Look At That App: SKYVI(siri for android)

Look At That App: SKYVI(siri for android)


Come On, Microsoft: Siri Is Making You Look Terrible | TechCrunch

@Alex Popov
You’re just a biased PS3 lover! Jk, had to get that out of the way. Does this prove that Microsoft still doesn’t get it? Or maybe this is just the first step and gradually it’ll become more and more natural? Also (and don’t quote me on this) I don’t think processing power plays a role at all, since I think almost all of the user input gets sent to the Cloud for analysis anyway… but other then that, interesting article, and slightly disappointing :(
@Adriel D. Mingo
I have a feeling they;re doing some serious work on it while we're here voice our opinions. If you saw their vision video of where they want to get with TellMe you'd see. It's all a matter of bringing together everything now. They got massive data to use from TellMe on WP and Kinect it will all be fine-tuned and we should see something good in 2012.
@Alex Popov
Adriel D. Mingo that’s true, I loved their vision video. So skeumorphism-free! I definitely hope they’re moving towards something great here
@Mike Sanchez
I don't want to agree - but the voice command on Kinect could be great but it pretty much sucks. People almost now expect natural voice commands. I hate to quote steve, but with a twist here it is "If I need to pick up the remote, you blew it".
@Mike Sanchez
Oh and I actually love my xbox and kinect so don't power troll on me. :)
@Subhi Andrews
Then Apple TV blew it. If you need to touch the screen, you blew it.
@Andrew Noce
I totally hate voice-control, so we're even. I hated Dragon. I hated voice recognition in my Moto-Razor. I hate my iPhone's voice-dial. I hate the voice control for the stereo in my Challenger. They all suck. I work in front of a computer every day and I've never once felt the need to dictate to my system. It has a mouse and keyboard and I'm very comfortable with them. Touch screens are nice but you can take the track balls and touch-pads and voice recognition and sell them to someone else as far as I'm concerned. I have to clarify myself for people all the time, it's nice that I can click and type to tell my computer exactly what I want, when I want it. Voice recognition is a solution in search of a problem. With that said... I expect the technology to be widely adopted in the coming years. Other people seem to love the whole idea.
@Daryl Yeo
Well, to be fair, Siri is the result of over 40 years of DARPA sponsored research into AI and NLP and was developed by SRI International. It involved the work of multiple top notch tech universities and cost at least $150 million in tax payers money to develop. But yeah, I agree, Microsoft's voice recognition system sucks.
@Vadim Berman
The voice recognition in Siri has little to do with DARPA. It comes from Nuance, which is a smorgasbord of acquisitions and technologies, from Kurzweil to Dragon, etc. The actual history behind this is more convoluted than a soap opera and involves tens of different actors (Microsoft included, BTW) and tons of skeletons in the closet.
@David Vo
Vadim Berman Can you write a blog post about it? I am serious. I bet a lot of people are interested.
@Daryl Yeo
Well, my point was that it takes a ton of work and investment to create something as impressive as Siri. But yeah, what he said. ^
@Vadim Berman
@David Vo, thanks for the interest. Much of this is public, actually. In brief, the founders of Dragon who spent years building their technology with blood, sweat, and tears, and eventually got screwed by a bunch of crooks (pardon my Flemish), are still fighting a desperate battle after 10 years to get at least something back. Kurzweil, Microsoft, and IBM is a different story. You might want to read Walt Tetschner's ASRNews.com about the ancient history. Whatever I learned in private under more bizarre circumstances, well, I think I'll publish it but not in a blog.
@Vadim Berman
And, maybe a bit offtopic as it is not about speech recognition, but Siri is not the only natural language UI. I tried once, for one :-) : http://www.digitalsonata.com/images/qasBelgiumRestoMussel.png, http://www.digitalsonata.com/images/carabaoCHretrieval2.jpg.
