Meet Siri's Little Brother, Trapit 183
waderoush writes "Virtually overnight, Siri, the personal assistant technology in Apple's new iPhone 4S, has brought state-of-the-art AI to the consumer mainstream. Well, it turns out there's more where that came from. Trapit, a second spinoff of SRI International's groundbreaking CALO project (Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes), is preparing for a public beta launch this fall. The Web-based news aggregator lets users set up persistent 'traps' or filters on specific topics. Over time, the traps learn to include more articles that match users' interests and exclude those that don't. Philosophically, it's the exact opposite of social-curation news apps like Flipboard or Pulse, since it uses adaptive learning and sense-making technologies to learn what users like, not what their friends like. 'Just as Siri is revolutionizing the human-computer interaction on the mobile device, Trapit will revolutionize Web search as we know it today,' the company asserts."
Important (Score:5, Interesting)
While a program that fetches more things you are interested in is great, you should realize the consequences of such a program. In particular you should realize the concept of a filter bubble. Namely that by only picking out things you are already interested in, you exclude things that you could be interested in or things that are too important to exclude.
There's been a TED talk about this, I suggest you watch it so that you can take active steps (when needed) to step out of your comfort zone now and then:
http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk [thefilterbubble.com]
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While a program that fetches more things you are interested in is great, you should realize the consequences of such a program. In particular you should realize the concept of a filter bubble. Namely that by only picking out things you are already interested in, you exclude things that you could be interested in or things that are too important to exclude.
There's been a TED talk about this, I suggest you watch it so that you can take active steps (when needed) to step out of your comfort zone now and then:
http://www.thefilterbubble.com/ted-talk [thefilterbubble.com]
I already have a real world filter bubble. I like the the things I like. I like to go out of my comfort zone now and then but I often end up back there as its my comfort zone :)
I would be intrigued to see what the AI would do for me.
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The real world is far more complex and unpredictable than these virtual filter bubbles.
You individually in your filter bubble is no loss - to you, or to anyone else. But millions, billions of filter bubbles, disconnected from reality and from each other destroys the society that needs reality and interconnections among disparate people.
There's a reason people who come to NYC learn to respect it for being "real": it's hard for all but the richest to avoid people unlike them or difficult realities. There's a
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Maybe you should turn down your filter.
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You should get out more.
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How is this different from selecting a number of topical sites you are interested in by hand?
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While a program that fetches more things you are interested in is great, you should realize the consequences of such a program. In particular you should realize the concept of a filter bubble. Namely that by only picking out things you are already interested in, you exclude things that you could be interested in or things that are too important to exclude.
From the perspective of a person's personal life, that's all true. But from a work perspective, this could be really useful.
Like a lot of academic departments, we maintain a list of news items related to our faculty's research. Right now one tool we use is a customized Google news feed - but that's not very sophisticated, and we get a lot of false positives. If TrapIt works well, it could make that portion of our PR person's job quite a bit easier.
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People who listen exclusively to conservative news radio is a great example of this. Absolutely blows my mind to hear what some people actually believe and most importantly, what they believe others believe as well.
That said Siri sounds like something I wouldn't use because talking is an inferior input device that voids all sense of privacy I get when i use my phone.
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You're a Red Stater. Move.
It's a trap! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Virtually overnight, Siri, the personal assistant technology in Apple's new iPhone 4S, has brought state-of-the-art AI to the consumer mainstream."
I just choked on my cup of tea reading that. It's voice recognition feed into some search engines, Wolfram Alpha, Yelp and some snippets from Wikipedia and the result plays through text to speech, mashed up with voice commands. If you call such a remix of off-the-shelf tech and existing services state-of-the art AI then you must be joking. Indeed voice commands have been in many phones for a while, Android has had it, including dictation, since the dawn of the time. The only part about that is right is Apple's sucess at re-launching things that have been around for a while as something new, and actually getting people to use them. FaceTime for example, is mere video calling which many phones support, but nobody uses.
