Jack Nicas, for The Wall Street Journal:
The acquisition could help Apple’s efforts to bolster Siri, which is controlled by voice commands and sometimes struggles to understand users.
VocalIQ says on its website that its software helps computers speak more naturally by learning from each interaction with a human, employing an artificial-intelligence technique called deep learning. VocalIQ software also seeks to help computers better understand commands and their context.
Roberto Baldwin, for Engadget:
Nuance told Engadget that its mobile cloud service processed 4.07 billion voice transactions in Q2 2015. That’s a roughly 49 percent increase from the 2.74 billion transactions during the same period in 2014.
So get ready for a future where you’re spending more time talking to Siri. Apple’s actual voice-assistant roadmap (in typical Apple fashion) is a bit of a mystery. But in the home, expect the voice assistant to take on an increasingly larger role as HomeKit and the Apple TV evolve and gain traction. CarPlay vehicles will become increasingly available to new car buyers and the iPhone will still tell you what the weather is outside.
Your voice is the new user interface and Apple is building a platform just to hear what you have to say.
“Has built” may be a better way to phrase it, for that last sentence, but that’s just knit-picking.
Highlights from this week’s Market Scan. Read it here. Subscribe here.
1. Eric Schmidt: Here are the three most important things Google is working on.
2. Justine Musk, previously wife of Elon Musk, writes good words about how to become an ‘extreme success’. I highly recommend this. Must-read.
3. Yole on Image Sensor Future. Especially relevant to machine sensing and learning, one of Google’s ‘three most important things’.
