Google now updated with new features

[WelshBloke]

Widgets, USB storage, changing default applications,... , not relying on iTunes...

Looong way to go (and it'll never get there).

Google doesn't care about any of those, they want to provide you with data (and track it) if they can do it as well on iOS as android then it's going to blur the line.

 

[WelshBloke]

As you can tell from the queries above, it's not just about OS integration. Google voice search is still behind on machine learning since it doesn't understand the questions regarding "World Series" or "College basketball season" on either platforms.

Better integration will probably help it deal with the "where" type questions and so I didn't try to push that too much. But I'm seeing gaps in parsing the meaning behind what I'm asking. It's something that both will get better (original Siri didn't understand sports either) but I would say that based on what I can tell, Siri still impresses me.

Access to the calendar, contacts, location history, Web history, etc, all those feed into Google now on Android. It's missing out on a chunk of data it uses on iOS.

 

[Dulanic]

As you can tell from the queries above, it's not just about OS integration. Google voice search is still behind on machine learning since it doesn't understand the questions regarding "World Series" or "College basketball season" on either platforms.

Better integration will probably help it deal with the "where" type questions and so I didn't try to push that too much. But I'm seeing gaps in parsing the meaning behind what I'm asking (where's Watson when you nee dhim). It's something that both will get better, for example the original Siri didn't understand sports either. I was expecting more out of Google voice search since people made it sound like it was miles above Siri. Speed? A big yes! Parsing? It's actually worse (from my 2 minute experiment into sports queries).

Both platforms have little differences. My sister asked her iPhone if the bears won last night the day after a game, Siri searched the web, google voice pulled up the score.

Basically... both of them have different ways to word things.

 

[TuxDave]

Both platforms have little differences. My sister asked her iPhone if the bears won last night the day after a game, Siri searched the web, google voice pulled up the score.

Basically... both of them have different ways to word things.

"Did the Bears win last night?" Parsed correctly in Siri with voice + card (and even corrected me by saying it was on Sunday). Did your sister upgrade to iOS6? The point is, you should be able to word in any (respectable) English and it should figure it out.

Access to the calendar, contacts, location history, Web history, etc, all those feed into Google now on Android. It's missing out on a chunk of data it uses on iOS.

I was thinking if "What is Intel stock right now" didn't parse for me because it doesn't have my history to understand what I wanted.

 

[foghorn67]

"Did the Bears win last night?" Parsed correctly in Siri with voice + card (and even corrected me by saying it was on Sunday). Did your sister upgrade to iOS6? The point is, you should be able to word in any (respectable) English and it should figure it out.



I was thinking if "What is Intel stock right now" didn't parse for me because it doesn't have my history to understand what I wanted.

Reviews online won't even backup what you're saying. Siri and now are seemingly random on results.

 

[TuxDave]

Reviews online won't even backup what you're saying. Siri and now are seemingly random on results.

I'm telling you the exact words I'm using and the results that I'm getting. I would think my history on this forum would show that I don't lie.

Also tried "when does college basketball start?" "When is the first college basketball game this year?" "When is the next game for Rutgers college basketball?" I can't get any useful result that will tell me games will start.

 

[WelshBloke]

Could it be that both Siri and Google are relying on previous searches to refine your present searches?

That way both of you may be correct.

 

[soccerballtux]

I hope apple follows suit with something like this. Google now seems pretty cool.

apple always follows with lawsuits.

 

[soccerballtux]

Nothing it's cards.

so do we have 4.7" screens on phones these days so that they cast waste over half an inch diagonally on them? It's about 3/8" on the left and the right. Diagonally that's ~0.5" each or 1 whole inch of screen space.

 

[WelshBloke]

so do we have 4.7" screens on phones these days so that they cast waste over half an inch diagonally on them? It's about 3/8" on the left and the right. Diagonally that's ~0.5" each or 1 whole inch of screen space.

yeah, that's exactly why they are making screens bigger.

 

[Red Storm]

so do we have 4.7" screens on phones these days so that they cast waste over half an inch diagonally on them? It's about 3/8" on the left and the right. Diagonally that's ~0.5" each or 1 whole inch of screen space.

