Search Accuracy Of Siri Leaves Something To Be Desired

Siri

(Image Credit: thenextweb.com)

The infallibility of the virtual assistant of Apple has been evaluated recently and it appears that it is much more infallible compared to the virtual assistant of Google. Piper Jaffray recently evaluated Siri in terms of performing searches and it revealed that the Apple virtual assistant feature made a mistake 38 percent of the time. In comparison, the virtual assistant of Google only had a 14 percent error rate.

It appears that the Siri feature of Apple is dependent on the voice of the user and does not find it easy to decipher regional accents or when the user is anxious. The evaluation performed by the analysts, Siri was brought to a rather busy street in Minneapolis and with all of the distractions posed by purple-wearing people Siri was able to perform the searches with 62 percent accuracy.

An improvement was noted when the questions were asked inside a room without much distractions and Siri increased its search accuracy to 68 percent.

In comparison to Siri, the virtual assistant of Siri only had an error rate of 14 percent. However it should be noted that this relatively low error rate was based on keyed-in search results.

In fairness when the user would speak in a clear voice, the virtual assistant of Apple was able to increase its accuracy to 83 percent in a noisy street while a quiet room allowed it to have an accuracy rate of 89 percent.

However some ambiguous questions would tend to confuse Siri such as the question ‘Where is Elvis buried?’ which resulted to an answer of finding a person named Elvis Buried. Perhaps the biggest goof for Apple was when the virtual assistant was asked which is the best smartphone and gave the Nokia Lumia 900 as its answer. However this was reportedly rectified by the company.

Steve Wozniak has also indicated that there were instances when Siri would rely on Wolfram Alpha more than it was supposed to do so. For the moment it relies on Google 60 percent of the time for searches.

However Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray indicated that the introduction of the iOS 6 will supposedly result to an improvement on the Siri virtual assistant of Apple. Other sources will reportedly be used by the virtual assistant as its dependence on Google will decrease to around 48 percent.

As Siri increases its exposure to the world, she will be able to learn more making her more useful for device owners who may prefer to voice out their queries instead of typing it into the device.

Apple iPad May Receive Siri Virtual Assistant Service

Siri

(Image Credit: thenextweb.com)

The Sirivirtual assistant service will be brought to the iPad together with the release of the iOS 6 mobile platform of Apple if recent reports are to be believed.

According to 9to5Mac, trusted sources have given indications that the Siri virtual assistant service, together with most of the features that are currently being used on the iPhone 4S, will be released to the iPad by fall.

Among the features that Siri will bring to the iPad are Contacts searching, Notes, Emailing, Maps Integration, iMessaging, Calendar Management, and Music Playback.

Since the accuracy of the report remains uncertain, it may be possible for the company to unveil the service during the upcoming Worldwide Developer Conference or it can also wait for the release of the iPhone 5.

The Siri virtual assistant feature was released to the iPhone 4S last October. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, indicated that the application was being upgraded during a recent interview during the recent D10 conference. The S on the name of the iPhone 4S reportedly represented Siri, which was being promoted as one of the main features of the smartphone.

An unofficial porting of Siri into an iPad was made last October even as some developers attempted to bring the feature into the older models of the iPhone.

Aside from the upcoming release of the Siri virtual assistant service to the iPad, the same sources reportedly revealed that some features of the Mac OS X Mountain Lion will be offered by the upcoming iOS 6 mobile platform. The iOS 6 is expected to be released during the upcoming WWDC event and will come with a feature to allow users to turn off all notifications with one toggle. It will also feature the Safari tab sync feature as well as a VIP mail feature that will highlight messages coming from selected contacts.

Japanese Language Support Coming to Siri

Ohayou gozaimasu.

Users of the iPhone 4S may hear Siri greeting them this way in the morning since Siri itself reportedly confirmed that it will support the Japanese language soon. This is among the languages that the virtual personal assistant on the iPhone 4S is set to support.