What's worse is Apple probably managed to get a patent or two on Siri. It is so obvious that a bunch of coders at a hackathon could put something similar together in a few hours and have a demo of the same thing. Oh... wait... they've done exactly that, it's called Iris Alpha from a firm called, and it took eight hours.
Point is, while Apple's idea is clever, the polish and packaging good and the marketing cleverest, but it is absolutely not start of the art artificial intelligence, it's the sorry state of artificial stupidity, and why we have little to fear in the way of robot uprisings yet.
Give it a cute name and throw in some smart ass answers to inevitable cheeky questions and Apple has fooled a lot of people, clearly.
Re:It's a trap! (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you expect people who do not have real intelligence to recognize artificial intelligence?
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No kidding. Talk about sensationalism. This is so far from artificial intelligence it's not even funny.
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It's not even an expert system.
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Sorry. I was referring to Siri itself. I misunderstood and thought they were claiming Siri is an AI.
Still, adaptive learning algorithms are not AI. They're a piece of the puzzle, but don't read too much into it. Learning is necessary, but it doesn't meet the "intelligence" criteria.
Let me know when it passes the Turing Test (Score:2)
'nuff said.
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So... between UNIVAC and the Turing Test there's absolutely nothing that might be of any use at all?
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The Turing Test is only step one. There are other ways to evaluate AI capabilities, and other aspects of intelligence than participating in one-on-one communications. There are chatbots which have done very well on the Turing Test, but they fail other subsequent tests.
Self-driving cars and a host of very useful applications can be serviced by an expert system and a few learning algorithms. But you'd never want a true AI driving your car, because you'd have to teach it HOW first. An expert system with
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You see, nothing says that the so called "expert systems" have to be based on canned logic and simple rules only, its perfectly possible to comp
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To put it in perspective, a baysian spam filter is an adaptive algorithm. No one would ever claim it's intelligent.
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Nonsense. The goal posts haven't moved in 20 years. The Turing Test is the first test of artificial intelligence. No one is moving the goal posts. They're just calling out the bullshit artists.
Re:It's a trap! (Score:5, Interesting)
But, just go on hating in ignorance, it's so much easier.
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Strangely, replacing "speak" with "type", you can do that to several search engines, like Wolfram Alpha.
Oddly enough, Wolfram Alpha is where Siri sends many inquiries to actually get responses.
So, yeah, its search with a voice recognition interface.
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Google calendar! I use the calendar widget. I type "Schedule Dinner with X on June 23rd 5:30pm" and press enter, it automatically creates the entry.
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Honestly, not saying it may not be implemented/integrated very well, but you're talking voice recognition with a search engine that can do some basic natural language processing (NLP) [wikipedia.org].
There really isn't anything new about these separate components. It may be slickly done (probably is, being Apple), but what you've described is nowhere near "state of the art" for AI. I have a 21 year background in AI, for frame of reference.
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So, you've learned nothing about it - Apple didn't invent Siri - they bought it, so "probably managed to get a patent on it" just belies your bias here.
The sentence is a little sensational - it's a smart system as far as voice recognition and organisation goes, but it's certainly not cutting edge AI.
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Yes, they would - yet the OP is specifically using language that Apple would be looking to "sneakily" get a patent on it (with absolutely no evidence) rather than, say obtaining patents already granted on it by the original makers when they bought the software.
"Ok, we bought it, now lets patent it!" is the claim, with no corroborating evidence at all. In fact, the OP is claiming this is a "what's worse..." argument - as in, here's a fact that makes Apple's use of Siri bad for everyone, when he just shot his
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Depressingly, that's the state of the art in AI. There's really nothing substantively better out there.
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I don't think they have Watson running on a cell phone, yet. Siri is just Watson on smaller hardware.
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Re:It's a trap! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just choked on my cup of tea reading that. It's voice recognition feed into some search engines, Wolfram Alpha, Yelp and some snippets from Wikipedia and the result plays through text to speech, mashed up with voice commands. If you call such a remix of off-the-shelf tech and existing services state-of-the art AI then you must be joking.
