleport is the first app to take advantage of Siri on the iPhone 4S. You can simply say “Launch Safari” from your iPhone to open the app on your desktop computer. Read More

 

‘Hands-Free Control’ Will Allow You to Invoke Siri By Voice

By Jeff Benjamin on Nov 3, 2011

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could invoke Siri without pressing and holding your Home button?

I’ve always thought that Apple should include such an option for when we’re on the road and want to control our devices with Siri.

That’s the concept behind a new jailbreak tweak entitled Hands-Free Control. Once the iPhone 4S jailbreak is made public, it will allow you to invoke Siri by voice alone.

In the meantime, though, you can invoke Voice Control on pre-iPhone 4S devices… Read More

 

Talk to Your iPhone 4S and Control Siri From Across the Room with “IRIS 9000″

By Alex Heath on Oct 25, 2011

Space Odyssey fans will know of the article intelligence called HAL 9000. Taking cues from Arthur C. Clarke’s beloved science fiction series, the folks at ThinkGeek have developed the IRIS 9000 for Siri and the iPhone 4S.

IRIS 9000 acts as a remote control hub for Siri that lets you talk to the robotic woman in your iPhone 4S from across the room. You can also make and receive calls like a regular speakerphone. The accessory will pick up your voice from up to 50 feet away, and you can remotely trigger Siri on your 4S via the micro remote control. Read More

 

Siri Isn’t Technically Limited to the iPhone 4S

By Cody Lee on Oct 14, 2011

Why Apple has limited its new Siri personal assistant feature to the iPhone 4S is anyone’s guess. At first it was believed that a lot of the backend of Siri took place on the handset, so it needed the A5′s extra power. But that didn’t prove to be the case.

It was also thought that the service required 1GB of RAM. But it was later revealed that Apple’s new smartphone only contains 512MB, so that can’t be it, either. So then why in the world is Siri limited to the iPhone 4S? Well, maybe it’s not… Read More

 

Chit Chatting With Siri [Video]

By Jeff Benjamin on Oct 14, 2011

I’ve always thought that Siri looked good, just not as great as Apple would want you to believe. I was a skeptic. I was a skeptic until about an hour ago when I first tried Siri for myself.

It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely better than any other voice recognition/control/A.I. you’ve ever used. It integrates commendably with the iPhone 4S, and best of all, it just works…most of the time.

Siri will, without a doubt, change the way we communicate with our devices going forward; it’s like the missing link that we’ve needed all along.

Check inside and see what it’s like to have small talk with Siri… Read More

 

Apple’s New Siri Feature is Much More Than Simple Voice Commands

By Cody Lee on Oct 5, 2011

As expected, one of the stars of Apple’s iPhone event yesterday was its new Siri feature. The project, which the rumor mill dubbed Assistant, materialized on stage as a digital personal assistant for future iPhone users.

Even with its impressive demo yesterday, many folks have written Siri off as another failed attempt at a voice command feature. TUAW did some digging and found some evidence that it’s much, much more than that… Read More

 

Dragon Go! Voice Dictation App Gets More Intelligent with Added Services

By Alex Heath on Sep 29, 2011

Nuance has updated its Dragon Go! app in the App Store with a host of new features to enhance the voice dictation experience. In case you missed our original review, Dragon Go! allows you to speak commands like “Find movie tickets for tonight” and get results.

Dragon Go! was already pretty smart, but this recent update just made it way smarter. Nuance has added support for services like Spotify, Netflix and Wolfram|Alpha… Read More

 
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