Google and Microsoft are conspiring hard to beat the voice of Apple products - is considered a model for the future

I grew up in tomorrow's world was a moment I sat in front of a portable 14-inch black and white in my room and see a grainy image of an incredibly remote in the future. (Well, boys, it was like Doctor Who, but less realistic.)

From time to time, we talk about teams that are controlled by the awesome power of the human voice. And now, with Apple releasing Syria as part of the basis of the IOS (4S iPhone at least), how incredibly distant future look?

Now it's the way marketing ...

This morning, some people twitter a link to a YouTube video shows a piece of apple in the 80's made for so-called "Knowledge Browser". In places where the video is spookily prescient. A university professor comes into your office and open something like a cross between a messenger from Microsoft and an iPad. The device acts as a personal assistant almost self-conscious. In some places, is clearly insane, with the kind of Star Trek-style "computer - data analysis" instructions, but in others it is quite strange, especially in the areas of how we communicate and share information with others.

If you compare the video with the video Siri Knowledge Navigator, you will find a bit of a shock, because all the "Star Trek crazy not" bits in the video of the year 1987 are larger Siri and applied.

Now there are two options. I've never seen that video before Knowledge Navigator, so maybe Apple engineers now have access to some form of technology and time travel have been able to go back in time and place said video while on a temporary alternative that now all share. On the other hand, Apple's video links to the original sown along the knowledge browser on Twitter the last two days in the last two days to get some interest going viral. Or have fallen behind in reading impossible, the distant future. No matter how, is something very clever marketing.

of 1987

Going back to 1987, when knowledge Navigator video was and I was enjoying the World of Tomorrow night, Thursday. My problem with computer-controlled voice that I could write, so they can all my friends. My father could not, and most people of his generation struggled with a computer, but I was sure that when my generation came out of school and work, everyone would be able to write. If we could all, why we are sitting in an office all day talking to our computers when you can write the way we work related to nirvana? Because the only way a teenager can, as the generation time of my father retired, voice-activated computer is questionable.

(In fact, there was a dimension that I did not used to be considered a good decent typist -. But today, almost every age of 19 can take years to write at school no problem.)

voice recognition

My current phone is a 3G iPhone, I've had for almost two years. Before I had a BlackBerry. Each time I was in the car, a feature of the BlackBerry voice dialing is simply fab

. Among the 2000-odd contacts in my phone, I could do almost all the time. On my 3G, I

never

use. It takes 30 seconds to work through the contacts on my phone and never returns to the right person. But as they say in the circles of software engineering, perhaps the problem exists between keyboard and chair.

And it seems that my premonition of the voting control is not the computer is a big problem in the company was right. I have yet to see someone giving voice recognition dictation, turning a personal computer or in the office. (However, this does not mean that all speech technologies should be released, I worked with at least one person with dyslexia using a speech recognition engine text to read the reports back to him, as it helps -.. to replay and Apple had previously linked video a strong message for people with vision problems, but the mainstream, it is not)

As we all know Apple, however, tends to be a genius to see things from a slightly different angle. Siri is the use of voice technology for dictation, and an iPhone is not "do" and the iPhone is not "make calls". Siri is the use of a phone when you may not be able to keep it, or when you do something else. For me, this is what is driving the current wave of mobile devices. You no longer have a computer somewhere and use that

use on the go

. Siri is a natural idea and organic. As shown in the video Siri Apple, it's easier to talk with your iPhone to make it set a timer in cake than it is to get physically touch the thing. (Also, 30 minutes for cupcakes? Too long. Burntcakes #.)

said, the areas of video that the user called Siri, when instead he could play the phone - those who think they are wrong. Is

always

will be easier to play an application of talk time with the thing, especially because when you touch it, you'll get more often and the response time is measured in milliseconds. Siri victory occurs when the balance in the accuracy and latency is less than the change in context to find and interact with the device - for example when cooking or running a cake. For this reason, I wonder if it always makes sense Siri OS X.

important, Siri shows a major shift in confidence in Apple is moving back to the most avant-garde stuff. We all remember what a disaster of Newton and it was handwriting recognition. However, the method of graffiti on the Palm Pilot / Palm was very workably due to the simplification. With the IPAD, Apple fool around the problem of writing and everything that no one cared, because that's what it was an iPad. But I wonder now with Apple in its sails, if Siri means they are now seeking to take such risks again. Apple is the science of computer security is done well - not much innovation made in Cupertino magic he can do with them waving a little more

competition

am a big fan of Microsoft, but I still have to crawl to the clunkiness of this young gentleman who brings us through the voice recognition capabilities of Windows 7. Apple everything we are trying to

cafes
-. Ed ) in Mountain View and Redmond and thinking very, very careful on how to deal with Siri. The problem can not be easily resolved.

Siri was not developed internally by Apple, but it was purchased. Its heritage is impressive. Siri was a proposed spin-off of a DARPA-funded project called CALO, a five-year initiative involving 300 researchers to re-use of AI technology to create a "cognitive assistant" - c ' is a very good way to describe Siri.