I’m not a huge fan of Apple’s celebrity siri ads but the two newest commercials featuring the ever cheery John Malkovich are more tolerable than the previous ads. Move over Samuel L Jackson and Zooey Deschanel!
Apple released some cool celebrity studded Siri ads over the weekend, one staring Samuel L Jackson and another with quirky Zooey Deschanel. Both ads are unsurprisingly not that interesting and follow the classic Apple: “Normal people doing extraordinary things with their iphones” which is starting to get really old. That said, leave it up to the web to spice up the Samuel L Jackson ad – big time! Both videos are after the break…
Apple’s personal assistant (Siri) is all the rave on the iPhone 4s and while it can do some amazing voice controlled commands, apparently it isn’t very good at keeping secrets. Apple has said that it will bring Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian and Spanish language integration to Siri sometime in 2012 but it looks like Siri is already being updated for such additions. Currently, only English (several derivatives) French and German are available when speaking to Siri but it looks like things are going to get a lot more global.
Wolfram Alpha, everyone’s favorite statistical search engine has seen its query traffic jump 25%, mostly due to Apple’s Siri personal assistant. Siri is one of the key features of the iPhone 4S and while initial impressions of the handset were bland, the 4S has easily become Apple’s best selling smartphone. Siri’s voice recognition has allowed Apple to partner with services like Wolfram and Yelp – giving the 4S a more native core experience.
Source: Apple Insider
Search: We’ve all seen the commercials (Below). We’ve all seen people talking to their iPhones – asking info and directions. Siri, Apple’s built in personal assistant is all the craze but has Apple, purposefully or not, put into motion the demise of Google’s search empire – or for that matter, search as we know it today? See, it all starts with how we think and use search right now – how Google, Bing and the lot have us searching now. You go to Google, you enter your query and then you’re presented with pages upon pages of results. These results are based on Google’s algorithm and advertising model, so what Google wants you to do is spend as much time as possible looking through their results. Essentially, this is the framework to Google’s search empire and their cash cow, which is printing them billions of dollars every year.
Enter Siri! When you ask your iPhone a question, it isn’t using Google search to find and provide you with the answer. It’s taking advantage of Apple’s partners, like Yelp and WolframAlpha to gather the correct information, before sending it to Siri. In essence, it’s bipassing Google all together and as Apple adds and acquires the necessary partners, its dependence on Google for search will lessen. Thanks to Siri’s success, other OEM’s are rushing to buy speech to text and voice recognition companies, Amazon being the most recent. Now, this doesn’t mean people won’t search in the classical way (as we do now) but as search evolves into voice and touch, companies will be able to move beyond Google, to provide their customers with the information they desire.
Google: This isn’t news to Google and you can bet that they’re evolving along with the trend of search - after all, they are acquiring (on average) a company a week! That’s right, Google is adding to their portfolio, a company a week. This means technologies and services that will help them advance their search offerings far beyond the current traditional sense – for Google, the future is a combination or Local+Social+Search.
Future: The process of searching for information, is going through a renaissance at the moment and while we don’t know how far along it will advance (voice, touch, vision), we do know that its current form will go through some hard growing pains. Traditional search companies like Google and Microsoft will have to up their game, in order to stay in the game. For me, the most exciting aspect of this ever evolving tech, is the way we will interact with our countless digital devices.
Speaking at LeWeb 2011 in Paris, France – Eric Schmidt dropped somewhat of a bombshell: “By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded.” Now, no other details where released, so we don’t know if he was speaking about the actual TV set’s UI or if Google TV will be a featured app, as Netflix and Vudu are currently on many smart TVs. Is Google nurturing its mobile ties to the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG, maturing their relationship beyond the mobile space? Samsung, Sony and LG own 46%+ of the global TV market, so Google would have to get them on board along with other vendors like Panasonic. Add that info to deafening rumors about Apple’s own “Smart” TV in 2012, with Siri powering the UI and control. Looks like the TV space is heating up again!
Source: TheVerge
Here is Robin Williams on Ellen, talking about Apple’s Siri intergration and how he wishes there would be a French version of Siri’s voice….with a French attitude of course. Reminds us of why we love him.
Source: 9To5Mac
With the majority of iOS users still using the 3GS or iPhone 4, Siri has been an unattainable bossy robotic voice but things are looking up….thanks to Siri0us. Yes, you heard that right – Siri0us! This of course, will only work on jailbroken devices such as the iphone 3GS, 4 and 2nd gen iPod Touch and can be found on Cydia. While is doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Siri, its speech to text function works extremely well. Worth checking out.
Source: TheVerge