@Paul Lancefield
Vadim Berman That's irrelevant to the comment. Apple did a deal with Nuance for the voice recognition, which is a self contained logical sub-component of Siri's functioning. Apple theoretically could "easily" unplug Nuance and replace it with A. N. Other voice recognition system. The more important part of tye Siri solution isn't the voice recognition but the AI (two complementary but distinct technologies) and the AI is the part that came from the DARPA funded research. HOWEVER, that is only in theory because practically the voice recognition though an entirely logically distinct component was (and is) nevertheless an essential one. Whilst Google have their own voice recognition tech, they were hardly going to license it to Apple. The only other show in town that actually works well enough (and is actually on most accounts marginally better) is the Nuance solution. So here Google held a big advantage over Apple. Nuance knew Apple needed them. This is a deal Apple had to do that took a long time to negotiate. Apple had purchased Siri so owned the "AI" part of the pie, but to provide the full solution had to license the speech recognition sub-component from Nuance. My guess as to why the deal took so long is down to Nuance demanding co-branding (which there is no way Apple would have agreed to) together with the undoubted truth Steve Jobs's would have HATED being in a weak negotiating position. My guess is Nuance, suspecting a demand for co-branding would be a red line for Apple, also knew they could use it to push Apple hard for disproportionate compensation. The only remaining axis of manoeuvre Steve Jobs (a notoriously hard negotiator) had would have had was time, ergo, the deal took all available time to complete.
@Andrew Noce
I miss ELIZA.
@Kervin Pierre
Vadim Berman I know. It's amazing how many people repeat that DARPA research party line. Siri voice rec is simply Nuance. Nuance will sell you the same ASR SDK if you have the money. DARPA funding doesn't make SIRI special because (a) DARPA funds just about everyone in ASR (b) Being DARPA funded, all the results are available to the public ( yes including Micrsoft and Google ). Look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CALO for background
@Srinivas N Jay
Bcoz mic is on Kinect which is usually 8-10feet away from you -> echos and other complexities. Unless the room is designed with proper acoustics. They should provide a mic on the controller. May be that will solve the problem. But it will kill the complete idea of making it controller free. Anyways, I completely agree with you. It does not work how it suppose to work.
@Chris McGrath
I haven't tried voice recognition on the XBox but I think you're being a bit unfair. First as you said what your complaining about is something Siri can't do! I find that amazing complain about it, sure but to say, "Compared to Siri which can't even do what I'm complaining about" seems strange. Also your comment of "never has to figure out what I’m saying in a crowded bar, while driving, or at a ball game." From what I've heard Siri often struggles with these situations. But I think it's unfair to say XBox doesn't have to deal with these hardships - With a phone you're right next to the mic - literally centimetres. XBox it's meters away from you. And there's a good chance that the background noise (music for example) is actually closer to the mic than you are.
@Gerold Stein
To paraphrase the article: The problem is that the voice controls disappoint you half way through - like: being able to bring up the search bar and then asking you to pick up a remote. So it pretends to be able to do more than it actually can provide. That's a thing Siri doesn't do (as far as I know).
@Will Jones
Gerold Stein Siri constantly asks me to connect a controller via bluetooth for text input. No jokes.
@Taylor Alexander
Well, comparing it to Siri is a bad example then maybe. Lets compare it to the (now all of a sudden overlooked) android Voice Commands. I hold the search key and say "Navigate to Pizza My Heart" and BOOM, nav opens and sends me to the nearest Pizza My Heart. This works very well. Doing this the way microsoft does voice on the Xbox (using the author's example above), I would need to say "Phone, Google Maps" ... "Restaurants" ... "Name A-Z" ... "View All" ... "P" ... (it hears "T") ... "Go Back" ... "P" ... "Next Page" ... "Next Page" ... "Next Page"... "Pizza My Heart" ... "Navigate". Now does it make more sense why microsoft's way is cumbersome? Clearly, microsoft is using voice control as a literal replacement for the controller. Meaning you do the exact same things with your voice as you would do if you had a controller - you cycle through menus, hit next a few times, and select your item. This is a horrible way of doing voice commands. The whole point of voice is that you can do everything at once - you have infinite variation in what you can say, so you can just lay it all out. Since a controller doesn't have an infinite number of buttons, you limit the number of buttons and break things into menus. But I'll repeat myself - that is a HORRIBLE way of doing things for voice. As far as programming is concerned, its pretty simple to do it the way google does. You start each command with a key phrase, so recognizing them is easy "Navigate" "Set Alarm" "Search" "Open" and thats about it (I think there's a few more though). So recognizing one word out of say ten is an easy task for modern voice recognition. Then if its "Navigate", you know you need to search google maps for whatever follows. So you do your best to recognize the next series of words and you search for those - and then you use established search correction methods (responsible for "did you mean..." on google) to pick the most likely search result based on what you think the user said. Then mirror it back to the user "Navigating to Pizza My Heart" and listen for the user to say one of a few keywords again "OK, Yes, No, Cancel, Back". There, I just wrote the pseudo-pseudocode for how to write a nice search algorithm based on voice recognition without requiring a bunch of fancy AI or any particularly fancy voice recognition. The point is, this is not a technological issue - microsoft is just being lazy plain and simple. The same basic walkthrough I did for navigating to pizza could be used to easily make playing a TV show on Hulu through a single voice command a simple thing. So as I said, they're being lazy. This wouldn't be an issue if there wasn't much to compare it to, but the author's point is that there is - there's Siri - and the usability of Siri is really highlighting how Apple is trying and microsoft isn't. -Taylor
@Mike Pulsifer
The point is Google and Microsoft have us speaking like robots; consciously voicing commands to technology. Siri, on the other hand is designed to make the process more human. It's not technology if you don't have to think about it. Apple doesn't want you to have to think about it. Google and Microsoft want you to think about it, each step of the way.
