Cortana Stories August 15
Microsoft contractors are still listening to some requests made to its Cortana intelligent assistant, as well as some Skype calls.
The revelation follows decisions by Apple, Google, and Facebook to suspend their human review processes for now, and Amazon giving Alexa users the ability to opt-out…
Cortana Stories December 8, 2016
Microsoft’s suite of apps on iOS are constantly expanding, and today the company has announced that yet another of its famous desktop apps is making its way to Apple’s mobile platform ─ Visio.
Cortana Stories May 30, 2016
When the original developers of Siri jumped ship to develop a competing intelligent assistant called Viv, they dismissed Apple’s implementation of their intelligent assistant as just ‘a clever AI chatbot.’ We’ve since heard that Apple plans to offer a Siri SDK that will allow it to call on the capabilities of third-party apps (something I called for last year) – but it seems like the company is also seeking to go even beyond Viv’s capabilities.
Apple last year acquired British intelligent assistant developer VocalIQ – a tool specifically geared to truly conversational queries – and a source who spoke to Business Insider gave some insight into just how intelligent Siri could become when infused with this tech …
Cortana Stories March 10, 2016
In a blog post long on words but short on specifics, wireless speaker firm Sonos has announced that it will be increasingly focusing on support for streaming music services – but also moving into voice control. CEO John Macfarlane says that in the immediate term, the company will need to layoff employees as part of its refocusing plans.
Macfarlane hints at a possible collaboration with Amazon, using Alexa, the company’s competitor to Siri.
We’re fans of what Amazon has done with Alexa and the Echo product line. Voice recognition isn’t new; today it’s nearly ubiquitous with Siri, OK Google, and Cortana. But the Echo found a sweet spot in the home and will impact how we navigate music, weather, and many, many other things as developers bring new ideas and more content to the Alexa platform …
Cortana Stories December 9, 2015
Microsoft has been offering the iOS version of its intelligent assistant Cortana as a small-scale beta since last month, and it’s now ready to go live. Cortana is available on the App Store now.
Don’t expect it to match Siri for functionality, however – with Siri deeply embedded into iOS and Cortana a mere app, it will have limited capabilities, but you can at least see how it compares when it comes to answering questions …
Cortana Stories November 9, 2015
Siri beats out Google Now and Cortana in survey, with 81% user satisfaction rating
A survey in which Siri, Google Now and Cortana users were asked to rate their satisfaction with their respective intelligent assistants found that Siri got the highest scores, with 81% of users declaring themselves satisfied compared to 68% for Google Now and just 57% for Cortana.
Survey participants were also asked to try out seven different requests and report on how well their service performed, as well as to note how many times they were asked follow-up questions. Siri had the lowest percentage of incorrect answers, and also asked fewer follow-up questions before it was able to carry out the task or answer the question.
Siri is definitely a feature that polarises users – some (like me) extremely satisfied with it, while I know others who report getting better results with Google Now. Microsoft is allowing a small number of iOS users to try out a beta version of Cortana for the iPhone.
Siri got the highest satisfaction score for setting an appointment, and the lowest for the question ‘When does Kung Fu Panda 3 come out?’.
You can see full details at the Experts Exchange site.
Siri’s latest trick is speaking Arabic, following the Apple Store openings in the UAE.
