Imagine a phone that you can talk to, understands what you say, and actually talks back to you. Don’t think it’s possible? Read on!
Last April, Apple dished out $200 million dollars for Siri’s Personal Assistant Software, an advanced voice recognition and personal assistant program for your phone. At yesterdays much anticipated iPhone event, Apple introduced Siri: The iPhone Assistant that talks. As one of the largest artificial intelligence projects of U.S. History, this software program is said to be “life changing” and will completely revolutionize the way humans interact with technology from here on out.
Although it won’t be able to run and get your coffee or pick up your dry cleaning, this personal assistant is definitely worth checking out. With advanced speech recognition technology, your phone is about to come a whole lot smarter. Your life, well, a little bit easier.
The concept is simple: Tell your phone exactly what you want and let Siri work its magic. Just by speaking into your phone, your Assistant can complete detailed tasks for you. Whether it be booking a reservation at a restaurant, calling a taxi, reminding you to call your wife or finding and purchasing movie tickets for you, Siri’s got it covered. Hold down the “I” on your phone and say “I’d like a table for five at Tokyo Garden in San Diego tomorrow night at 6:00.” Siri will connect with Open Table, show you what is available, and even make the reservation for you. Simple as that.
Scott Forstall, head of Apple iOS, spent a considerable amount of time demonstrating the new app at the Apple event yesterday. When Forstall asked the phone, “Do I need a raincoat?” the app responded by saying, “It sure looks like rain today!” He also asked what the current time in Paris was, how the NASDAQ was doing, and the location of great Greek food in Palo Alto. Siri answered all queries with assertiveness and the crowd really got a kick out of it.
Part of what makes the app so advanced and unique is its ability to use natural language and to respond in that natural language back to users. In addition to detailed commands, this personal assistant can also play songs, call people, create text messages, set up meetings and reminders, get directions, set alarms and search the web simply by telling it to do so. The best part is that the iPhone Assistant gets smarter the more you use it. The app uses a specific algorithm to figure out what results you don’t like, what restaurants you frequent, and what people you want to talk to the most.
The intelligent voice recognition app that turns into your own personal assistant is soon to be released with the iPhone 4S. Currently, it only supports English, German and French.
Now, we’re just wondering — what will Siri say if we asked what my Grandmother would like for her birthday?!”
Watch a demonstration of Siri: The iPhone Assistant.
Questions or thoughts on Siri? Leave your comments below!