@Adarsha Vishweshwara
Lets compare it (Siri) to voice commands in Windows Phone, I just say Pizzahut, and it does bring in the same results as with Siri.. If you consider the possibilities of search in XBox they are limited, if Hulu provides a searchable interface then its a different story, but from code XBox's perspective possibilities are limited, and its current modal works.
@Raheem Parpia
How can you say this post is unfair? He spells out his love for the Xbox 360 and its versatility, and then explains that this highly touted new UI they just unleashed falls very far from its expectations. Microsoft vs. Apple - kind of a bitter rivalry, wouldn't you say? Apple has Siri which despite its mild shortcomings is still an unbelievable tool. Microsoft has some voice commands on its Windows Phone...but if that is the case (I've never messed around with it) shouldn't it be comparable with what's in the Kinect? Oh and by the way, I have played around with the voice commands on the Xbox and they suck on an unreal level. It's like Blackberry coming out with that stupid Storm phone. Quite frankly my reply is based on a greater frustration with TechCrunch in that everyone replying to articles just doesn't stop bitching. Is it rampant negativity or do you SERIOUSLY believe that Mr. Kumparak is being unfair. I realize this is a forum and the people need to speak, but why is this the first post? The voice commands on the new Xbox do SUCK as does the new UI. Unless you use it...WHY ARE YOU POSTING?
@Jesse Patterson
@ Chris McGrath, my siri actually does this with Plex, except it understands what i'm saying:D And it's incredible in loud area's.
@Taylor Alexander
Mike Pulsifer I'm not sure why you're including google in this "speaking like robots" idea. "Navigate to Pizza My Heart" and "Set Alarm for 4:30" feel plenty natural to me.
@Will Jones
Come on Apple - Siri is making you look terrible!
@Nick Portelli
Why in the hell would you want to control your TV with your voice? Voice is an unnatural interface for channel surfing. Who the hell wants to say next, next, next, next? I honestly want voice control for very little. I can't even think of a good use, maybe for the calling and texting in the car.
@Graeme Erickson
You wouldn't want to be able to turn to a show by just saying, for example, "Turn on Scrubs" or "Turn on the Seahawks game." That sounds tremendously useful to me.
@Graeme Erickson
I wouldn't be surprised if voice recognition eventually eliminates our need to remember channel numbers. No need to remember a channel number if you can just tell it what you're looking for.
@Nick Portelli
Graeme Erickson No. I have a remote for that. Plus could siri or kinect distinguish your voice over what ever is coming out of the speakers?
@Graeme Erickson
Nick Portelli To get to a show, you'd rather push a sequence of buttons on a remote than just say the name of the show? Why? As for the mic being able to distinguish your voice, that's obviously a problem that still needs to be solved. It's likely a hurdle, not a barrier. I know that Jawbone has developed tech in their bluetooth headsets that only pick up volume from about a 6-inch radius. I could see similar tech being used in this case.
@Dale Noe
Graeme Erickson No one watches the Seahawks, who you trying to kid!
