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WWDC: Apple Introduces Ad-Supported iTunes Radio Service

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June 11, 2013

During yesterday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, Apple introduced its much anticipated streaming music service. The free, ad-supported iTunes Radio will feature a sizable music catalog, thanks to deals Apple has made with all the major record labels. The service features algorithmically programmed stations, more than 200 genre-based stations and a station that reflects music currently trending on Twitter. Continue reading WWDC: Apple Introduces Ad-Supported iTunes Radio Service

Expect Labs Software Understands Phone Conversations

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May 2, 2013

Mobile carrier Telefónica is testing technology from Expect Labs that listens in on phone calls. The new type of artificial intelligence provides suggestions based on key terms in a phone conversation, by converting the conversation to text and offering instant relevant information. New investments in the San Francisco startup have been made by Telefónica, Samsung and Intel. Google Ventures invested in Expect Labs back in October. Continue reading Expect Labs Software Understands Phone Conversations

New Report Indicates Apple Will Launch HDTV This Year

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April 4, 2013

Apple’s HDTV, which has reportedly been in development for years, is expected to finally debut later this year. While meeting with supply chain sources in China and Taiwan, Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White has gathered information from unnamed sources that suggest Apple will launch its iTV in the second half of 2013. White says innovative new features of the HDTV could make it a game-changer. Continue reading New Report Indicates Apple Will Launch HDTV This Year

Honda Latest to Introduce Siri Eyes Free in New Car Models

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February 11, 2013

Honda has joined Chevrolet in providing vehicles with Siri integration. The automaker will implement Siri Eyes Free in three of its models this year: the 2013 Accord, Acura RLX and ILX. Drivers can connect to Siri by holding a button on the steering wheel and then use Siri to make calls, dictate text messages, play songs or use any of Siri’s other features. The driver’s phone will not light up during the exchange to avoid distraction. Continue reading Honda Latest to Introduce Siri Eyes Free in New Car Models

Mobile: Amazon Acquires Voice Recognition Company IVONA

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January 28, 2013

Amazon has acquired IVONA Software for an undisclosed sum. Amazon already uses IVONA voice recognition software on the Kindle Fire, which helps users navigate the touchscreen and enables other voice commands. Amazon may now integrate the software into other Kindle products, and could also use the technology to create a competitor to Siri as rumors persist that Amazon could be working on a smartphone. Continue reading Mobile: Amazon Acquires Voice Recognition Company IVONA

Rumor Update: Apple to Partner with Sharp, not Samsung, on 2012 iTV

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November 28, 2011
  • Add the following news to the growing collection of Apple rumors we’ve heard in the last month…
  • Mashable reports: “Apple’s relationship with Samsung has deteriorated, and the Cupertino giant may be working with Sharp on the next generation displays for upcoming devices such as the iPad 3, iPhone 5 and a little something called iTV, claims Jefferies analyst Peter Misek.”
  • According to Misek, the mythical Apple smart TV, which has been a popular subject of recent speculation, is not just a rumor. “Sharp is working on modified amorphous TFT LCD panels for the device,” indicates the post.
  • Misek places commercial production as early as February with a mid-2012 release date. The new HDTV will reportedly feature some use of Siri, Apple’s voice-activation feature.
  • While Apple has not made an official announcement yet, competitors are scrambling to prepare for another player in the market, suggests a related BGR post.

Trap.it Offers a New Approach to Search, From the Makers of Siri

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November 21, 2011
  • “A new take on the search engine called Trap.it uses the same AI technology that Siri does courtesy of the CALO project (which was funded by DARPA), and has launched its public beta,” reports Digital Trends.
  • Described as something similar to a hybrid of Pandora and Qwiki in its approach to an “information experience,” Trap.it uses Facebook and Twitter accounts to help curate the Web for individual users.
  • “Via the ‘discover’ bar, you ‘trap’ information that comes up in visual-heavy icons with short text summaries. Hovering over these images lets you vote up or down if this is what you were looking for, share the information, or bookmark it for later,” explains the post. “Your feedback on these ‘traps’ is how the search engine learns and gets smarter, so eventually you’re receiving more and more spot-on results.”
  • “It’s yet another signal we’re moving from search to discovery,” suggests Digital Trends.

Amazon Purchasing Yap: Possible Siri Rival for the Kindle Fire?

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November 11, 2011
  • In a quiet acquisition deal, Amazon is purchasing Yap, a speech-to-text startup that may find its voice recognition technology in future Kindle products.
  • “Yap is truly a leader in freeform speech recognition and driving innovation in the mobile user experience,” says Paul Grim of SunBridge Partners, which funded Yap in 2008.
  • “Yap’s technology may give Amazon the ability to add voice controls to its tablets capable of understanding far more than the rudimentary commands currently supported by Android software, potentially allowing the company to erode Apple’s dominance,” reports Forbes.
  • Apple has yet to make a move toward installing Siri on its iPad, so Amazon could get a jump start. “If Amazon puts Yap’s technology to good use and releases tablets with intuitive voice recognition in the near future, it may give Android-powered tablets a stronger handhold in the market,” suggests the article.

Human-Centric: Will Post-PC Computing be the Next Disruptive Wave?

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November 2, 2011
  • In his compelling O’Reilly Radar post, digital media entrepreneur Mark Sigal offers his take on the post-PC wave and its major players.
  • Post-PC is the fourth computing wave that follows mainframes, PCs, and the Web.
  • Sigal suggests that Post-PC devices, which Morgan Stanley expects to number 10 billion by 2020, are becoming the most personal, mobile, social and human-centric tools that marry hardware, software and services.
  • For example, Sigal cites John Gruber of Daring Fireball, regarding Apple’s Siri voice-based system: “Siri is indicative of an AI-focused ambition that Apple hasn’t shown since before Steve Jobs returned to the company. Prior to Siri, iOS struck me being designed to make it easy for us to do things. Siri is designed to do things for us.”
  • Apple, Amazon and Google are the companies that best represent emerging trends in this space.

