Nuance

Apple assembling in-house speech synthesis team to supplant Siri’s Nuance with better tech

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 1, 2014

As we've written before, Apple has created Siri in a modular manner, so that it could easily replace her Nuance-powered speech recognition engine with a similar piece of software. Siri since its inception has been reliant on Nuance technology, but things look to be changing sooner than later.

The company is reportedly assembling an in-house team of speech synthesis and voice recognition experts tasked with developing a proprietary technology that could supplant Nuance and give the personal assistant a “neural network” boost...

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Meet voice actress Susan Bennett, the original voice of Siri

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

The mystique of Siri, Apple's "personal assistant" for iOS, has been the mysterious female voice. Able to speak directions to your favorite pizza parlor as well as carry on witty banter with celebrities, finding the voice behind your iPhone has become the holy grail for love-struck geeks everywhere. Now comes a middle-aged Atlanta mom who claims she's the original voice behind Siri, providing a peak behind the world of talking machines.

Susan Bennett, a mom from Sandy Springs, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, never wanted the spotlight. Her voice has been used to give life to machines ranging from the an ATM to a voice announcing directions inside the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport. Now she is speaking out about her role as the most famous unknown voice heard by millions of people...

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Apple’s ever-growing cash horde pegged at one-tenth of all US corporate dollars

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 18, 2016

Some people collects rocks, other people collect stamps. Apple, however, likes cash. Turns out the iPhone maker, all by itself, controls ten percent of all corporate cash in the United States.

Just how much is that? New data shows Apple's bank account of $147 billion represents ten percent of the $1.48 trillion held by non-banking U.S. companies.

Here's another factoid to make you even more uneasy about that measly savings account of yours: all together, Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Pfizer - not exactly nickel and dime operations - account for another fifteen percent of all U.S. corporate cash...

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Activist investor Carl Icahn could push Apple to buy Nuance

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 4, 2016

A lot of watchers hit the panic button after the billionaire investor Carl Icahn announced taking a "large position" in Apple (think north of $1 billion), which more often than not acts as a Wall Street code-word for impending board/CEO changes and hostile takeovers. But these people needn't worry if an article by the New York Post is anything to go by.

As it turns out, Icahn may be simply looking to leverage his newly acquired influence to force Apple into buying Nuance Communications, whose technology powers Siri's speech recognition. Icahn just recently has conveniently increased his stake in Nuance and now owns 16.4 percent of the company.

Coincidentally or not, the investor said that both Apple and Nuance in his view are currently undervalued...

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Apple may be working to supplant Siri’s Nuance speech recognition with in-house tech

Ed Sutherland ∙ July 26, 2013

Although Apple's Siri uses Nuance's speech recognition technology, the digital assistant may be getting a new voice soon. Although Nuance continues to power Siri's speech recognition, a number of former Nuance employees reportedly are now part of Apple's in-house efforts to develop a new speech recognition technology to power Siri, reducing its technological dependency on third-parties.

For instance, a number of former employees of VoiceSignal Technologies, a speech software firmed acquired by Nuance, now appear in leading roles developing Siri as an in-house application for Apple, according to a Friday report...

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CEO confirms Siri uses Nuance voice recognition tech

Cody Lee ∙ May 30, 2013

In the months leading up to 2011's WWDC event, there were numerous reports that Apple would announce a major partnership with voice recognition giant Nuance. Obviously, the gossip never materialized, and Apple didn't even end up unveiling Siri until that fall.

But despite the fact that no one has ever come out and said it, Nuance has long been given credit for powering Siri's speech recognition capabilities. And today, the company's CEO Paul Ricci confirmed the theory while speaking at AllThingsD's D11 conference...

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Nuance launches Voice Ads platform, now ads can talk back to you

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kusQK7PCXTM

Nuance, which supplies Apple with the voice-recognition engine behind Siri, on Monday introduced a new voice-driven advertising platform. No, this isn't one of the April Fools' Day jokes hitting the web today. They are calling it Voice Ads and with a reason, too: the system gives advertisers an opportunity to literally create conversations with consumers through the power of voice recognition and interactivity.

We're not sure how users will react to mobile ads that talk back to them, but we'll admit that the addition of voice - when used the right way - could enhance mobile advertising by going beyond the limitations of mobile devices' limited screen real estate...

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Apple defends Siri in Shanghai courtroom

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated January 26, 2016

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku0H10_G1X4

China may soon become a top source of legal headaches, as well as market opportunities. Wednesday, the iPhone maker begins a defense of its Siri software against a Chinese company's claim the voice-activated personal assistant violates its 2004 patent. Zhizhen Network Technology Co. filed its lawsuit against Apple last summer and today the two firms meet for a pre-trial hearing in a Shanghai court.

According to Zhizhen, its "Xiao i Robot" software was patented before Apple developed Siri in 2007 and unveiled as part of the iPhone 4S in 2011. The Shanghai-based firm is asking the court to halt Apple making and selling products using Siri, a voice-activated personal assistant feature available on newer iPhones and iPads...

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Nuance unveils Nina, the virtual assistant for iOS and Android apps

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 12, 2017

Nuance, the voice recognition engine that powers Siri, today announced a new kind of digital personal assistant aimed at mobile customer service apps. Called Nina, she "transforms iPhone and Android mobile apps into powerful engagement tools that allow customers to serve themselves". Nina promises to cover everything from paying your bills to getting answers to your questions to changing or adding service on the fly.

Built on the same voice recognition engine from Nuance that Apple licensed for Siri, Nina can be added to iOS and Android apps via a software development kit (SDK) issued today as part of the announcement. What's best, Nina doesn't require that you tediously type in your password for various services and instead recognizes your voice to provide secure authentication...

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Nuance launches Dragon ID: phone unlock using your larynx

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Nuance, the natural voice processing engine that powers voice recognition in Apple's Siri digital assistant, recently announced the Drive! platform, basically the Siri for cars.

Today, the company announced another natural-language solution, one that lets you unlock your phone just by using your voice. Introducing Dragon ID, a brand new technology tapping your voiceprint to let the device know who you are by the sound of your voice.

Count us excited! We're totally big on Nuance's voice unlock possibly debuting on the next iPhone so we can all finally kiss cryptic passwords goodbye. Here's a video of Nuance Dragon ID in action...

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Apple’s Siri and Samsung’s S-Voice go head to head (video)

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 25, 2012

The Verge was first out of the gate today with its exhaustive review of Samsung's Galaxy S III handset. A section of the piece provides an interesting side-by-side comparison of two intelligent personal assistants, Siri on the iPhone 4S and Samsung's darling dubbed S-Voice.

Both features work as advertised (well, most of the time), amuse with canned responses, delight with factual answers - all the while letting you converse with your handset using natural language rather than remember a bunch of hard-coded commands.

Siri and S-Voice also score similarly in handling common tasks such as pulling local weather, creating appointments and reminders and what not. And of course S-Voice is a blatant rip off of Siri's user interface. Apple's digital secretary appears to be snappier at running queries and S-Voice at times has a hard time understanding what you want.

And here's a nice side-by-side comparison video laying it all out for you...

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