VIKI Vs SIRI

Just watched the German dude's video about VIKI. Is it just me or is it completely wrong headed, against common sense and actually plain stupid to force a user to hold down a button (SIRI) or go fishing for a side button (VIKI) to enable voice commands? Doesnt that defeat the whole purpose of 'hands free' command??? I certainly hope the final version of BB10 doesnt force you to do that. How hard would it be to come up with an easy gesture or better yet a voice command "VIKI On" to wake up the feature?

I got my corporate Iphone 4S last week and was really looking forward to use SIRI. To say SIRI comes up with weird and wonderful results would be an understatement. To be fair, I live in my car. Travel for work extensively. Have a database of over 4,000 contacts going. Always on the phone, texting, emailing etc... So if you're gonna call it a 'personal assitant', I expect no less. So between road noise and the amount of data it has parse through, SIRI has been next to useless so far. I'm actually starting to call it names out of frustration and the results are getting funnier.

I certainly hope VIKI outdoes SIRI.

VIKI is a third party app, that video from the german/austrian guy was showing the native voice command that's built into bb10.

The technology really isn't here yet to have a voice activated, voice command system. The microphone would essentially always have to be on, and it would constantly have to filter out every single thing it hears. That would destroy battery life.

I was thinking since BB10 is a gesture based OS that it would make the most sense to make it a gesture to open the voice search. Since the bottom left corner brings up the keyboard. Like on the PlayBook the bottom right corner does nothing so I thought the bottom right could bring up the voice search. Simple! Gesture based control!

Check out the Android version of Vlingo... It does have an 'always on' type setup. It waits to hear the key phrase "Hey Vlingo "... And is totally hands free. I've only seen videos of it, so I can't really comment on it beyond that. I wish the bb version had it though, as i use it a lot while driving.

Well I think these companies realize that they need to make these apps with a stationary, non-driving person in mind to avoid possible lawsuits. People are honestly not supposed to be doing anything except paying attention to the road while driving.

I dont believe that for a second.... Have you seen the various QNX videos about it's current abilities and where they want to take it? Trust me... after watching these videos nobody is stationary!

Originally Posted by Justthecrack

Well I think these companies realize that they need to make these apps with a stationary, non-driving person in mind to avoid possible lawsuits. People are honestly not supposed to be doing anything except paying attention to the road while driving.

People do carry on conversations while driving and play games with each other too. As long as it's hands free and not taking your eyes off the road, there isn't an issue.

at CES the QNX powered Bentley had active listening for voice commands. you had to say "Hello Bentley" or something like that to get it's attention. But I would think that active listening would drain the battery on your smart phone pretty fast if it was left on all the time.

Originally Posted by Dirks2.0

at CES the QNX powered Bentley had active listening for voice commands. you had to say "Hello Bentley" or something like that to get it's attention. But I would think that active listening would drain the battery on your smart phone pretty fast if it was left on all the time.

I suppose I could attach a car battery and alternator to my Z10.

I would probably keep my phone charged in the car while using the Voice Commands.

Originally Posted by jesseh

I suppose I could attach a car battery and alternator to my Z10.

Why not, my current BB is attached to the battery and alternator as soon as I get in the car. It shouldn't be hard to have a profile that turns on "active Listening" when the phone is plugged in.

Originally Posted by pillswoj

Why not, my current BB is attached to the battery and alternator as soon as I get in the car. It shouldn't be hard to have a profile that turns on "active Listening" when the phone is plugged in.

Now THAT is a good idea.

The active listening stuff I guess might be an option for in vehicle applications. I mean, QNX is doing that kind of stuff, so why not? I guess we wait and see on that. We may see something like 'blackberry drive' or whatever that puts you into driving mode with active listening but only lets you give certain commands. Sounds like it could be a real thing to me, although I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

What is a much more likely contingency is that it will be integrated into bluetooth, and potentially into navigation apps too. For bluetooth, you hit the button on your headset or speakerphone and it starts listening, and I'd expect we'd get the same functionality for wired headsets too. I suspect that almost everyone who drives a lot either has a bluetooth headset, a bluetooth speakerphone or in-car bluetooth, so this functionality would seem to cover most everyone. Without bluetooth then in navigation apps it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a voice command icon in the bottom right corner or wherever that's there at all times and you just need to tap to start voice commanding.

For the record, neither BB10's native voice control, nor Siri (as far as I know) need you to hold a button down, just to press the icon and go.For non-drivers, the convenience key is a better idea, because it's... well.. convenient... but that won't be the only way to do it. At the very least you'll be able to leave voice control open in an active frame, and then even from inside navigation you'll just have to swipe and press. If you aren't on bluetooth then you'd have to do about that to answer a call anyway.

I haven't seen any demos of Viki, but my understanding is it will be a bit more structured than Siri's conversational system. That should help to improve accuracy, ad make it so the phone doesn't have to take a long time to process vague commands.