@Jordan Ambra
"Find me a show about forensics", "Record this show", "Show a split screen of this channel and Batman Begins", and "Turn this off so I can actually do something valuable with my life" are all legitimate voice commands. Even better than voice commands would be thought commands, but I think that's a bit further down the road.
@Warnie L. Pritchett
@ Graeme Erickson Yes, I'd rather use a remote than voice.. Why? Because how many channels are showing the same show? Let's say three channels are showing Scrubs, but you know the channel you want to watch it on. You tell your TV "Turn to Scrubs" (as you said, only using the show name) and... viola! You now have to pick which program you want. You replaced an easy interface (buttons) with a cumbersome interface (voice) that is open to ambiguity and failure.
@Rafael Carminatti
Nick Portelli Well of course you can't use voice when you are blowing your living room with *insert your favorite music*. But if you have the music coming from the same source that will recognize it, that is easily accomplished. Speakers usually have a sound range that humans can hear. Wich excludes some low and high wave sounds that too comes out of our mouths. Give this appliance a good microphone that can distinguish it, make it *mute* other sounds when it captures let's say a second of those sounds and there you have a great way to use voice recognition and still hear your songs without having to mute your TV.
@Rafael Carminatti
Warnie L. Pritchett Seriously? In your example we would have to say two commands. "Turn to Scrubs". Then something like "Choose the channel 99". Not really sure how speaking two very short phrases would be cumbersome...
@Evans Okeyo
mmmmm I still looooove my xbox.
@Jason Dupree
I think this is on Hulu, not Microsoft. As you said, If you access the Hulu App and try to do a search you will see you can't search with your voice. This is completely unlike every other video app on Xbox. So I think its a little unfair to call out Microsoft on this without knowing for sure if this is the case. I have had great success searching for stuff with Kinect in Netflix. I've even searched episode titles. The only problem I have is that its obvious sometimes Kinect cannot hear me over music or whatever is coming out playing. When I speak the same thing a little louder It works fine. So I really think the majority of Kinect's failures from a voice control perspective are noise cancellation problems.
@Mattias Svensson
Exactly, this seems to be more of a problem with the Hulu app then with the overall voice feature. The Netflix app does work pretty great as does the overall feature on the Xbox, but of course there are a lot of improvement to be made before it becomes a more natural and flawless feature. The same goes for Siri.
@
NOW REALLY! Lets have a BIG bit of REALITY! CrApple DIDN'T DEVELOR SIRI! They BOUGHT IT just like EVERYTHING CrApple has that is advanced SW technology! CrApple BOUGHT Final Cut, BOUGHT Logic Pro, BOUGHT AppleWorks (from Claris), BOUGHT the original Mac OS from PARC Xerox (but NEVERPAID FOR IT), BOUGHT the Mouse, STOLE Widgets from Konfabulator and on and on and on.... Hesus! OS X is a rip of BSD with a GUI that looks like Windows! Now before you toss MSFT bought..... the only major thing MSFT BOUGHT was DOS, they develop all their major technologies - Office, Windows, I Explorer, C++, Mobile Windows, CE Windows, all the awesome programming application "developmental studios" like Visual Studio, that MSFT WROTE! SIRI is nothing special, Android and Windows Phone had this before the iPhony S came out! You can audio dictate a Text and your phone will read it back, and you can do audio searches. SIRI stumples and balks all the time I heard CrApple Pimps demonstrating it. it's hardly a "work of art" or a finished product. So where is Technology like Kinect on any CrApple product? Enough of all this baseless bashing of MSFT and unfounded hyping (pimping) for CrApple (who has MADE ANYTHING that they put their name on since 1979 when they outsourced US manufacturing jobs and the Apple IIe to a contractor in Canada and the first Mac to Japan manufacturers - EVERY Mac PowerBook from the very first until 2000 was Engineered and Made by Sony/IBM consortium factory in Japan!)
@Graeme Erickson
Unbelievably absurd comment.
@Ben Clapp
The use of capitals in the wrong places made this very hard to read.
@Edward Glitery Orndorff
Of course the only thing they bought was DOS, they stole everything else.
@Saju Thomas
MSFT Stock..I know it's tough.
