Voice Activated Technology

[APorter]

Hey all,

So I've been reading up on voice-recognition technology, like the Alexa and the Amazon echo and I was just wondering what people's thoughts are.

This article claims that more and more people are going to begin to use voice-activated technology and 40% of millennials are willing to try this, but I'm failing to see where we can go from here?

I work in app development so I'm going to be in the process of integrating various different services and applications to fit this new user trend, but what is next for this technology?

After we have mastered simple commands (which Siri has been doing for a long while), where can we go from here? (no I'm seriously asking)

I feel like there's so much to do, but I'm at a crossroads in my career where I'm unsure on where we can go from here! Let me know your thoughts because this is probably my favourite discussion to have.

(Source: https://www.apadmi.com/blog-alexa-skills-workshop-voice-design-101/)

 

[MrSquished]

From what I've read Siri is the worst of the big 3 - Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri.

 

[Yuriman]

It seems to me that, until these are backed by natural language recognition and the ability (for the user) to add capabilities without developer input or code changes, we're not going to see rapid improvement. It's nice to see Google manually adding individual home automation tasks, but it would be a huge step forward to have something like an agent installed on my PC, to be able to link software to it, and for voice commands to be able to meaningfully interact with that software.

 

[APorter]

I couldn't agree more, from a development perspective the limitations are becoming more and more apparent every day

 

[jtvang125]

The problem right now is that all the big players are competing to be the market leader instead of working together. Google has the search power but is behind on home automation and has little to no front on providing consumer products. Amazon's Alexa lacks the search power but has a head start in home automation and has tremendous sales power. The other smaller players (Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Samsung's Bixby) are fighting for their slice of the pie as well. Imagine if they were all willing to come together and contribute what they have so far. It still won't be like what we see in the movies but it'll be a huge step forward.

 

[Yuriman]

Basically the opposite of "competition spurs innovation".