Didn't you make the thread complaining that text doesn't start at the very edge of the screen? The margins exist for both form and function. It looks better, and it works better.

 

[soccerballtux]

Didn't you make the thread complaining that text doesn't start at the very edge of the screen? The margins exist for both form and function. It looks better, and it works better.

If you want margin for form and function the margins on the bezel of the phone outside the screen are what this is for:

 

[WelshBloke]

If you want margin for form and function the margins on the bezel of the phone outside the screen are what this is for:

No thanks.

 

[foghorn67]

Dp.

 

[foghorn67]

I'm telling you the exact words I'm using and the results that I'm getting. I would think my history on this forum would show that I don't lie.

Also tried "when does college basketball start?" "When is the first college basketball game this year?" "When is the next game for Rutgers college basketball?" I can't get any useful result that will tell me games will start.

Nobody is saying you're lying. It just seems like your previous post said Siri is more accurate definitively. Or across the board.
Defensive guy is defensive.

 

[TuxDave]

Nobody is saying you're lying. It just seems like your previous post said Siri is more accurate definitively. Or across the board.
Defensive guy is defensive.

Well what would you conclude based on my tests? My conclusion is that the hype of Google Voice search being the end all be all is really overblown. It's not super magical. It's fast, yes, but it still has language parsing issues and in the cases I brought up, it's worse than Siri.

(as for being defensive, people get to me sometimes )

 

[Dulanic]

so do we have 4.7" screens on phones these days so that they cast waste over half an inch diagonally on them? It's about 3/8" on the left and the right. Diagonally that's ~0.5" each or 1 whole inch of screen space.

... create a new thread and stop trolling mine. A screen with no spacing looks as stupid as a book with no indentation. Which is unrelated to the features of Google Now so let's move on.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Interesting. So regarding the voice search stuff, I'd say Google Voice Search isn't as functional as Siri especially in follow up questions, and being conversational. Siri wins in that. However, Google Now cards are immensely useful. Just wish battery life could be improved.

The fact that it's constantly polling for data does annoy me especially when I'm in areas of bad data. I do like the fact that it alerted me about my gf's flight. I assume that means Gmail dissected my gf's email with her flight info. That or it looks at her shared calendar. Not sure which.

 

[vshah]

Interesting. So regarding the voice search stuff, I'd say Google Voice Search isn't as functional as Siri especially in follow up questions, and being conversational. Siri wins in that. However, Google Now cards are immensely useful. Just wish battery life could be improved.

The fact that it's constantly polling for data does annoy me especially when I'm in areas of bad data. I do like the fact that it alerted me about my gf's flight. I assume that means Gmail dissected my gf's email with her flight info. That or it looks at her shared calendar. Not sure which.

It looks at gmail since the latest update.

 

[zerocool84]

Anyone get the pedometer card today telling you how many miles you walked? It kind of caught me off guard but it was cool.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Anyone get the pedometer card today telling you how many miles you walked? It kind of caught me off guard but it was cool.

so essentially it keeps the accelerometer on or what? I'm trying to understand how that works.

Everytime something like this comes on I wonder about the technical feasibility.

So it could use your GPS, but it obviously doesn't stay on. Half of our walking must be indoors too like at work, so GPS won't lock, and your battery would die in 30 minutes.

What about Google Latitude? But that's based on cell tower location. It isn't even accurate. So how does it know you moved around?

 

[Fire&Blood]

I guess it runs a few algorithms and determines your motion by checking if you are consistently moving, looks whether you are moving along vehicle roads, monitors speed and takes an educated guess whether you are walking or not.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I guess it runs a few algorithms and determines your motion by checking if you are consistently moving, looks whether you are moving along vehicle roads, monitors speed and takes an educated guess whether you are walking or not.

What location or movement detection does it use? Is it calculating based on your location change? Or is it an accelerometer kinda like Nike+?

How does it capture my in house movement? Or in building movement? That's like 90% of my movement anyway.

 

[podspi]

Ask a Google engineer

For the record, I haven't had any battery issues since updating to the latest version of Google Now. I honestly have no idea how they work their magic, but they have managed to do it while maintaining battery life (better than it was on ICS anyway).