

Face Off: Hilarious Siri Vs. Google Search - mtgx
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grmixtB9dZM&feature=player_detailpage#start=0:00;end=6:50;autoreplay=false;showoptions=false

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idspispopd
I did laugh, but the poor performance is predictable. A single session of siri
will produce nonsensical answers when asking a set of unrelated questions. The
comparison is designed to favour google voice search and to produce giggles.
Below is just a short explanation for why siri goes so horribly wrong, and how
a reverse comparison can be set up to favour siri over google voice search.

First up, don't get me wrong, for this accent google voice search should be a
far superior voice recognition system.

The 'problem' is that Siri is tailored to produce a particular kind of result,
its goal is to be a personal assistant. It skews the voice recognition to more
probable commands to enhance the accuracy of the 'personal assistant'.

Siri builds a query using an arrangement of data that surrounds the user.
Their location, address book, contacts and successive questions. It tweaks the
voice-recognition results to more closely match its functionality, this leads
to better accuracy when using it like a personal assistant, and poorer
accuracy when trying to use it for dictation. (iOS does come bundled with
dictation software that doesn't have Siri's personal assistant tailoring, that
would be a better way of comparing the voice recognition technologies.)
However iOS doesn't have a comparable voice-for-search service out of the box.

Google's voice recognition is designed to run google searches, for some data
it produces siri like results (e.g. game scores). That's because Google search
provides a set of summary results for basic searches, e.g. definitions,
weather and the like, these have been piped to create the appearance that of
Siri-like functionality. However, one could set up a 'reverse' video, with
Siri converting successive searches for "italian", "take away" and "meat
balls" into a meaningful search for an italian restaurant in the area that
offers a meatball dish and takeaway. Google voice search isn't going to
produce a similar clarity of results.

In the end it comes down to the user, I don't feel that successive specific
searches are ideal in a voice-setting. At the moment google voice search is a
product that produces searches very well, but is that useful to users who
could just as easily type in the request? The OS-shortcuts make sense and are
very siri-like (e.g.asking it to set a timer) Google's system will garner
strength by taking on more siri-like functionality, which is a voice-scenario
that is more useful to real world users.

