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<\/p>\nBy now I am sure that most of you have heard of the digital personal assistant. It is quite possible that you don\u2019t know it by that name. That is right, I am talking about Siri (Apple), Cortana (Microsoft) and Google Now (Android). These are the 3 main digital personal assistant technologies that are used by mobile devices but this technology also includes devices like the Amazon Echo or Alexa. The one thing that these all have in common is that you use your voice to control what the assistant does. This is great for when you are on the go and need to find something but the tech does have its drawbacks as well. Here we will look at what this technology is and how it is used.<\/p>\n
As I mentioned above Apple, Microsoft and Android all have competing digital personal assistants. Siri is probably the one you are most familiar with as it is the most popular in the market. This technology came about when the tech giants realized that people are using their phones to search for everything and wanted to provide an easier way for people to conduct these searches. Siri took off for Apple and the others followed suit developing their own versions of this technology.<\/p>\n
This is an interesting question, mainly because it is still a relatively new technology. Siri was the first version and it was released in 2011 with iOS 5 but it didn\u2019t gain full support until iOS 6 was released in May of 2012. This means the technology has been around for 5 years but some of the versions that are used are newer and have come about since Apple launched Siri.<\/p>\n
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As we can see with this technology being new, it still does have decent market penetration. The chart above shows<\/a> that 13% of mobile phone owners use their assistant on a daily basis and 37% would be considered regular users using the technology at least on a monthly basis if not more regularly. For a technology that has been around for 5 years this should only grow in the years to come.<\/p>\n This technology works through voice commands. The general concept being you would speak to your phone vs typing and tapping the screen. It really is similar to the scene in a sci-fi movie where the main character is having a conversation with a computer system, though we aren\u2019t quite there yet. I use this technology frequently and find it is great for quick searches that you need in the moment. As a user I also notice one downside, and that is you need to use the commands that are programmed into the software<\/a>. Different people speak in different ways and if this technology is going to really take off it will need to recognize this in some way. I personally only use it for some of its capabilities simply because I can\u2019t get the command right for the others.<\/p>\n Right now if you want to use this tech you need to say the exact command that is needed to execute what you want are interested in. (I will use Google Now as the example but this works the same across all assistants)<\/p>\n When you say;<\/p>\n \u201cOK google, play Led Zeppelin\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The voice software recognizes the command and plays a Led Zeppelin song.<\/p>\n However, when you say;<\/p>\n \u201cOK Google, I really feel like some Led Zeppelin right now\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The system just gives you what you want and usually just searches Led Zeppelin on Google, or other search engines depending on the device settings. Even though this statement to a human means \u201cplay Led Zeppelin\u201d you will not get the result you want out of the assistant. This is because the music command \u201cplay\u201d was not mentioned.<\/p>\n Once they figure out this hurdle and the assistants can recognize how we speak and pick up on the unique voice patterns in each individual\u2019s speech we will see this technology really take off. People right now like it for what it can do but want it to be able to do so much more and I believe someday soon this technology will be able to do just that.<\/p>\n \n Get exclusive insights into digital How does it work?<\/h2>\n
Recognizing Speech<\/h3>\n
What Does The Future Hold?<\/h2>\n
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