If it's so obvious and easy to do, why haven't you done it? From reports from actual users, it seems to me that for the first time we have a voice recognition system that can do more than respond to a small number of precisely-defined words. If that's not state-of-the-art, I want to know what world you live in, and can I have some of the futuristic tech you must be using?
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So you're saying that automating the copy-paste from a Dragon Naturally Speaking document and pasting it into the search bar is novel enough to warrant a patent and praise? Don't confuse the first to do it that you've heard of with meaning they were the first to think of it.
Re:It's a trap! (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed voice commands have been in many phones for a while,
Including older iPhones - but here's the problem: They barely work. I use it very occasionally for simple things, like getting the time in winter when the phone is somewhere in an inside pocket.
From all I've seen, Siri works. That right there is the entire secret. It doesn't have 25613 features, but it works.
What's worse is Apple probably managed to get a patent or two on Siri.
They bought it. If there were any patents, they certainly now own them, but it's not Apple's fault or decision. Siri was almost complete when it got bought up.
It is so obvious that a bunch of coders at a hackathon could put something similar together in a few hours and have a demo of the same thing. Oh... wait... they've done exactly that, it's called Iris Alpha from a firm called, and it took eight hours.
Allegedly. Plust quite frankly, this nice video here:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dexetra.iris [android.com]
has me minus-convinced. Funny how there is always a cut between the question and the answer...
Point is, while Apple's idea is clever, the polish and packaging good and the marketing cleverest, but it is absolutely not start of the art artificial intelligence,
Agreed. It is, however, the state of the art of the personal assistant. It is precisely the polish, integration and Steve's obsession with perfection that makes it a success. I'm sure there's at least a hundred prototype projects around that can do more, have more advanced AI, etc. etc. etc. - but none of them are in a state where you could put them out into a mass market.
And that's why Apple is making more money than they know what to do with, and the Iris Alpha coders are playing "look ma" in the Android market place.
Personal disclaimer: Don't get this wrong as a lack of respect. The same reason is why a friend of mine makes a living with computer games, while I have the better game ideas but barely make what I spend on engine licenses, etc. and consider it a hobby - when I think a game is done, he starts the polishing process, the other 50% of development.
And Apple is a master of that part.
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It was just to demonstrate how fast someone could come up with a similar project.
It's easy to do when the codebase is available. There are both voice recognition libraries for Android, and early code for what eventually became Siri.
But enjoy paying an extra $800 for a phone you don't need.
Smartass. First, it's not $800, it's $200 to $400 depending on the model you buy. Second, I didn't. Third, when I did (iPhone 4), it was for a device that I needed.
So, basically, the word "enjoy" was the only word in that sentence with at least some truth value.
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Almost.
It isn't the technology. But it is the polish and the ease of use.
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From what I've read of "Iris", it's impressive, but it ain't Siri. The article I read showed that Iris was very good at parsing natural language questions and finding the answers on the internet, even silly questions like "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?". That's great, but Siri goes beyond that. It can respond to statements, not just questions. It learns how you speak. It gets better the more you use it.
Now, I admit: I have not done in-depth research on Iris. Maybe Iris does incorporate adapti
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Yeah. Too bad you didn't think of it first, eh?
So for him to comment on it, he has to have thought it up? Does that go for everyone else and everything too? Do I have to have invented cars to give my opinion of a 1972 Ford Pinto? You don't have to be a baker to know the bread is stale, guy.
I LOVE THESE NAMES (Score:2)
Trapit! Itsatrap! My cellphone is a TRACFONE. AT&T's logo is still the death star. And the trump, Microsoft.
