Microsoft's answer to Siri and Now..!

Microsoft is reportedly working on an answer to Apple's iPhone voice assistant, Siri and Google's assistant, Now. The new voice assistant will ship with Windows 8.1. smartphones. From the video (see below), it looks like Cortana will learn about the mobile user by asking a few questions and adapt its behaviour to the needs, preferences and interests of the user. It looks like it will perform various services like making calls, sending messages, setting reminders, alarms, checking mails, stock prices, etc similar to what Siri and Now do. What is interesting is that with this news, the holy trinity of Smartphone OS - Android, iOS and Windows have all reaffirmed that the next generation mobile interface is via speech. 

Watch Cortana at work here in the YouTube video below..

Read more at:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/3/5465264/microsoft-cortana-windows-phone-screenshots
http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-cortana-alternative-to-siri-makes-a-video-debut-7000026987/

Nuance Nina - Now you app can talk too..

If your company has designed a smartphone app that requires a dialogue interface like that of Apple Siri, then here is Nina for you. Nuance, a company that specialises in Speech and dialogue technology solutions has developed Nina, a dialogue toolkit that enables businesses to design their own Siri-like apps that can talk to their customers. For instance, banks can develop apps that allows users to have dialogue interactions about their accounts, requests such as setting up a standing order or paying off a credit card bill and so on.

EPSON Moverio

Following Google Glasses, here is a competitor! EPSON has introduced Moverio, a wearable display device that doubles up as your sunglasses as well. It puts a high resolution in front of your eyes but also allows the user to see through it. It uses WiFi connectivity and works on Android JellyBean OS and there is a API for developers to play with. Costs 600 USD.

You can be a Jedi too!

A company called Thalmic Labs have come up with a new armband sensor that allows users to control their computing devices using arm gestures. A boring example would be, you can use hand gestures to control your powerpoint presentation. But imagine all the cool things you can do with it. Control your smartphone like make a call, your mp3 player, interact with your robot, etc. It may even be possible to use this alongside speech and then all you have to do is just swish your arm and chant your mantra. You wear it on your forearm and therefore it picks up hand gestures without actually sitting your palm or fingers. This reminds me of the Sixth Sense project at MIT where hand gestures are captured via a tiny camera.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/25/thalmic-labs-myo/

The company also provides developers with APIs to be able to explore new ways to user this sensor.

Evi -- Answers your questions

Evi is a question answering Android app from True Knowledge. It not only retrieves the document containing answers as some Android apps do, but also extracts the answer to your question. Watch the video below to see what Evi is capable of..

Augmented Reality in the future..

In the future, we may be using augmented reality glasses or better contacts :) that will overlay useful (hopefully) information on top of the real world objects (see video).

Video courtesy: New Scientist

Speak To It

 Following Apple's Siri, there have been many Android avatars of speech enabled personal assistants as well. One of them is SpeakToIt. Its very impressive in terms of recognizing speech. The trick is to use common words and avoid names. The app identifies the most appropriate application that can handle the user's request. For example, when I asked it "how much is a pound in dollars?", it queried it on Google Search and displayed the result. When asked, "how do I get to Princes street?" it misrecognized "Princes" as "princess" and opened up Google Maps with parameters from: my location, to:Princes street. It does weather information, helps write text messages, make calls, etc.

http://www.speaktoit.com/