# Google Chairman Eric tells US senators Apple's Siri could pose 'competitive threat'



## Kid_Eternity (Nov 6, 2011)

Now this is interesting, plenty of people are dismissing Siri and it's likely impact on Google but Google's on chair thinks it could pose them a problem.



> Schmidt even went so far as to cite two publications for calling Siri a "Google killer" and Apple's "entry point" into the search engine business.
> 
> In the letter, Schmidt backpedaled from a previous statement in September 2010 where he had denied that Apple and Facebook were a "competitive threat."
> 
> "My statement was clearly wrong," he said. "Apple’s Siri is a significant development—a voice-activated means of accessing answers through iPhones that demonstrates the innovations in search."



Good to see if you ask me, means they wont get complacent and will work harder to be competitive in this area. An area that will grow in the coming years.


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## FridgeMagnet (Nov 6, 2011)

Yeah, he said that as part of an anti-monopoly investigation into Google.

Perhaps there might have been a teensy ulterior motive.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 6, 2011)

Perhaps but talking up a feature that a major competitor is pushing big time isn't exactly that clever if it gives credibility to said feature...


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## Xanadu (Nov 6, 2011)

Maybe I don't understand Siri, but what does it do that Google doesn't already?


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## Kanda (Nov 6, 2011)

Xanadu said:


> Maybe I don't understand Siri, but what does it do that Google doesn't already?



Personality?


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 6, 2011)

Xanadu said:


> Maybe I don't understand Siri, but what does it do that Google doesn't already?



Siri is being sold as a key feature for Apple. How many Android phones advertise Googles offering as visibly?


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## pianissimo (Nov 6, 2011)

edit: read post wrong.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 6, 2011)

Interesting look at the possible threat to Google's ad revenue: http://thenextweb.com/2011/11/06/ho...-and-microsoft-to-divorce-itself-from-google/


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## grit (Nov 7, 2011)

This is a weird comment, because Siri is essentially a front end for wolfram alpha when doing the general knowledge questions.


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## Hocus Eye. (Nov 7, 2011)

grit said:


> This is a weird comment, because Siri is essentially a front end for wolfram alpha when doing the general knowledge questions.


I wondered which search engine was accessed by Siri, as Apple would not want it to be Google. However Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine in the strict meaning of the term. It is a self-contained database that does not search the web at all. This would mean that calling a cab, one of the suggested uses of Siri, would not be possible.

The real test is whether people will want to talk to their phones in order to select services or even applications on their phone. People doing this would add to the existing noise pollution of background chattering, the worst of which is those making mobile phone calls in confined public spaces. These will be the same people who take up the use of Siri I expect, just to create publicity for themselves. Luckily I hear that Siri is not very effective when used in a noisy environment, so perhaps it will be self defeating.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 7, 2011)

According to the article Apple is doing deals with other database owners and notably could go with Bing which would certainly shake things up in terms of Siri's practical use and the market for search.


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## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

Macworld pretty much rubbishes the claims of Siri as a credible threat to Google as the dominant search engine:


> So is Siri a "Google killer"? Can Siri seriously threaten Google? Let's take a look.
> 
> Siri Defaults To Google
> 
> ...


http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?newsid=3316620


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## elbows (Nov 8, 2011)

I see the threat as a longer term thing if Apple are successful in getting people to use a different sort of interface to information, and then at some point switch away from Google. Its not a threat right now, but Google would be silly to ignore the threat completely going forwards.


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## editor (Nov 8, 2011)

elbows said:


> I see the threat as a longer term thing if Apple are successful in getting people to use a different sort of interface to information, and then at some point switch away from Google. Its not a threat right now, but Google would be silly to ignore the threat completely going forwards.


Be a bit weird if Google suddenly started ignoring what everyone else was doing at the best of times, but do I see everyone suddenly wanting to bark their search queries into their phones instead of typing them? No, I really don't.


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## Kid_Eternity (Nov 8, 2011)

elbows said:


> I see the threat as a longer term thing if Apple are successful in getting people to use a different sort of interface to information, and then at some point switch away from Google. Its not a threat right now, but Google would be silly to ignore the threat completely going forwards.



Yup, Siri will role out other Apple devices increasing user take up. Couple that with the database deals Apple is doing and an easy switch to Bing and Google has quite a bit to be scared of.


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## editor (Jan 17, 2012)

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak isn't so impressed with Siri. He thinks Android does voice commands better.



> *Even Woz Thinks the Android Bests the iPhone*
> 
> “My primary phone is the iPhone,” Woz says. “I love the beauty of it. But I wish it did all the things my Android does, I really do.”
> 
> ...


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## Crispy (Jan 17, 2012)

Sparrow's got a 4S now. Siri is shit.


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## grit (Jan 17, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Sparrow's got a 4S now. Siri is shit.