Siri, Android and State of the Art (Score:5, Interesting)
Apple's Siri is not necessarily 'State of the Art', but like just about everything Apple does... It just works. Siri is causing a splash because ... unlike Android. It works properly. I don't use voice on my Android because it is worthless to me. I say 'Call my wife' It says. 'Calling Lowes Home Center'. It NEVER EVER gets it right. I have several friends with Androids and only one friend with that perfect voice that can get it to understand him, and even he often has to ask it twice . My wife HATES my Android and never bothered with a Smart phone before because she did not really like them. Too big and bulky. Her phone finally broke and she bought the 4S.
Like everything else Apple does. It just works. She talks to it. It understands every word. I talk to it ... It understands every word. .. and it ALWAYS seems to say something appropriate in response. True that the Android voice can do more than Siri. But I would rather have a voice that can do less properly than one that can do lots of stuff wrong. The only thing I find the Android voice useful for is a good laugh. I fire it up occasionally and ask it something and get a chuckle with just how wrong it gets my request. When she got Siri, we had a house full of people that evening and we passed my Android around playing with the voice. It did not once get anything right anyone said. 7 different voices asking it stuff and not once was it even close. Siri understood everyone perfectly.
So the Android voice is useless. Siri is useful. Therein lies the difference.
Re:Siri, Android and State of the Art (Score:4, Interesting)
you sir are a dumbass. my google is trained and understands me perfectly.
Siri obviously doesn't need any training to get to that level. That's important, since training a computer to do what you want it to do is a chore. Just like nearly nobody wants to write his/her own OS kernel just to get the real work done.
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Just like nearly nobody wants to write his/her own OS kernel just to get the real work done.
Those people just don't have enough free time on their hands.
Google News Sucks (Score:3)
Google News sucks.
Sure, it's better than reading a physical newspaper, where you're trapped in a single swamp of laziness, bias and lies. And we won't talk of TV "news", which is like a Bazooka Joe bubblegum wrapper. But before I was wise enough to realize how newspapers sucked (and before they totally sucked, after USA Today got through with them, and Fox Lies got through with newspapers), reading a newspaper could be an hour of thinking substantially about the world. An hour of depth and range.
But Google News sucks. Spending an hour reading it is like spending an hour speed dating. Yet it does have a lot of sources, some decent algorithms finding multiple sources for a single story, and a wide range of categories (especially if you're interested in PR in technical subjects written for a nontechnical audience). There's just "no there, there".
Is there an app that's better at presenting news? Browsing, linking among related articles? Formatted like a magazine or something, not just a clickable RSS feed?
Maybe something that listens to speech and gets content based on it? Maybe some social features? Something? The medium of "news" seems to be dead and rotting, right when the world needs it most. And right when my tea is ready.
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Siloed brains (Score:2)
Echo chamber much (Score:2)
This tech should help us all increase our cognitive bias.
News aggregator (Score:2)
The Web-based news aggregator lets users set up persistent 'traps' or filters on specific topics. Over time, the traps learn to include more articles that match users' interests and exclude those that don't.
Allow: Shiny new electronic products
Block: Starving orphans
.
I will give Siri props. (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the people who worked on Watson, the computer mind put to the test on Jeopardy, is my former brother in law. When BrotherInLaw -1 began on computer AI there was, at the time, no one more advanced than he to challenge his thesis. The stuff we're seeing now in Siri is very much like what Watson did and projects BIL -1 has been working on for over 10 years, only put to "commercial / consumer" use; something inevitable. I doubt anyone involved with the first missions to the moon were all up in arms saying "What? Velcro? *ththt* That's been out for ages." Remember, to much of the media and your average user, this IS bleeding edge!
This is what happens with technology. It gets invented, it gets used in science and technology circles for a while then, if it's got commercial appeal, it ends up in the hands of Joe 6GB.To those lambasting Apple, while I assure you is something I enjoy, is sort of shooting fish in a barrel.