@Andrew Pincock
First off, calm down and take a deep breath and maybe a chill pill. Secondly, realize that this article has nothing to do with Apple's business. The author states that the Xbox voice command technology does not perform as well as Siri. It doesn't matter who owns what. Thirdly, be happy; it is Christmastime after all. : )
@Konner Shea
Edward Glitery Orndorff I was about to post this. Then saw you did. lolol
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Oh my, you trolls!... http://9gag.com this is the place for to be. That or go and do some reading please. Anyways, I will assume you are all americans and then laugh.
@Konner Shea
Arturo Reyes Jr. But.. Microsoft did steal windows.
@Joel Rogers
Arturo Reyes Jr. , stop being such a pompous ass. Being located at a different coordinate on Earth doesn't make you somehow better than anyone else.
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Konner Shea They did not steal anything, they took ideas and concepts from others and brought it to their own platform. Which it's pretty much what most companies do.
@Benjamin Gibson
I never got the chance to use a kinect as an avid xbox gamer due to a lack of space for the kinect to interact between the User and its surroundings. As for the editor who wrote this article is coming from a pro apple persepctive and probably think apple and siri as the most advanced thing in technology, iphone cant even do minority report interface. To the writer you live in a world of apple and should stick to apple products and don't use Microsoft prodilucts such as xbox360. If you want to play games play games on your iphone.
@David Vo
I know it's not Siri but the new dashboard does recognize more phrases. You can even control Netflix now. If you are confused about what you can say, just look on the bottom of the screen after you initialize it with "xbox" They never claimed native language support so I don't get why you were disappointed you couldn't say "Yo yo yo play me some Glee. But make that last season and the episode with the hot substitute teacher. Ya heard?"
@Andrew Noce
When I first heard of Siri, someone told me I could dictate a text message to Siri, and it would translate my speech to text, and then send it to my wife, who could ask Siri to read it back to her. Which begs the question; why not just *call* her? lol.
@Benjamin Gibson
Also kinect voice fluctuates due to distance between the User and the kinect compared to Sirius which only works face to microphone. All I can say is Microsoft is the future and not apple.
@Graeme Erickson
Why? Or why not both?
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Graeme Erickson I can't say they are the future, but indeed they are the PRESENT. But Benjamin has a valid point.
@Graeme Erickson
Arturo Reyes Jr. They're the present as much as Apple is. I still don't get Benjamin's point, care to explain?
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Graeme Erickson" kinect voice fluctuates due to distance between the User and the kinect compared to Sirius which only works face to microphone" Isn't that a valid point to you?, the difference in how both devices are used.
@Graeme Erickson
Arturo Reyes Jr. Ah, thought you were referring to the part about Microsoft being the future and not Apple. Yes, I'd imagine distance plays a factor in the quality of voice recognition.
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Graeme Erickson Assumptions, but no I never said or referred to anything else.
@Graeme Erickson
Arturo Reyes Jr. Simple misunderstanding, dude.
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Graeme Erickson I know this happens, I am glad you asked though.
@Ravi Teja Vadrevu
You cried much! The way you narrated is like talking to customer care at Microsoft!
@Andrew Granville
Has Microsoft got a customer care servce?
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Andrew Granville you look mature but you are not.
@Meowby Lau
Andrew Granville Actually they do have great customer service, not free though.
@Sree Dev
Is it fair to compare a feature to the whole device? Come on! don't be so unfair with Microsoft. Xbox is meant 2 gaming, the voice system comes with next priority.
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
It is easier for the writer to do such harsh and biased comparisons.
@Chandan Benjaram
Very great way to criticize xbox voice. May be they were in rush to compete against Siri and missed the whole point of voice over technology. I feel they should compete against traditional IVR systems (once used to reach Customer Service depts since almost a decade ago) vs new world/Siri.
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
No, Xbox 360 voice commands has more history than Apple's Siri.
@Chandan Benjaram
Arturo Reyes Jr. I was referring to maturity to this moment vs inception history. In my view, Siri reach(ed|ing) closer to perfection. but, xbox should take end user convenience as one of the key factors in developing voice. Things like one click, fast checkout, etc all are around less clicks/steps to do a task.