What exactly is shit?


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## editor (Jan 17, 2012)

Crispy said:


> Sparrow's got a 4S now. Siri is shit.


My nephew's got a 4S and it was comically bad at doing just about everything I asked. The Android one isn't as slick, but it's fairly accurate. Trouble is, 'fairly accurate' quickly becomes really 'really irritating'. When I type things in, I'm almost always 100% accurate and that's usually turns out quicker than repeatedly barking the same commands into a phone and waiting for it to get the thing right.

It is useful for firing off a quick hands free text and making the odd call though.


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## Crispy (Jan 17, 2012)

grit said:


> What exactly is shit?


It doesn't understand her, it repeatedly mistakes my name for someone else's, it can't transcribe anything more complicated than single...words...spoken...slowly.

And I know it's a temporary limitation, but it can't find stuff on maps.

It does nothing that she can't do directly on the phone with more certainty.

The things it can do quicker have a much less than 100% chance of happening when you tell it to. It's infuriating. "Did you mean cheese burger?" "NO! YOU STUPID CUNT FUCKING PHONE!"


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## editor (Jan 17, 2012)

Actually, the navigation thing worked great for me when I was cycling to Crystal Palace in a hurry last week. I just barked 'navigate to' and I was off. But, again, I remain underwhelmed overall by the whole concept. Having to speak. words. very. very. clearly. and. slowly.  into a phone is not a comfortable way to interact with my phone for me in most circumstances.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 17, 2012)

Seems like a waste of time for some people, my other half is using it to good effect, it's very useful for drivers. Most friends or family who've upgraded recently have also found it works as advertised although most of them don't really have much practical use for it. I use it every now and then to check my week ahead, or to make a handsfree call when I'm in the middle of something else. Oh yeah one thing I wouldn't do, which appears to be the case here, is compare a finished product with Siri, it's beta...key word that I'd thought?


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## editor (Jan 17, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Oh yeah one thing I wouldn't do, which appears to be the case here, is compare a finished product with Siri, it's beta...key word that I'd thought?


Seeing as Siri is shown as a main feature in iPhone 4S advertising it seems reasonable to expect it to at least perform moderately well.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 17, 2012)

editor said:


> Seeing as Siri is shown as a main feature in iPhone 4S advertising it seems reasonable to expect it to at least perform moderately well.



And it does for the vast majority of users which we can prove by the lack of global outrage over people ringing Ben instead of Jen due to Siri screw ups!


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## editor (Jan 17, 2012)

There's been more than the odd dissatisfied comment.

Siri Is Apple’s Broken Promise
http://gizmodo.com/5864293


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## Crispy (Jan 18, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> And it does for the vast majority of users which we can prove by the lack of global outrage over people ringing Ben instead of Jen due to Siri screw ups!


Hypothesis: The lack of outrage is due to the small number of people trying it more than once being small, and the availability of functional alternatives (ie. using the address book)


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## editor (Jan 18, 2012)

We were near some annoying woman loudly showing off her new iPhone in a cafe recently. It ended up being rather less annoying as her unimpressed friends continued to laugh at the useless, gibberish responses coming out of her phone.

Whatever the make of phone is being used, being forced to listen to someone barking commands into a handset in a public space seems even more irritating than them talking loudly IMO.


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## editor (Feb 20, 2012)

Bloke tries to use just voice control for 7 days using multiple devices. Bloke gets a bit pissed off.


> For now, it's the highly accurate voice recognition software from Dragon that impressed us most during the 7 days which saw our keyboard gather dust. The rest, so far, is a stop-start novelty.


http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/44482/7-days-with-voice-controll


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## Cid (Feb 20, 2012)

editor said:


> We were near some annoying woman loudly showing off her new iPhone in a cafe recently. It ended up being rather less annoying as her unimpressed friends continued to laugh at the useless, gibberish responses coming out of her phone.
> 
> Whatever the make of phone is being used, being forced to listen to someone barking commands into a handset in a public space seems even more irritating than them talking loudly IMO.


 
Indeed, I mean I'd actually quite like something like Siri for when I'm driving, but the whole lifestyle of talking to your phone type stuff Apple was plugging? fuck off.


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## Cid (Feb 20, 2012)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Perhaps but talking up a feature that a major competitor is pushing big time isn't exactly that clever if it gives credibility to said feature...


 
Or you're so sure it's not going to catch on that it doesn't make any difference. I don't know, it might - there are often surprises in the tech world, but even if voice recognition gets really good there are an enormous number of situations where it doesn't work or isn't appropriate.


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 20, 2012)

Cid said:


> Or you're so sure it's not going to catch on that it doesn't make any difference. I don't know, it might - there are often surprises in the tech world, but even if voice recognition gets really good there are an enormous number of situations where it doesn't work or isn't appropriate.



