Digital Techno Bytes

Virtual Assistant’s … The Future is Calling

Imagine this you wake up in the morning , you know at the back of the mind the days gonna be tightly schedules , you are a little stressed out you call out to your voice activated WiFi connected speaker to play your favorite Retro FM station. The speaker takes your command switches to x 107.2 FM Radio Nasha FM Radio station which belts out old Dev Anand Classics …. Pal Bhar Ke Liye Koi Hume Pyaar Karle Jhoota hi Sahi … A smile erupts on your lips. You go to the kitchen and call out to the Coffee Machine to brew you a strong cuppa. You sip on the piping hot Coffee and ask your Jeeves your man Friday on your iPhone to relay you the Top 10 headline news of the day . You check out the news then the time and rush to take a shower before you head out to office. While getting dressed you again check Google Maps for the traffic details to decide whether to take your car or book a aggregator cab , then you remember you have to fly to another citi in the late evening . No point taking your car. You ask Jeeves to book you an Uber to the office. Just as you are finished dressing and have picked up your overnighter bag with you most precious cargo , your Netbook , you get a message prompt on your mobile that your Cab has arrived. You softly tip toe into your bedroom , kiss your Sweet Wife and your little princess good bye and head for the door.You take the lift down , alight the cab and you are on the way to your office an hours drive from where you live.

You again ask Jeeves to check you mails for important mail id’s and sort them on priority. You spend the next half hour replying to these mails. Suddenly you remember you have to prepare a business report for your boss taking inputs from your colleagues and subordinates. Again Jeeves is there to rescue. You dictate a mail to Jeeves reminding 3 of your colleagues and 2 of your subordinates asking them for individual business reports to be sent to you by 11 am so you can cull the final report and mail it to the Boss.

You reach the office and exchange some pleasantries with the ever smiling receptionist before getting behind your workstation. You have a schedule meeting in one of your conference rooms with you Distributor in half an hour . You again ask Jeeves to co-ordinate with the Facilities Management System to prepare the conference room with proper heating control , LCD projector , Tea and some Biscuits . All by way of mails from your account. A prompt on your iPhone Calendar indicates the impending birth day of your wife and since you are away for the next two days on a trade show you have to get her some terrific gift. You call out to Jeeves ask him to search your favourite Web Market Place “ Amazon” for a Handbag from Caprese or a Hobbo from Lavie. Jeeves checks your order history for the last hand bags bought for your wife , checks the latest stock available , the best possible deals and suggests 2 options for you a Fuschia Pink Hobo or a Black Party Hand bag. You select the later and place the order.

Its 10:30 am and you go in to the conference room to meet personnel from your distributor. Shake hands and few head nods and its business as usual. Half way through the meeting you excuse yourself for 15 minutes check your mails, combine the individual reports you received into a single report , check it cross check it and then mail it to the Boss. The lasts for 2 hours and you end it on a spirited note and optimism . You shake hands and escort your guest to the reception. By now you are famished and need to have a quick bite. You again take help of Jeeves to order a Subway and a Salad . You chit chat with you colleagues in the neighboring work stations before your food order arrives. You grab a quick bite and rush for the next meeting at a client using the same aggregator Cab and Jeeves to help you off course. During the meeting you get an alert on your iPhone about the fight delay due to holiday congestion. You ask Jeeves to check out your Company Flight & Hotel  booking app to try and reschedule your flight for an alternate time. You get a better deal on a good time , you make the transaction for new booking and cancellation and also dictate a mail to your hotel at the destination regarding your rescheduled time so they can send a pick up accordingly. You wind up the meeting and head to the Airport sighing in relief of the day getting over and looking forward to a bright day next morning….

So what do you think this is a scene from a Hollywood Sci-Fi movie or Reality… Welcome to 2017 the digital age an age of integrated world…Voice activated Virtual assistant’s using Artificial Intelligence..

The Jeeves I was talking about is real , its SIRI s an intelligent personal assistant, part of Apple Inc.'s iOS , WatchOS macOS and tvOS operating systems. The assistant uses voice queries and a natural language user interface to attempt to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Internet services. The software adapts to users' individual language usages, searches, and preferences, with continuing use. Returned results are individualized.

Siri is a spin off from a project originally developed by the pin-SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center. Its speech recognition engine is provided by Nuance Communications, and Siri uses advanced machine learning technologies to function. Its original American, British, and Australian voice actors recorded their respective voices around 2005, unaware of the recordings' eventual usage in Siri. The voice assistant was released as an app for iOS in February 2010, and it was acquired by Apple two months later. Siri was then integrated into iPhone 4S at its release in October 2011. At that time, the separate app was also removed from the iOS App Store. Siri has become an integral part of Apple's products, having been adapted into other hardware devices over the years, including newer iPhone models, as well as iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, Airpods , Apple TV  and the upcoming   HomePod.