All that said, I use Android for one very simple reason: Apple's Ap Store policy makes me rage. Their puritanical requirements on nudity, "obscenity", etc as well as their tight fisted control over interface is preposterous and reprehensible. When I'd heard they forced a German news agency change their iPhone ap due to a few boobies was when I decided I would never, ever own one. Many of my users have them, they're bought by my employer, I've been offered a new iPhone each year, but for the last two years I've very much enjoyed my Android. The voice command blows, no argument. The screen pivot is comical. But all the aps I have, I enjoy. I can play around with whatever aps I want and not brick the device. To me, that's a fair cop; One programs functionality (Siri) does not out weigh freedom to do as I wish with my devices.
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Yeah, and US retailers don't force game developers to censor themselves. They just won't stock AO games.
bias (Score:2)
I personally consider this one of the most dangerous innovations of the (still young) century.
We humans already have built-in bias, and plenty of it. One of these little devils is the one that filters out information counter to your opinions. If you use an agent that shows you only stuff that you like, a lot of people will descend even further into their own personal worlds, and move ever further away from reality.
Every once in a while, you need to be confronted with views other and your own, and stuff outs
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I personally consider this one of the most dangerous innovations of the (still young) century.
We humans already have built-in bias, and plenty of it.
True, but think of what life was like in Ye Ancient Thymes - you were lucky if you got a foreign newspaper that was less than a month old. Unless you were royalty or very well to do, you did not interact with a large circle of people. You never had a chance of finding out there were furries in the world. /b/ was just a brief bout of nausea in some schizophrenics brain after a particularly bad meal.
While most people won't avail themselves of it, there are more options to 'expand your mind' than ever. Even
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That's true and a very good point.
So, I amend mine, and add: "I don't want to return to those dark ages"
Prior art in a novel (Score:2)
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Fiction isn't prior art.
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It may be.
There was a guy who tried to patent a method for lifting sunken ships, by pumping down thousands of little plastic balls filled with air. It was approved in many countries, but rejected in the Netherlands, because the technique had been used in a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks 15 years earlier.
All patent legislation demands that the idea be "novel". In principle, you could point to fiction as evidence that an idea isn't novel - but it's in states interests to approve as many patents as possible,
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I'm not clear how it's in the state's interest to approve patents. They cost more to approve than they bring in in revenue.
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I'm not clear how it's in the state's interest to approve patents. They cost more to approve than they bring in in revenue.
Are you also counting the revenue of the courts, in fighting patent battles? (I think East Texas would disagree with you...)
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I would say "never".
Just a wild guess.
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Dude, it's time to give up the meth. I fear it's your only hope if you want to be effective & coherent in your future trolling endeavors.
Just look at your teeth in the mirror and you will know in your heart I'm right.
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destroying existence of pop
Feature, not bug. Feature.
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I couldn't agree more!
The more this stuff would learn about you, the less you 'd have chances to learn new stuff that could interest you, to open your mind to other opinions and other ideas. It's kind of positive closed-loop that'll lock your mind and prevent you to evolve (well, fortunately the rest of the world will continue to interact with you by other means).
I'd never permit a real person, even my mother who knows me well, to select what I should be interested in, so an archaic AI program, a bonehead m
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Google has already done voice for a long time and did Iris in 8 hours shortly after Isis came out and you're running this article? You really are an internet whore! :)
Thanks for proving that Siri is actually smarter than the average Fandroid.
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Google has already done voice for a long time and did Iris in 8 hours shortly after Isis came out and you're running this article? You really are an internet whore! :)
Me: Siri, filter Internet slashvertising
Siri: I'm sorry, but I can't do that.
Me: Siri, remove Internet whoring archives
Siri: Did you mean find Internet whores?
Me: No Siri, you piece of shit! I don't wan to see articles full of bullshit
Siri: Did you mean you want to order manure from the Internet?
Me: Fuck you, Siri!
Siri: I'm sorry I don't know how to fuck you,
Me: Of course you fucking don't you piece of shit
Siri: Okay ordering manure from manure.com. How many tons
Me: Arrrghhhh!
Siri: Okay ordering 8 tons of m
Re:Are you efing serious? (Score:5, Funny)
It's snarkier than Cleverbot.
http://shitthatsirisays.tumblr.com/ [tumblr.com]
--
BMO
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Give it a break, it's only an Apple product....