Society will change, talking to devices will seem normal in the not to distant future. As I've said elsewhere this is bigger than Siri on your iPhone; voice activated control is a step toward a way of controlling technology that's as big a paradigm shift as mouse and keyboard. We'll live lives where we'll look back at what we have now and laugh at how primitive it is...


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## Cid (Feb 20, 2012)

The thing is there are an enormous number of situations where you wouldn't want to use voice control even if it was perfect and able to distinguish your voice from any others around you (which is a long way off)... I'm not saying voice recognition won't catch on at some point, but I don't think it's the appropriate main interface for a mobile device. Society doesn't simply adopt every advance, it adopts advances that give you a significant benefit with few downsides. Just dig out some old 'Tomorrow's World' videos...


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## editor (Feb 20, 2012)

There'll always be many, many circumstances when voice control is a thoroughly inappropriate way to control technology.

As a journalist, I find it very hard to dictate my articles for a variety of reasons, and I can see many other journalists finding it less preferable too: that's why most still don't, despite advanced desktop software.


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## grit (Feb 21, 2012)

editor said:


> Bloke tries to use just voice control for 7 days using multiple devices. Bloke gets a bit pissed off.
> 
> http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/44482/7-days-with-voice-controll


 
Comparing Siri to Dragon is fucking ridiculous though, its a meaningless comparison, they are attempting to perform different functions.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2012)

grit said:


> Comparing Siri to Dragon is fucking ridiculous though, its a meaningless comparison, they are attempting to perform different functions.


Not in a thread where it's been posited that speech control/input is the future. It amounts to the same thing: will people always prefer to talk or type?


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## grit (Feb 21, 2012)

editor said:


> Not in a thread where it's been posited that speech control/input is the future. It amounts to the same thing: will people always prefer to talk or type.


 
Dragon does essentially dictation, Siri is an attempt at having the machine actually understand *context*, a far bigger goal.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2012)

grit said:


> Dragon does essentially dictation, Siri is an attempt at having the machine actually understand *context*, a far bigger goal.


But both leading to the same goal.


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## grit (Feb 21, 2012)

editor said:


> But both leading to the same goal.


 
Nope, two completely different goals.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2012)

grit said:


> Nope, two completely different goals.


I'm afraid you're missing the point altogether. Far from being different entities, they're two sides of the same coin - in fact, both Siri and Dragon _are created by the same company, Nuance._

Siri does some things quite well and others terribly (you can ask it to send an email but it'll be shit at accurately transcribing tour words). Dragon is great for dictation accuracy but has limited commands. Merge them together so that it can understand context and accurately transcribe, and you'll have a far more useful creation.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2012)

In fact, Nuance have said as much: 


> Nuance cites Siri, and of course their own Dragon Go!, as the inspiration behind the demand for voice-enabled software, saying that a $5 billion market opportunity has presented itself. Manufacturers and developers want voice-enabled actions in their products ranging from mobile phones to tablets, TVs, music players, cars, GPS devices and everything in-between.
> 
> http://androidandme.com/2011/12/new...nuance-acquire-vlingo-to-speed-up-innovation/


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## grit (Feb 21, 2012)

editor said:


> I'm afraid you're missing the point altogether. Far from being different entities, they're two sides of the same coin - in fact, both Siri and Dragon _are created by the same company, Nuance._
> 
> Siri does some things quite well and others terribly (you can ask it to send an email but it'll be shit at accurately transcribing tour words). Dragon is great for dictation accuracy but has limited commands. Merge them together so that it can understand context and accurately transcribe, and you'll have a far more useful creation.


 
Siri is not created by nuance, Siri uses the nuanace speech to text engine, its a 3rd party library, thats all.

Siri (the part that attempts to understand context) is a completely separate system, based on 40 years of AI research from DARPA, well the research was funded by Darpa, the work was carried out by the Stanford research institute.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2012)

grit said:


> Siri is not created by nuance, Siri uses the nuanace speech to text engine, its a 3rd party library, thats all.
> 
> Siri (the part that attempts to understand context) is a completely separate system, based on 40 years of AI research from DARPA.


And it's all coming together to create intelligent, voice activated software that can do things *and* accurately transcribe words and perform actions based on the context of those words. I find it weird that you can't see this, to be honest.


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## grit (Feb 21, 2012)

editor said:


> I find it weird that you can't see this, to be honest.


 
Remember that this started from the article you quoted, that compared *Dragon Dictation* to Siri, a comparison that is irrelevant, thats what I've been referring to.

Dragon have just realized that apple has eaten their lunch and is now trying to play catch up, however that was not the intended purpose of the software quoted in the article.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2012)

grit said:


> Remember that this started from the article you quoted, that compared *Dragon Dictation* to Siri, a comparison that is irrelevant, thats what I've been referring to.


It's not, but I don't care enough to argue the toss.


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