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My Siri Adventure

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PCQ Bureau
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When my new iPhone 4S arrived, I couldn't stop playing with Siri, the new iPhone voice-recognition “virtual assistant” that was introduced with the device. According to Apple, Siri is an iPhone feature that lets me use my voice to send messages, place phone calls, schedule meetings and more. It understands what I say, knows what I mean, and even talks back. It's not bullet-proof and has some glitches — but it really works! Last night, I was driving home and asked Siri to remind me to buy milk when I leave office. The moment I stepped into my car, a reminder popped to buy milk. I didn't have to tell Siri, where I was or when I would be leaving. The system used my location and knew I was moving from that location. Way to go, Siri! So then I started asking myself, is voice is the future of interaction?

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Voice recognition software has existed as long as I can remember. It is quite obvious that natural language processing is evolving and we can see it on Google voice search, Microsoft speech APIs, etc. Many new cars have voice control, so I wondered, what makes Siri different? Without going into the deep-level architecture of Siri, we assume that Siri relies on its servers, processing the sentence I said and creating a response that might be used by an AI and voice recognition engine. So what's so special about Siri? I feel that just as touch screens changed the way we interact with devices, voice will also follow suite.

Siri also lays down some ground rules: you always need to be connected to the network, else it won't work. One can argue that this is great disadvantage, but the feature is set up with the assumption that we are constantly connected to the internet. I believe this is a fair assumption, given the advances in cloud computing.

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What Next?

I want to tweet, update my Facebook account, and upload photos all by with my voice. Surprisingly, there is already a way to do this, and I found step-by-step instructions to hook up Siri to Twitter and Facebook. I would not be surprised if this functionality will be newly updated in iOs (iPhone's operating system) and social media websites in the near future.

What about sharing an article with my peers? It would be great if I could just say, “Share this article with Bryan.” That would save me two clicks And if I want to share a specific paragraph and express my opinion on work-related material: “Siri, please share this article with David and asks him what he thinks about the topic on page three.” Wouldn't it be great if we could manage and share content using our voice, and exchange ideas?

Last but not least, I wonder if within the next 5-10 years if systems like Siri will be able to talk to CRM systems on our behalf. Wouldn't be great if I could tell Siri that I have issues with my bill — “Talk to my service provider and ask him about this specific charge, and submit a dispute if possible.” Can Siri truly be my personal assistant? That would really be a game changer.

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