(Confused Trekki) "Beam Me Up" ................... "Please install the latest version of iCloud and try again"
(Siri)
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Google has had voice search for quite awhile now, and the rest of the functions are what would have happened if you hooked up a voice recognition program to a virtual assistant. Unless I'm really misunderstanding this is something I could get running on my Android phone easily.
Given what I saw on http://shitthatsirisays.tumblr.com/ [tumblr.com], it doesn't appear that it's particularly sophisticated either.
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And I forgot, here's a relevant link, http://www.google.com/mobile/voice-actions/ [google.com] I'm not seeing anything that Siri can do that Android can't do, with the possible exception of scheduling meetings.
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And I forgot, here's a relevant link, http://www.google.com/mobile/voice-actions/ [google.com] I'm not seeing anything that Siri can do that Android can't do, with the possible exception of scheduling meetings.
Let's assume that Android can actually do everything Siri can - the question is what commands it can understand correctly.
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Google has had voice search for quite awhile now, and the rest of the functions are what would have happened if you hooked up a voice recognition program to a virtual assistant. Unless I'm really misunderstanding this is something I could get running on my Android phone easily.
So, in the classic "Apple didnt do this first" troll rush that I knew would be the first few comments when I read the summary, *why* has no one "hooked up a voice recognition program to a virtual assistant" before now and pushed it as a new big feature?
The summary is accurate - before the 4S, this stuff was around in Android and other phones (hell, even the 3GS had voice control similar to what Android has, just without the ability to go much beyond the set phrases), but who was really talking about it? Now
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Well, when you claim that something is revolutionary, you're claiming that they were in fact first. Just because you're a fan boy, doesn't mean that it's trolling to point out that Apple once again is getting to the party late and is trying to pretend like previous implementations don't exist.
True to Apple's style, they're throwing a bunch of marketing money at people trying to convince them that Apple was first, when it's demonstrably not correct.
On some level, I think you realize that it's not the case, y
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Where are they claiming they're the first? There's no such claim on Apple's site about it - just lots of information about what it does. They're not claiming they were first, just that they have it as a major feature of the 4S. Show me in Apple's marketing where they are "trying to convince people they [were] first". They're not claiming that because they know that's not the case.
This is going to be an iPad thing all over again. Not the first tablet, but the first successful one - but then, they never claim
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Not because they invented it (who is claiming that?) but because they have packaged it in a way that makes it accessible and in a way that works, in the same way that Bell Labs did with the ideas behind the transistor.
Except that it isn't the way they "packaged" it either. Siri-under-Apple is really not so different than Siri-before-Apple. What Apple has done is marketed it.
You can probably claim that good marketing can cause a revolution by sparking popular interest in a thing and do it without strictly lying, but it's good to keep in mind that it isn't Apple's products or engineering causing that, it's their RDF.
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Ah, the old "RDF" argument again.
Look, I will be the first to admit that there are a lot of vocal fans in the Apple community (just as there are in the Android community, although most of them seem to be more interested in judging what other people use), but not everything in Apple's success can be hand-waved away with "oh, it's just stupid sheeple falling for the RDF" - to do so is more a reflection on other people not learning what Apple *does* do right occasionally when creating and marketing a product.
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Marketing only gets you so far. It's certainly an essential element of the equation, but for continued, increasing success you actually need to back it up with a good product.
You're right about that -- it's not like they're pulling a Microsoft and putting a pound of sugar on a shit sandwich so that they can advertise how sweet it is. Apple makes good products. (And they had better for what they cost.)
The thing is, other people make good products too. Sometimes better products. Apple is not special. There is nothing "revolutionary" about Siri either before Apple bought it or after. That doesn't make it useless or poorly executed, it just makes it overhyped.
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So... where was this front and centre feature promotion?
In the years since Android has been out, "doing things better" than iOS, why has this not been mentioned? Instead it's all about how it's better because you can sideload apps.
