[Dave Bourque]

Agreed it's pretty horrible right now - I wish we could remap that middle button between the volume buttons to something actually useful - like straight to the browser or hub for example.

What we had before is worse.

Z10STL100-3/10.2.1.3247

[lactose]

Those of you who use it in the car, what can you do with it ? I gave up trying to voice dial numbers with the Z10. This worked well on an old samsung sch flip phone I had years ago. This is one area, that when the technology is there, will make a huge difference in how we use a phone in a car. Imagine driving down the road, and without wearing an earpiece, saying, "Hey Blackberry,call my crack head wife", or "answer that call" or "read that text". All without having to pull over to avoid unsafe driving distractions.

[dguy123]

Those of you who use it in the car, what can you do with it ? I gave up trying to voice dial numbers with the Z10. This worked well on an old samsung sch flip phone I had years ago. This is one area, that when the technology is there, will make a huge difference in how we use a phone in a car. Imagine driving down the road, and without wearing an earpiece, saying, "Hey Blackberry,call my crack head wife", or "answer that call" or "read that text". All without having to pull over to avoid unsafe driving distractions.

It can do lots. There is nothing in common with the new Assistant and the older Voice Control. New recognizers, new NLP processors, new result handlers, completely new UI, integrated universal search.

The quality of recognition is much better than it was.

What can you do while driving?
Call someone from your address book,
Call a phone number,
Navigate to addresses or points of interest... and you don't have to touch the phone for route guidance to start.
Get answers to general knowledge questions.
Search your email, sms, facebook, twitter, or linkedin messages.
Have the messages read to you, then you can reply, or perform other operations on the message.
Compose and send new messages.
Play music by song, artist, genre, etc.
Check your calendar
Set up an appointment or meeting
Move a meeting
Set an alarm
Move an alarm
Update your facebook or linkedin status, post a tweet,
Adjust phone settings
And more

Features like movie listings are blocked while connected to a car's bluetooth.

Posted via CB10

[dguy123]

What does BA do if you ask it this:

Read me the top 3 news articles from BBC.

Tell me the score of Packers vs Bears.

Repeat to me the last 3 emails from Mr. Smith or read me the 3rd last email from Mr. Smith.

Direct me to the nearest gas station.

Closest store that stocks driveway sealer.

What are my next 3 calendar appointments.

1) searches Internet for "top 3 articles from bbc"
2) gives you the score, with links to team and player info
3) it reads messages from the specified contact
4) it will give you a list of nearby gas stations. To go to the nearest, say "the first one" or "shell" if you'd prefer a shell station over the nearer "Bob's Gas and bait".
5) searches the Internet for "driveway sealer"
6) shows your upcoming meetings




Posted via CB10

[dguy123]

Agreed it's pretty horrible right now - I wish we could remap that middle button between the volume buttons to something actually useful - like straight to the browser or hub for example.

The 10.3 assistant? What's horrible about it?
It trounced Google Now and provided better results than Siri on a couple sentences.

Posted via CB10

[btj]

Frankly, this is a non-issue for me. I don't use any of the voice assistants, as I think they all basically suck.

[Bonsaibo]

I love the BBA's integration with automotive bluetooth. The other day, while away from familiar territory, without touching the phone, I had BBA find me and guide me to the nearest Dunkin Donuts, read my last messages, send a text and BBM, and call my spouse. All without taking the phone out of my pocket and all spoken through integrated bluetooth.

[markus_13]

There is definitely work that needs to be done to be honest how little I use it this doesn't bother me.

I look forward to it being updated and over time and seeing it come closer in speed. For now like I have always done I will manually search for things

Posted via CB10

[II ARROWS]

Play music by song, artist, genre, etc.

I'm interested in it...
Can you set a specific app? I use Neutron Media Player, and I don't want to use the ****ty official media player.

[dguy123]

I'm interested in it...
Can you set a specific app? I use Neutron Media Player, and I don't want to use the ****ty official media player.

That I don't know. I imagine it "invokes" media playback with song/track info. In which case any app registered for servicing that invoke type would work.



Posted via CB10

[Allgoodnicknamesaretaken]

I use siri a lot and I'm glad that blackberry has brought the blackberry assistant to the BBOS 10. I've seen quite a few youtubes where people have been testing it out, and it seems every bit as sophisticated as siri. The speech recognition is excellently accurate. The only real downside is that it's slow. But it's new. I have to think that in the months ahead Blackberry is going to continue working on it and improving it. As it gets faster, it will get even more useful. But even now, as essentially a first version of the software, it seems very robust.

