Voice Assistant? Yes please, but not in public
creativestrategies.com
creativestrategies.com
"call $business_thats_part_of_a_national_chain in $town $state." That's a batting practice pitch right over the plate. The "in $town $state" tells it to use Google maps search. From there it should have no problem finding the business and phone number. Instead it tells me "here's what we found for $business in $town $state." Of course the first result is the business I'm looking for and I can find and call the number somewhere on the page but it's almost easier to just Google it directly.
The only time I'm willing to put up with this is when I'm driving and want to minimize interaction with the phone.
Maybe nobody uses them in public because it's faster, more precise and less obnoxious to type.
Looking up car parts would be nice ( "does $chain_store in $town have $partnum" and "$other_chain_stire in $next_town_over have $partnum") is hilariously easy from a implementation perspective since everything but slapping the voice recognition on top and mapping key words to software commands has been solved for a long time. (e.g. http://showmetheparts.com/).
And from a foreign language speaker standpoint, I find it even harder to imagine. In Spanish there is not really a consensus about how to pronounce 'Google'. I can't imagine people on the streets speaking Googlish.
On the other hand, everyone googles, for sure, everyone uses search and mobile. I have the feeling that these two interactions -text/type search and mobile- are too hard to improve on. I don't think voice has a chance to become bigger than text.
Yes, any single capability is 'hilariously easy' to implement - the problem with these systems is that there are thousands of capabilities to implement before people can consider them close to doing 'everything'.
It's leading people to believe that real AI programming is occurring regularly.
What is the "atomic theory" of AI? Are all of these pieces and components evolutionary explorations into AI or something less or something different? What do we call them along the way other than just "AI"?
The most hilarious clip I found was one where Google had transcribed the request as "bbbbbbb bbbbbbb bbbbbbb" and on playing it back, I heard the sound of my alarm clock going off with a steady beep, beep, beep...!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone
At the loudest volume setting, Siri replies "ALRIGHT, STEPHEN, I'LL REMIND YOU TO WHATEVER WHATEVER".
The one feature that would get me to use Siri more is if she would speak more quietly!
1: You can adjust the Siri app's volume the same way you can any other. Activate Siri, and then use the volume rocker button to adjust it up/down.
2: You can turn off voice responses altogether! In Settings>General>Siri, change "Voice Feedback" to "handsfree only". Now Siri will stay completely silent if you activate it with the home button ("Hey Siri" is hands-free, so you still get voice responses there).
(MFi = made for iPhone) https://mfi.apple.com/MFiWeb/getFAQ.action#1-2 https://developer.apple.com/bluetooth/
Have fun with MIDI quality. The only way BTLE is sending mp3 or higher quality is through the MFi Hearing aid protocol Apple owns and keeps under wraps.
Also, a couple of months ago I enabled the "Listen for 'Hey Siri' when plugged in" option on my iPhone and it's been super helpful. My phones typically plugged in right infront of me when I'm working, as well as in the car. I use it frequently to start a phone call "Hey siri call ___" and it works wonderfully. It works WAY better than the hands-free setting in my car.
Car:
**Press Button**
Me: Call Home
**3 second pause**
Car: Calling Home at Home, is this correct?
Me: Yes
Car: Dialing....
**2 second pause while it initiates the dial**
Hey Siri call home
**dials**There's probably even ways a home assistant could also specifically help my guests. It could know where I store things they might need, like cups, plates, and silverware. Or be able to tell them where my bathroom is.
Of course, when the voice recognition completely botches what I asked of it and I get frustrated trying to make it work right, I probably do look crazy.
Where it gets annoying currently is repeating OK Google/Alexa/Siri five times, then repeating what you want the damn thing to do another four times, each time a bit louder.
Obviously for everyday, casual use that would require some design work. Maybe integrate that to jacket or shirt, if the hardware is not too expensive. Bluetooth for communications. Battery is a bit of a problem, having to constantly charge my jacket is not something I would like to do. Maybe there would be some opportunities to build it so that it would not be active all the time.
Or maybe one should actually rethink the whole concept. Maybe it would be better to just capture the vibrations from few places around the throat and then use machine learning to make sense of them instead of trying to use the traditional speech recognition.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160216005731/en/Voca...
This is the one you want. I'm on my second now from losing the first. It comes with a handlebar mount but mine were too thin. I layered up some electrical tape and the holder works even at high speeds.
Likely, designers made the call that they could just avoid the entire mess by operating the entire voice assistant in speaker mode instead of trying to compete with other UX/UI features.
Additionally, I would assume that the idea of simply talking aloud to a device replicates the Sci-Fi computer experience for computer interaction, most notably in Star Trek in which crew members simply summoned the computer with "Computer: [plain language command or query]". Even outside of Star Trek, this was a fairly common idea for interaction with futuristic computer systems, and for enough of the population, this method of interaction is part of the cultural memory.
I use Google's voice recognition a ton when on my motorcycle with a Bluetooth helmet. I've gotten in the habit of just trying things and to my surprise many have worked.
Play/pause music, mute/unmute voice navigation, ask how long until my next turn, ask it to navigate to somewhere else, call/text/send a hangouts message to a contact by their nickname, play a specific band or album of music, etc...
I doubt this conclusion. For one, given how many people I see everyday driving while holding a smartphone to their ear, it does not seem that too many people are concerned with that particular law. Couldn't it be instead that driving is a situation where not having to use your hands is perceived as an actual benefit?
"Hey, Siri, what's 174 miles divided by 12 gallons?"
"Some pretty shitty mileage, mikestew. You should consider driving the Leaf more often."
I agree that it would be better if she were that clever. Part of the problem is that it's just so predictable. Whenever it's above room temperature, she'll say "Hot!" If it's below room temperature, she'll say "Brr." Some variety would really help.
NSSiriResponse *response = [NSSiriResponse new];
if (currentTemp < roomTemp) {
// Randomly select a response from the pre-determined list
response = responses.lookup(kCOLD_TEMP_RESPONSE);
else {
response = responses.lookup(kHOT_TEMP_RESPONSE);
}
[response speak];
Interfacing with a computer via voice is painful. Give me a keyboard any day.
Apparently this internal voice actually results in some muscle movements, and it's thought that with the right sensors and software it would be possible to recognize it as speech. Nobody has quite gotten it to work yet, though.