INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The technology is now seen as the natural way to control the smart home, thanks to the low-cost ability to add voice to your setup
technology into the mainstream, when it launched with the iPhone 4S back in 2011
was a victim of its own popularity
the time Apple acquired the voice system back in 2010
launch event in October 2011For all its niggles, Siri paved the way for the voice assistants of today, and instantly proved that controlling
iPads to Macs to the Apple Homepod
right now it's Google, and, in particular, Amazon, that are making most of the running in this space.Hearing the EchoGoogle Assistant, to
revealed an extension of Assistant called Google Duplex
This technology is designed not just to answer questions and make lists, but to become a bona fide assistant
months and years to come.And that leads us to Alexa
Where Apple and Siri planted the acorn for voice assistant tech, Alexa is the oak tree
Amazon has used its might to make sure Alexa is a piece of technology that's available to all, no matter what their budget
simplifies your setup by bringing them all together
The smartest thing Amazon did with Alexa was to take it out of the Amazon ecosystem, and open it up to as many partners as possible.Being
prevalent doesn't always mean a technology's future is secure, though, and there's a lot to do yet before voice becomes the natural OS
of choice.The future of voiceNatural is the key word here
While Alexa and its bedfellows manage to serve you up the right information most of the time, improvements are being made that will make
voice assistants even smarter.Their voices, for a start, are getting more work
While the sound of a voice changes in different countries, within those countries there are also regional dialects and this is something
that's being worked on.Speechmetrics, a British-based company, has spent 12 years looking into speech recognition and accents, and has
backbone for future voice assistants.There's also the issue of catering for those who have disabilities that mean voice just isn't a
A recent Alexa mod solved this issue, and while it's by no means official it proves that Alexa and other assistants could use visual data
as well as text and voice
Google Assistant can also use visual cues via the Google Lens app.The true future of voice assistants, however, could lie in the end of our
addictive relationship with our smartphones
What do we actually use our phone for Information, games, communication, and perhaps actually phoning people once in a while
a little bit of smarts to your wake-up call, offering a particular song or radio station to wake up to
Couple this with Routines and your lights can be switch on, the coffee machine fired up and the weather read to you, all just by you saying
Alexa and other smart assistants already do this, but the processes need to be simplified still further, and more things need to be
but doing two things that are far more instinctive: speaking, and listening.TheIndianSubcontinent's Next Up series is brought to you in
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