• Microsoft’s Tellme vs Apple’s Siri Video Comparison


    Microsoft's Tellme vs Apple's Siri

    Microsoft’s chief strategy and research officer Craig Mundie talked to Forbes about the company’s kinect and when asked about Siri, he said that Siri was nothing special, and Microsoft’s own voice capabilities have been around for over a year. Siri is all about good marketing nothing else:

    People are infatuated with Apple announcing it. It’s good marketing, but at least as the technological capability you could argue that Microsoft has had a similar capability in Windows Phones for more than a year, since Windows Phone 7 was introduced.

    This is what Microsoft execs usually say when challenged with a tech by their competitors:

    you can pick ‘em up and say ‘text Eric’ and say what you wanna say and it transcribes it. You can query anything through Bing by just saying the words. I mean, all that’s already there. Fully functional, been there for a year.

    This is not the first time, we all know when Steve Ballmer slammed the original iPhone back in 2007 and touted it as being overpriced and not appealing to business for the lack of a keyboard.

    Jason from techau ran a test and put a video comparison between Microsoftt’s Tellme and Apple’s Siri. Watch the video below. The results speak for themselves:

  • iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy Tab: Which smartphone is the best listener?


    Siri

    The BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones wanted to find out which smartphone was the best listener, so he conducted a quick test of his own.

    He spoke the same text into a Siri-equipped iPhone 4S and a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and compared the transcribed results.

    The original text:

    It’s a challenge that has occupied scientists for decades and promised huge fortunes to anyone who could solve it. I’m talking about speech recognition, back in the news because it is one of the most significant features of Apple’s latest phone. Will it remain an amusing party-trick – or become the key way in which we communicate with computers?

    Siri transcribed it as:

    It’s a challenge that has occupied scientists the decade and promised huge fortunes to anyone who could solve it stop I’m talking about speech recognition back in the news because it is one of the most significant features of Apples latest phone STOCK will it remain unamusing party trick or become McKee way in which we communicate with COMPUTERS?

    And the Galaxy Tab came back with:

    If I started the decade and poets 14th avenue and hope It stops on Interstate recognItIon back In the news because It’s 1 of the most signIant pIctures of apples latest phone got the wIll remaIn In the musIc of the trIck or become a keyway computers.

    Have your own verdict?
    [via cultofmac]

  • Nuance Might Have Exposed The iPhone 5 Beans


    Interesting screenshots from Nuance’s new SpeechTrans Ultimate App. Nuance is widely believed to be working deeply with Apple on their speech recognition technology so maybe they know something.  Or maybe they just pasted screenshots that were too big on their App?!

  • Nuance Voice Technology Baked into iOS 5


    In the days leading up to WWDC 2011, Nuance integration got enough speculations for a possible presence in Apples iOS 5. Now Developer and Hacker Chronic seems to have got his hands on iOS 5 build with internal settings — hidden from public, as he tweeted a series of screenshots for what might be settings for testing and troubleshooting. Some of these screenshots show what looks like Nuance voice recognition baked into the iOS.

    The screenshots show some options like “mic on space key”, “auto-record input” and “Nuance dictation”, which seem to suggest Apple has been testing ways to integrate additional buttons in the default iPhone keyboard to let users speak and have text transcribed on screen.

    Although these settings look interesting, no Nuance announcement in WWDC and everything may be unveiled in fall with iPhone 5 keynote, though.