Earlier reports have given indications that Chinese (Mandarin) will be added soon along with Russian and Japanese. This was reportedly confirmed by Siri when it revealed that it can speak English, French, German and Japanese.

Siri

It appears that the official confirmation that Siri will support the Japanese language will be coming out soon even though it remains uncertain on when the support for the other reported languages will be confirmed by the company. The virtual personal assistant of the iPhone 4S also revealed that it was always learning, which hinted at the possibility that the confirmation for support for the other languages may also be coming.

At present, only US, British and Australian English is supported by Siri. Some industry watchers have indicated that this is expected since the virtual personal assistant on the iPhone 4S is reportedly still on the beta stage and improvements are anticipated to be made in the future. These improvements include the increase in the languages it supports.

Among the languages that Siri is expected to support within the year include, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Japanese. According to the Siri FAQ, the application has the capability of recognizing the particular dialect and accent of the countries that are supported by the app.

Issues were initially noted in Siri when it came to the regional dialects as it was not able to recognize non-native voices and found it difficult to understand Scottish accents.

With the upcoming support for the Japanese language on Siri, iPhone 4S users in Japan will be able to fully optimize the virtual personal assistant of their devices. However it appears that support for the Japanese language is not the only obstacle that Japanese users will have to hurdle since the word ‘Siri’ is not easy to pronounce in Japanese with the nearest equivalent reportedly means one’s backside.

Unauthorized Devices Blocked From Using Siri

A recent decision of Apple has indicated that the company will prevent the porting of the Siri feature into the older versions of the iPhone. A token is reportedly necessary for connecting an iPhone unit to Siri, has reportedly prevented third-party applications from accessing the database of Siri.

Siri

Some observers have indicated that the SetActivationToken was the reason why Siri cannot be accessed on devices that were not approved by the company.

The SetActivationToken seems to be the main issue for users of the older version of the iPhone, which has given indications that Apple aims to prevent unauthorized devices to access Siri. Although the token prevents access by third-party applications, reports have revealed that a workaround has reportedly been made.

In order to deal with this problem, it will be necessary for users to delete the com.apple.assistant.plist file (var > mobile > Library > Preferences) with a number of users giving comments through news site and Twitter that this has reportedly worked for them. A video from iDownloadblog shows a nun-functioning Siri feature on a device.

Reason for Female Voice on Siri

Siri is the personal assistant app on the latest version of the iOS offering of Apple, the iOS 5. The Siri app of the iOS 5 answers questions of users and provides suggestions using natural language processing.

However it would be interesting to note that the voice used for the Siri app of the iOS 5 sounds feminine.

According to report at CNN, the female voice is also used in a number of electronic devices aside from the Siri app of the iOS 5 and that there is a psychological basis for this.

In a number of countries, including the United States, the voice on the Siri app of the iOS 5 is female. However in countries like the UK and France the voice on the Siri app of the iOS 5 sounds like a male.

The sound of the female voice is reportedly much more pleasing compared to a male voice basing on scientific studies. Clifford Nass, a professor at Stanford University, identified a study which points to an affinity that begins in the womb.

The study revealed that fetuses would react to the voice of the mother although it would not respond to the voice of other females. The fetus would also have no reaction to the voice of the father.Nass added that it is more difficult to find a likeable male voice compared to a likable female voice. This is reportedly a deep-rooted fact that human brains have the tendency to like the voice of a female.

However the CNN report also pointed to history for the reason why a female voice was used for the Siri app of the iOS 5.

The voice of females was reportedly used on the navigation devices of fighter planes during World War 2 since it was distinctive among pilots who were males. Phone operators were also mostly female which resulted to get used to receiving assistance through the voice of a female.

Consumer research teams of automobile manufacturers also showed that most consumers preferred the voice of a female rather than a male.

This may have formed part of the basis why the voice of the Siri app of the iOS 5 is female.  So whenever users would ask questions for the Siri app of the iOS 5 to answer, users would expect to be answered with a female voice.