[matt0135]

None of these things beat Google Now. That's the direction these assistant things need to move.

Posted via CB10

Did you see the video? Sure blackberry was slower but it had a way better accuracy than Google now. It failed to do so many things!

Posted on my snappy new passport!!

[mistercanadaman]

The problem with this video is that it does not use the BlackBerry Assistant correctly. In the presentation of 10.3 they used BlackBerry Assistant by pushing the Assistant Button before and after the words were spoken. The video shows the BlackBerry Assistant being used with the push of the button only before the words are spoken. BlackBerry is waiting for more words to be spoken before making its search.

Come out with a fair video and let's see who is the best. I like that BlackBerry waits for additional words as business minded people have a lot on their minds.



Big Brother Hoards Your Data, stop the hoarding.

[II ARROWS]

Well, Siri searches WHILE you are speaking... It's ok to wait for more input, but it could start recognizing the words while being pronounced, and in the meantime understanding what you want, delivering faster response.

[mistercanadaman]

Let's do a new test based only on how to use an iPhone. Answering phone calls. With the iPhone you pick up calls by swiping to the right. BlackBerry you answer calls by swiping to the left. This is a good comparison to use for N4BB video as they like to use iPhone operations user guide. 100 phone calls come in to the BlackBerry and the iPhone. Swiping to the right only to answer as this is only how the iPhone operates.

Who is the winner? Why does it matter to use BlackBerry proper operations to make it a fair comparison.

N4BB claims to be BlackBerry experts and they did not properly represent BlackBerry in their video. Someone screwed up. They need to correct this video and apologize if it affected proper operations of the BlackBerry Assistant!



Big Brother Hoards Your Data, stop the hoarding.

[II ARROWS]

Usually you use voice commands while you cannot look at the phone or at least touch it.

So that is a fair test, because in those cases, you cannot press the "end of command" button.

[dguy123]

Well, Siri searches WHILE you are speaking... It's ok to wait for more input, but it could start recognizing the words while being pronounced, and in the meantime understanding what you want, delivering faster response.

smh. No, Siri displays progressive, aka partial, recognition results as you go. The pp also recognizes as you speak, but only shows the final recognition result.

Siri does not show search results before it gets the final result.


Posted via CB10

[dguy123]

Usually you use voice commands while you cannot look at the phone or at least touch it.

So that is a fair test, because in those cases, you cannot press the "end of command" button.

The assistant works fine without the end press.
The problem is "tuning". The assistant is tuned to allow pauses in speech while composing messages or complex appointment requests etc. Siri and Google now are tuned to detect EOS quickly.
Thus SIRI starts yakking before the assistant stops listening, which causes the assistant to listen even longer.

Btw. this makes Siri _less good_ for complex speech tasks.

Posted via CB10

[mistercanadaman]

The video is still flawed by not using the BlackBerry Assistant as per the BlackBerry demonstration.

To use BlackBerry Assistant push the button again after your final words are spoken. Just because the elephant eats peanuts does not mean the lion has to as well. I do not care how much longer the elephant had been in the zoo.



Big Brother Hoards Your Data, stop the hoarding.

[3800]

I use it while driving. assistant works well enough, but it's nowhere near as good as siri or Google Now....YET. I'm sure it's gonna be improved with each OS update. give it time, it's brand new.

Posted via CB10

[Spawn12]

Saving me from making a new thread, does anyone know how to stop the bb personal assistant from using bing everytime it searches the Internet?? I've disabled bing and yahoo search in the PA settings but still uses bing. Rather it use Google to be honest.

Thanks.

Posted via CB10

[Ed Gar]

Whoa. So you need to press the icon again after the voice command. Its fast then.

[mistercanadaman]

Finally, someone who gets it.

Nice pic.



Big Brother Hoards Your Data, stop the hoarding.

[Sequester#WN]

I do not use voice control at all.

But on my rental car connected with my passport out of the blue there is a new contact which can be 'called'.

The voice assistant appears through car stereo and I can do voice dials. Pretty cool stuff.

Posted via CB10

[Ed Gar]

You have to train yourself to use it. Otherwise it's really useless. I started adding appointments to it last week. Sent some sms. We'll be good soon w/ Ms Assistant.