When I say "front and centre" I mean exactly that - Apple has made it the main selling point for the 4S, and as a result has everyone talking about it (witness, this article which doesn't really have anything to *do* with voice recognition, making a weak comparison with Siri in th
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And the advertising? Front and centre means more than just having the feature on the home screen.
I can see why you posted AC - you have no clue.
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Goodness me you're angry and immature! A real ambassador for whatever it is you're promoting. I can see why Android folks would want you on their side.
You are also missing the point by such a wide margin, which isn't surprising given your homophobic frothing and ranting, but I should probably try to spell it out in simple language that you will understand.
This whole subthread is about the presence of the voice search on Android, hence the argument. No one is disputing that it's in there. However, it has the
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Heh. In other words the "I have lost this argument but lack the requisite intelligence to get out of it without looking like an idiot".
Better luck next time, maybe you'll remember to log in.
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Forgive me if I was implying that Google was first here, I just happened to know that my phone has that functionality built in and has for some time.
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Siri is an interface using voice recognition for input, a selection of backends to do the actual work (Wolfram Alpha is a big one, apparently), and speech synthesis for part of the output. Its a clever wiring together of existing technologies, but its not revolutionary in a way that is likely to provide Apple a durable edge substantively (having been first mover is likely to be a marketing edge longer than there is any substa
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First mover and more polish. Apple cares about how smoothly things work together. It is not perfect in doing this, but it is far better than most of the competition.
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You do understand that it was an application before, right? Everything you say and do has already been done on earlier phones with appli... OH WAIT, they pulled it from the 3 / 3g / 4 store didn't they.
Oh, my bad.
Incidentally, this ( https://market.android.com/details?id=com.pannous.voice.actions.free ) application has been available on the Android Market since at least December. Check the video, it's remarkable similar.
Again, nothing revolutionary that people haven't done before. They might have put in
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You don't seem to know your history very well. Apple has been doing voice synth and voice control, since at least the early '90's. And, yes, they probably got the idea from Star Trek - so it wasn't their idea. However, typical of Apple to make a concept actually usable. At least typical of Apple with the second coming of Jobs. The Jobs of the first coming and of NeXT, had vision, but didn't know how to only release stuff that was ready for prime time – something that he learned and applied when he ret
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Which half did you think was untrue? Can you point to more state of the art AI (that can run on a handheld)? Or is ios just too non-mainstream?
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Nothing is AI, that's my point.
Re:State of the art AI? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Nothing is AI, that's my point."
True Scotsmen Like this. "Any feature which has been successfully implemented is no longer AI".
That's a pretty sneaky bias for we carbon units to employ. What does it take for us to finally admit "Okay, that's AI. Not very smart AI, but then Smith over there isn't smart either." If for example you hook this Siri thing to the Watson system that can play world class Jeopardy, (tweaked for real sentences back rather than starting with Jeopardy Nouns), then watch out, here comes AI.
Any one person has a "collection of subroutines". We hit our biological limits some 170 years ago, so (basically) no one is a Renaissance Universal Polymath anymore. So we're cherry picking which of 5 billion people we want as our "Human Champion" vs the AI systems that are just on the brink of the Singularity.
We lost Chess, we lost Jeopardy. Your choice of 10 other classic test domains, which used to be hallmarks of Smart People.
So these are steps toward AI. No doubt about it. Then the last piece will be the Killer App, and then we'll all go to our bookshelves and re-read people like Kurzweil. And Asimov's robot stories.
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As there is no working AI today (and will not be for quite a long time yet, if ever, stop believing marketing BS), and Siri is definitely not AI, the claim is true.
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I won't give it permission to read my phone info, so the news360 app is not acceptable. Why does it need that?
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http://www.gamesradar.com/dragon-age-and-yakuza-delayed-disaster-report-4-canceled-in-reaction-to-quake/ [gamesradar.com]
Couple of kinks still in there, perhaps.