Siri supports a wide range of user commands, including performing phone actions, checking basic information, scheduling events and reminders, handling device settings, searching the Internet, navigating areas, finding information on entertainment, and is able to engage with iOS-integrated apps. With the release of iOS10 in 2016, Apple opened up limited third-party access to Siri, including third-party messaging apps, as well as payments, ride-sharing, and Internet calling apps. With the release of iOS 11, Apple has updated Siri's voices for more clear, human voices, supports follow-up questions and language translation, and additional third-party actions.

Siri's original release on iPhone 4S in 2011 received mixed reviews. It received praise for its voice recognition and contextual knowledge of user information, including calendar appointments, but was criticized for requiring stiff user commands and having a lack of flexibility. It was also criticized for lacking information on certain nearby places, and for its inability to understand certain English accents. In 2016 and 2017, a number of media reports have indicated that Siri is lacking in innovation, particularly against new competing voice assistants from other technology companies. The reports concerned Siri's limited set of features, "bad" voice recognition, and undeveloped service integrations as causing trouble for Apple in the field of artificial intelligence and cloud-based services; the basis for the complaints reportedly due to stifled development, as caused by Apple's prioritization of user privacy and executive power struggles within the company.

The other famous voice activated app is Alexa is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon, first used in the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Dot devices developed by Amazon Lab126. It is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, and other real-time information, such as news. Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system.

Most devices with Alexa allow users to activate the device using a wake-word (such as Echo); other devices (such as the Amazon app on iOS or Android) require the user to push a button to activate Alexa's listening mode.

In November 2014, Amazon announced Alexa alongside the Echo. Alexa was inspired by the computer voice and conversational system on board the Starship Enterprise in science fiction TV series and movies, beginning with Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The name Alexa was chosen due to the fact that it has a hard consonant with the X and therefore could be recognized with higher precision. The name is also claimed to be reminiscent of the Library of Alexandria, which is also used by Amazon Alexa Internet for the same reason.In June 2015, Amazon announced Alexa Fund, a program that would invest in companies making voice control skills and technologies. The US$100 million in funds has invested in companies including Ecobee, Orange Chef, Scout Alarm, Garageio, Toymail, MARA, and Mojio. In 2016 the Alexa Prize was announced to advance the technology.

In January 2017, the first Alexa Conference took place in Nashville, Tennessee, an independent gathering of the worldwide community of Alexa developers and enthusiasts. The follow-up has been announced, to be keynoted by original Amazon Alexa / Connected Home product head Ahmed Bouzid.

At the Amazon Web Services Re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Amazon announced Alexa for Business and the ability for app developers to have paid add-on's to their skills.

Alexa offers weather reports provided by AccuWeather and news provided by TuneIn from a variety of sources including local radio stations,NPR, and ESPN Additionally, Alexa-supported devices stream music from the owner's Amazon Music accounts and have built-in support for Pandora and Stotify accounts .Alexa can play music from streaming services such as Apple Music and Google Play Music from a phone or tablet. Alexa can manage voice-controlled alarms, timers, and shopping and to-do lists, and can access Wikipedia articles.Alexa devices will respond to questions about items in the user's Google Calendar. As of November 2016, the Alexa Appstore had over 5,000 functions ("skills") available for users to download,up from 1,000 functions in June 2016.As of a partnership with fellow technology company, Microsoft, Alexa will be available via its competing virtual personal assistant,Cortana. This functionality will come later in 2017.

But the best one is the Google Assistant…Google Assistant is a virtual personal assistant developed by Google and announced at its developer conference in May 2016. Unlike Google Now, the Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations.

Assistant initially debuted as part of Google's messaging app Allo , and its voice-activated speaker Google Home. After a period of exclusivity on the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, it began to be deployed on other Android devices in February 2017, including third-party smartphones and Android Wear, and was released as a standalone app on the iOS  operating system in May. Alongside the announcement of a software development kit in April 2017, the Assistant has been, and is being, further extended to support a large variety of devices, including cars and smart home appliances. The functionality of the Assistant can also be enhanced by third-party developers.

Users primarily interact with the Google Assistant through natural voice, though keyboard input is also supported. In the same nature and manner as Google Now, the Assistant is able to search the Internet, schedule events and alarms, adjust hardware settings on the user's device, and show information from the user's Google account. Google has also announced that the Assistant will be able to identify objects and gather visual information through the device's camera, and support purchasing products and sending money, as well as identifying songs.

The Google Assistant, in the nature and manner of Google Now, can search the Internet, schedule events and alarms, adjust hardware settings on the user's device, and show information from the user's Google account. Unlike Google Now, however, the Assistant can engage in a two-way conversation, using Google's natural language processing algorithm. Search results are presented in a card format that users can tap to open the page.In February 2017, