[accesscomp] Fw: Android vs. Siri, Dan's tip for September 4th 2013
- From: "Bob Acosta" <boacosta@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "tektalk discussion" <tektalkdiscussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "access comp" <accesscomp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2013 09:14:24 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: dan Thompson
To: dan Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2013 6:01 AM
Subject: Android vs. Siri, Dan's tip for September 4th 2013
Good morning to All!!
Here is an awesome article noted in last week's edition of Top Tech Tidbits
By Dean
Martineau, at dean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
http://www.flying-blind.com
The Voice-Off: Android vs. Siri
By David Pogue
90 Seconds With Pogue: Speech Smackdown: The Times's David Pogue pits Google's
Android and Apple's iOS against each other to see which voice recognition
system is better.
By DAVID POGUE
Published: August 21, 2013
Email: pogue@xxxxxxxxxxx
"Android's voice commands are still no match for Siri."
Man, I really was stupid. Who'd be dumb enough to take sides in a religious
war? I'd have been better off writing, "Conservatives are better-looking than
liberals" or "Pro-life people are worse drivers than pro-choice."
But the superiority of cellphone speech-recognition technology is not an idle
question. Once touch screens became the future of phones, voice recognition
became desperately important. Without physical keys or buttons, entering text
and manipulating software controls are fussy, multistep procedures.
So I've just spent two weeks immersed in voice recognition. I carried an iPhone
and a phone running Google's Android operating system with me everywhere. I
spoke to both phones simultaneously. I wanted to get to know the differences,
the strengths, the weaknesses.
When people talk about speech recognition, they mean, and often confuse, three
different functions. There's dictation, where the phone converts speech to
text; commands, where you operate the phone by talking; and Internet
information searches. There are vast differences among the successes of the
three.
Dictation, for example, is still fairly poor on both systems. Both Android
phones and Siri, the iPhone's speech feature, make many transcription errors.
When you hear people bashing cellphone transcription, declaring, "I gave up on
it," they're usually referring to dictation.
That's forgivable, but come on. You're asking your phone to understand varying
accents at varying distances from its microphone, in rooms with varying
background noise. It's a wonder this feature works at all.
The latest Android version doesn't require an Internet connection to do basic
dictation. And in Android, the words appear on the screen as you utter them;
Siri doesn't transcribe until you stop talking.
On the other hand, Siri understands formatting controls like "capital," "all
caps" and "no space," as well as all kinds of punctuation - "colon," "dash,"
"asterisk," "ellipsis" and so on. Android understands only the basic symbols,
like "period," "comma" and "exclamation point."
The second category, phone-control commands, is far more successful for far
more people. This is when you say: "Call Mom," "Text Emily," "Wake me at 7:30,"
"Play some Billy Joel," "Remind me to feed the cat when I get home," and so on.
Controlling your phone without touching it is important for safety, of course.
If you must interact with your phone while driving, speaking to it certainly
seems safer than looking at it.
But don't forget the convenience factor. It's much faster to say, "Open Angry
Birds" than to flip through home screens full of icons. And "Set my alarm for 8
a.m." is about 375 finger-taps quicker than using the clock app.
Here, Siri has the edge. As you're driving along, for example, and you hear the
incoming message sound, you can say, "Read my new messages," and Siri reads
them aloud. It even invites you to dictate a reply, without ever taking your
eyes off the road. Android can't do that.
Both systems can tap into some of the phone's own apps. They recognize commands
like "Make a meeting with Bob Barnett Thursday at noon" (a calendar
interaction), "Make a note to pay back Harold" (notes), "Send an e-mail to
Danny Cooper" (mail) and "What's Steve Alper's home address?" (contacts).
Android blows away iOS, though, in Web searches. Both kinds of phones do an
amazing job fetching weather updates ("What will the weather in Detroit be this
weekend?"), times ("What time is it in Belgium?"), stock prices, sports
information ("When's the next Cowboys game?"), conversions ("How many dollars
in 32 euros?"), calculations ("How many days until Valentine's Day?") and every
kind of Web-search query ("How many calories are in a Hershey bar?", "When is
the next solar eclipse?", "How do you spell schadenfreude?", "Show me pictures
of a 1985 Corvette," and so on).
Some Siri humor.
Android is especially amazing at dialing places without having to look them up
("Call the Macy's on 34th Street") and directions ("Get me to La Guardia
Airport by public transportation"), since its Map app is so unbelievably good.
It's also smarter about connecting questions. If your first question was, "Who
is Hillary Clinton?", you can follow up with, "Who is her husband?"
And Google has a built-in music-recognition feature, like the Shazam app. Tap
the voice-recognition icon, let the phone listen to whatever song is playing,
and marvel as it instantly identifies the song and singer.
Unfortunately, Android has an Achilles' heel - actually, more like Achilles'
entire leg. To issue spoken commands, you have to tap the microphone icon on
the Google search bar. And it's only on the home screen or the Google Now
screen (swipe up from the bottom). So you can't speak commands when your phone
is locked, or when you're in another app.
On the iPhone, you hold down the Home button or the clicker on your earbuds
cord, so the voice command feature works when the phone is asleep or in any
app.
In other words, to use an Android phone's speech features, you frequently have
to pick it up, and you always have to look at it, which defeats much of the
purpose. The exception: Motorola's new phones, like the Moto X, can be set to
listen all the time.
Siri is better with restaurants and movies, too. Both phones understand, "Good
Indian restaurants around here" or "Call the Olive Garden on Daleford Road."
But Siri can also book reservations, thanks to integration with OpenTable.com.
You can say, for example, "Make a reservation at an inexpensive Italian
restaurant Saturday night at 7."
Similarly, Siri provides attractive, consolidated answer screens for, "What
movies are opening this week?" "Give me the reviews for 'The Way, Way Back,' "
or "What are today's showtimes for 'The Smurfs 2'?" Android just shows you
Google search results.
And then there's the issue of personality: Siri has it, Android doesn't.
We're talking about wisecracks, jokes, attitude, addressing you by name. If you
ask Siri, "Who's your daddy?", she replies: "You are. Can we get back to work
now?" Say, "Beam me up, Siri," and she says: "Please remove your belt, shoes
and jacket, and empty your pockets." Say, "Talk dirty to me," and she replies,
"Humus. Compost. Pumice. Silt. Gravel."
Now, on the great battlefield of the Apple-Google fanboy war, humor is small
potatoes. Apple haters practically claw their eyes out when you mention Siri's
personality. "It's not useful! It's a parlor trick! It strains me to avoid
profanity in describing how stupid you sound!"
And that's fine. That's why there's choice: two camps in this philosophical
school. (Well, there's also Windows Phone and BlackBerry, but their speech
recognition is extremely rudimentary.)
And so: Put down your swords, fanboys. Both systems are exceedingly useful,
once you spend the time to learn them. (Here's a site with a good list of
Android voice commands:
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/288505/70-things-try-googles-android-41-voice-search
And here's one for Siri:
http://techblog.tv/full-list-of-siri-commands-how-to-use-siri/
Here is the link to a mp3 file.
j.mp/16Yy4yy.)
Though Siri has the edge, the gap has closed substantially, and both systems
are rapidly improving. For example, until recently Android had no phone-control
features at all - only Web searches. And in this fall's iOS 7 update, Siri will
gain a more pleasant speaking voice, faster searches and the ability to change
settings by voice ("Turn on Airplane Mode," "Turn up the brightness," "Turn on
Bluetooth") - something neither phone can do now.
This much is clear: Cellphone speech recognition is getting better fast. Very
soon, we'll do less talking through our phones - and more talking to them.
Verse and thought of the week
Ephesians 6:11
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the
schemes of the devil. (ESV)
Thought: The Whole Armor of God
Ephesians tells us we're in a conflict with the devil. It's not a battle of
flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces of evil. God has provided us with
protective armor, but we must put on the whole armor in order to stand against
the devil. If we're only using part of our armor, we will likely fall prey to
the enemy's schemes.
If you're falling down more than you're standing firm in the faith, perhaps you
need to learn how to put on the full armor of God. For a clear and biblical
explanation of the whole armor of God, check out this article.
http://www.gotquestions.org/full-armor-of-God.html
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