Should Google and Microsoft Fear the Potential of Siri?

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October 27, 2011
  • Tech analyst Tim Bajarin says both Google and Microsoft have been downplaying the significance of Apple’s Siri because they know it could seriously impact their core search businesses, especially as it gains access to even more online databases.
  • “You shouldn’t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone,” Google mobile chief Andy Rubin told Walt Mossberg at the recent AsiaD conference.
  • Microsoft’s Andy Lees suggested that Siri “isn’t super useful” and added that the voice interactivity of Windows Phone 7 when connected to Bing harnesses “the full power of the Internet, rather than a certain subset.”
  • Bajarin counters that, “Apple has just introduced voice as a major user interface and that its use of voice coupled with AI on a consumer product like the iPhone is going to change the way consumers think about man-machine interfaces in the future.”
  • Siri is not just a voice UI, but a gatekeeper to natural language searching of online databases that may eventually make Apple the third major search company worldwide.

Next Generation Web: Will Siri Spark Machines Talking to Machines?

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October 25, 2011
  • In a post that describes what should follow after Siri, GigaOM suggests, “Apple’s artificial intelligence is only the tip of the iceberg as we combine ubiquitous connectivity, sensor networks, big data and new methods of AI and programming into a truly connected network.”
  • The next generation of the Web will “connect machines to machines and connect those machines back to people” with advancements in low-power, cheap sensors and “better ways of programming computers so that they can understand data from several million end points.”
  • The necessary connectivity exists currently and improvements of sensors for tracking everything — weather, inventory, traffic conditions, etc. — will provide the necessary information.
  • From there, programming and better AI like Siri, “will allow machines to parse the data from billions of sensors and notify people to take action only when needed.”

Will a Sense of Humor Draw Users to Siri Virtual Personal Assistant?

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October 18, 2011
  • According to The Wall Street Journal: “It turns out that Siri, the new voice activated personal assistant for Apple iPhone 4S has a dry sense of humor.”
  • For example, when asked “Who’s your daddy?” the phone answered: “You are” in an authoritative tone — and in response to “Beam me up,” the phone reportedly responded: “Sorry, Captain, your tricorder is in Airplane Mode.”
  • The article adds that in response to “Open the pod bay doors” (a reference to Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which also features a “talking” machine), users say the iPhone responds in a frighteningly slow voice, “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
  • Consumers are reacting to the artificial intelligence by asking the iPhone outlandish questions as websites dedicated to the concept are already emerging. The “personality” of Siri’s software could very well be the first step in driving consumer adoption.

Standing in Line, Woz Discusses How the iPhone 4S will Change His Life

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October 17, 2011
  • Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak likes the excitement of a new product release and tries to be first in line, despite the fact that Apple will ship him products.
  • He was #1 on line at the Apple store in Los Gatos, California and stayed up all night tweeting about it.
  • TechCrunch interviewed “Woz” (on iPhone video) as he discussed his enthusiasm for Siri: “This is the way I want all mobile devices to be in the future.”
  • “I’m so tired of pushing buttons, tapping things to get the right things done on a phone,” he added. “I just want to talk my thoughts to it.”
  • He also notes that he no longer wants to be sent somewhere that might have answers: “Google is known for search engines. I say search engines should be replaced by answer engines.”

Siri: Imagining the Untapped Potential of Artificial Intelligence

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October 17, 2011
  • Geek.com writer Will Shanklin believes Siri’s capabilities would be enormously expanded with access to third party apps. Currently, “Yelp and Wolfram Alpha appear to be the only ones in that elite group.”
  • Third party apps could enable users to play music among different streaming services, quickly use music ID, combine data from multiple services (“How about a combination of Netflix and IMDb data?”), get real-time navigation and a range of other convenient possibilities.
  • Siri access to Facebook could expedite posts, messages and notifications and quickly get information from friends’ profiles.
  • “As much as you might be blown away by Siri’s capabilities now, we will likely look back at this as ‘Siri 1.0’ five years from now,” writes Shanklin. “In much the same way that the first iPhone’s single-paged homescreen – with no third-party apps – looks primitive now, this introductory version of Siri will pale in comparison to where ‘she’ will be then.”

Will Siri Serve as the Foundation for our Next-Gen Remote Controls?

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October 14, 2011
  • If consumers take to the new virtual personal assistant technology Siri, featured in Apple’s iPhone 4S, we may see significant change to other devices such as the TV remote control.
  • Norman Winarsky, VP of ventures at SRI (involved in the development of Siri), told MIT’s Technology Review that, “within a decade, virtual personal assistants would be ubiquitous, integrated into the fabric of many devices,” and that their value could hike into the 100 billion dollar level.
  • “Wouldn’t it be nice to finally do away with the remote control, a device that begins to look so clunky and antiquated in our era of iEverythings?” asks Technology Review. “Apple has not announced any plans to bring Siri to devices other than the iPhone 4S, but the idea doesn’t seem so farfetched. It’s quite possible that the next refresh of the Apple TV could use a speedier A5 dual-core chip, speculates Cult of Mac — which would give the device the processing power necessary to run Siri.”
  • According to the article, Siri offers much more than just voice recognition: “Siri is good at parsing the words you say, but more importantly, its impressive artificial intelligence is able to discern their meaning, and take appropriate actions… As smart TVs become a next battleground for Internet-connected devices, let’s hope our remote controls get smarter, too.”

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