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
Chandan Benjaram I know what you are trying to say, I just wanted to make it clear there was not such hurry to compete with them as for the Xbox. Of course I am pretty sure that has changed now for the Windows Phone platform.
@Arturo Reyes Jr.
You may be right in some points, but I find it funny how you start comparing everything with Apple even though they are not better (or such comparison does not apply), every company handles things differently... if you want a Mac then go to an Apple Store, however if you want a PS3, a Sony retailer is the place! As simple as that... and yes, I am calling you "STUPID" for assuming that the Xbox 360 voice command would be as Siri's. This is the first time I insult someone (via internet), but I am fed up with articles like these... I know that everyone with a computer and internet connection can call themselves a journalist these days, however do not expect people not to react negatively to superficial posts like these. Do your best!
@Lee Owen
Siri is making itself look terrible, as reviewed by Joe Rogan: http://youtube.com/watch?v=brb-sDae4A8.
@Julius Prilianto
Go to hell Microsoft! Can't even do one thing right.
@Henry Gresson
Great post
@Michael A. Robson
Isn't this a little redundant? They're MS. They don't do shit well, they do shit as fast as they can, and attach it to their monopoly and suddenly, "ITS POPULAR".
@Jerad Clark
Odd, I like playing the voice part of Kinect. I'm amazed it works as well as it does.
@Jon Curley
You should try Siri living in the UK - it's a joke.
@Kyle Hikalea
This articles gotta be a joke.. this guys not seriously comparing a video game console to a telephone, more so in terms of VOICE recognition?
@Luca Candela
De gustibus. Xbox understands my accent in English much better than Siri. Siri for my purposes is unusable. The Xbox flies through what I need it to do, and now I don't need a controller anywhere near me in order to watch Hulu which is very nice. If there's a flaw, the camera in the Kinect is a bit too eager to start tracking my hands, sometimes I need to make sure I don't move too much in order to keep the hand icon from appearing. That's the real flaw they should address quickly.
@Amanda Lin
too much hassle.
@Panayiotis Papadopoulos
Kinect is as revolutionary (or even more) thatn what Siri is. This fanboyism is really annoying.
@Robert Meissner
That's what I like most about Apple and Blizzard. They only put things for Sale that are DONE. Sure Siri isn't perfect, but Siri comes close.
@Tee Bee
I've noticed that when someone finds it hard to use something, they immediately blame something or someone. The fact that you couldn't get voice controls to work as you want on 'HULU' have very little to do with microsoft really. Voice seach on other players seem to work fine for others. You shouldn't just mouth off because you can or because u have access to a blog!
@Dane Walton
you're not bias because you dis the 360, you're bias because you openly admit to being bias. that's why bloggers aren't protected by journalism laws: this is basically a group of friend's bloggin together! the bias is palatable.
@Dries Grobler Jr.
I want an Xbox for Christmas.
@Juergen Fesslmeier
I am surprised by how well Xbox voice recognition actually works, but what throws me off is the fact that I have to get a Xbox LIVE Gold subscription for $9.99 per month to be able watch Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, etc.
@Trevor Downs
That's all just MS'es greed. I don't think any content providers see any of the LIVE subscription money.
@Manu Thioux
You need live (gold) for pretty much everything on xbox. That's where the PS3 has the advantage.
@Lindsay Manahan
my classmate's sister-in-law makes $84 hourly on the laptop. She has been fired for 7 months but last month her income was $9078 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Go to this site NuttyRich.cöm.
@Arshed Nabeel
Well well, I'm not at all surprised this has turned into a "Microsoft vs. Apple - Who's Better" contest.
@Andrew Noce
You shouldn't be surprised, it's right there in the title of the article.
