Siri, the virtual assistant for the Apple iPhone 4S, when it appeared two months ago seemed possibly to be an Android killer. It had both natural language technology together with artificial intelligence. Given Apple’s emphasis on usability and user convenience, it promised to be impressive and so it was to many. Google perhaps as one might expect was less enthusiastic.
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I happened to see an online touch typing tutor and it brought back some pleasant memories but also raised some intriguing questions for the future. I remember at university it made sense for me to acquire a Smith Corona typewriter and use that for typing my reports, since my handwriting was rapidly deteriorating given the speed at which notes must be taken.
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As CNN tells us, the outlook for Cyber Monday is for big deals and record sales. Sales for the one-day shopping event are projected to hit a record $1.2 billion this year. Cyber Monday was started by Shop.org, the online face of the National Retail Federation. Cyber Monday is always held on the Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend. Almost every major retailer plans on taking advantage of the hottest day to shop online. That includes Nuance, the best-known company in voice technology.
As our faithful readers may have noticed, SMM is now giving some visibility to the fine software and service suppliers that we have used over the years. Dragon Naturally Speaking is one of these, which does an excellent job of converting spoken phrases, even with a Brit accent, into relatively error-free text. You’ll find mention of this software in the left side-bar. This software is produced by Nuance, which is the best known and most advanced supplier of voice technology. For example it is involved in Siri, the winning application that is provided with the Apple iPhone 4S. Nuance is offering some real deals for Black Friday November 25 that we thought you might want to grab. Just click on the link that takes your fancy.
As telecommunications technology advances, it becomes very much easier for a broadband supplier to offer an array of services within a basic package. This is attractive to the supplier, given that the sales package is larger. The customer has the advantage that the total bill will be less than if they bought the services separately.
This post was triggered by a comment that Stephen Rey made on the post about Siri as an Android killer:
… But what do you think about the Android’s ” Iris ” . Do you think it can compete with Siri?
As usual Apple has created major waves as it introduces new technology. We are talking about the iPhone 4S with the Siri voice technology application. Forbes with a two-step back-and-forth series has helped the hype. Perhaps Siri is a Google killer. Perhaps Siri is not a Google killer. Given the growing importance of the mobile Internet, there are huge implications in how this conflict plays out.
Should smartphones be smart? That is the question I should have asked earlier in the day. What I did ask was, Is an iPhone still a phone with Siri. I would have thought the answer was self-evident but of all people Andy Rubin (SVP of Mobile with Google) takes the contrary view.
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The voicemail-hacking scandal that destroyed the British tabloid News of the World last week raises questions about the security of voicemail either from your cell phone or from your land-line telephone. But as the Times of India points out there may be other ways in which your privacy may be violated. You may be the subject of blagging or pinging:
The phone-hacking controversy has brought to the fore the dubious ways in which sensation-driven British tabloids secure bits of information that are then splashed across the front pages with screaming headlines.
If you consider all the fields of human activities where speech recognition technology might be used, the hospital environment would seem to offer the most beneficial uses. Just think of some of the benefits:
Not surprisingly, it does not seem inappropriate to say that Every hospital will have speech recognition infrastructure.
A big influence on that will be Nuance It is among the world’s most influential software companies with 4.5 billion users – half the world’s population. It specialises in data input and information capture by text or speech – improving communication between man and machine. Following its recent acquisitions Nuance have now embarked on their mission across the European healthcare systems.
The Nuance vision of how speech recognition will be used in five years’ time is that it will change the way health services are delivered in a major way:
In five or ten years, all hospitals will use electronic patient record systems. These will become more structured so we can get statistical information from them easily. At the moment, we can’t, because the data is sitting on paper and is virtually unusable.
Speech recognition will continue to be a major help to doctors filling in these structured reports. We are already researching ‘talk forms’ – doctors talk in free narrative and the form fills in automatically. We also have to move towards using decision support systems to give immediate feedback to doctors when they make a mistake – at the point of dictation. Whether that happens over an iPod, a PDA or a mobile phone, it won’t matter – we will be there because in the future, every hospital will have speech recognition infrastructure.
Just check out the technology being used the next time you enter a hospital environment. You may be surprised what you hear.
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