@Thomas Lock
You are wrong on several levels of understanding and execution, and you make ridiculously false suggestion on how Siri works as well. First of all Siri does not work well in crowded areas. There are many articles on this and feel free to try it yourself. Second it doesn't really matter how much power the XBox has it will not impact how fast the servers will respond to commands. Third The command initiator "Xbox Bing" etc is no different than using the home button to get started. Sorry it is actually a better implementation than having to use the home button. Right there as you like to think Steve would say you failed. So to use voice your first action is to push a button? #FAIL. So therefore having to use "XBox" is the correct way. Also if you have kids who repeat everything you say when you are talking to a TV you really see the need for initiator commands. If this was Apples product you would probably have to grab your joystick and push the start button to start the voice command. Fourth XBox is command driven, it doesn't have an abstraction layer to translate requests to proper commands which Siri does and I commend them on trying this, but to test the XBox out, you need to use the product as intended. I don't hold my phone upside down and complain the volume sucks, that would make me look stupid, hint. Fifth Support for commands within application is the responsibility of developers not Microsoft. Why not complain that Siri can't open Instagram, take a picture for you and send it? So really this whole article is a complaint about Hulu not XBox voice. For me it is XBox Bing Grimm, and bing all the copies from all the application that support this voice bing search. If you love your XBox as much as you say, take the time to really learn how to use it the way it expects you to until Microsoft adds a natural language translation layer (which they need too as consumer are coming to expect it). It is not hard at all to use commands, cause natural language and common requests are not very different. Also calibrate the background noise on the Kinect and I can assure you, you will never have to yell at it.
@Sander Rose
Of course anything that mentions Apple and Microsoft turns into Apple fanboys and Microsoft fanboys arguing. Ho hum, will it ever end? Greg, I agree with you on this: One action should not take 13 commands. That is just absurd. I hope Microsoft can fix this over time because I think voice integration on the Xbox has huge potential. I see the new UI rollout just one step in that direction.
@Horace Nelson
Who cares? Seriously. Voice control is a joke. At best, it's a novelty... a few passing moments of mild entertainment (and, apparently, frustration). Siri = whatever. Like the stereotypical American man, I don't like talking ON the phone, so I definitely have no interest in talking TO the phone. As far as the Xbox goes, having to say "Xbox" first is awful. It's not a word that feels good in your mouth. It's ugly. And I'd feel awkward talking to the Xbox, particularly considering how much you have to over-enunciate. If it ever happens in my lifetime that voice recognition technology advances to where it can recognize my normal speech, maybe I'll give it a go.
@Maco Reen
A private jet aviation company provides all features like, air travel, restaurant, hospitality, road transport etc in a single umbrella. So you can be away from hassle and make your travel so easily. http://www.247jet.com/
@Trevor Downs
Microsoft doesn't need Siri to make them look bad in comparison, they are doing just fine on their own. I'm really disappointed in the update, the increased prevalence of advertising coupled especially with bad UI design makes me want to use my Xbox 360 less and the new Netflix is especially galling.
@Aditya Sharma
Let's compare two pieces of softwares that are used in two wildly different settings with different use cases. Then shit on one of them because it doesn't do things the other can. I shit you not my xbox 360 has better graphics than the 4s. Come on Apple, iPhone's making you look bad.
@Carlos Pacheco
I've had an Xbox360 from launch (on my 4th one right now) and its still my top choice in terms of TV devices. I would get rid of my PS3, AppleTV before my Xbox any day. The Kinect was a great addition but lets face it, its biggest accomplishment to M$ was that it helped refresh the system and keep the Xbox360 sales going by expanding the user base. You also can't deny M$ for turning around and opening it up to the home brew app builders out there. Throughout the years they've done a great job keeping the system fresh with its annual system updates but lets face it, we are talking about a piece of tech that is over 6 years. M$ is supporting the current Kinect but there's no hiding that within the next year we'll see the next iteration of it.
@Rafael Carminatti
Have you people imagined what voice recognition means for people with special needs? It's awesome to have two hands and be able to use the remote, type, and whatsoever. But what about all the people that can't naturally do that? Have you tried to type with one hand? It's doable, but I better dictation is a lot faster than that. Or the people that have lost their body movement/control... the only thing they can control is their mouth. Their voice. Voice recognition is a HUGE step to give those people a chance to do things that otherwise they would need someone else to do for them. Using my time travel machine... I can imagine a robot that would follow your voice commands, and could interact with you. And I mean natural voice commands. These things will have immense value to humanity. Well... as long as they don't turn out to be The Terminator...
@Juan Aguilar
Excellent points. I was thinking about this, but hadn't considered the difference in power, bandwidth, or dedicated hardware. It's really kind of embarrassing, isn't it?
@Toni Manolache
Visit SiriQuestions.com if you're new to Siri or if you just want to have a laugh :)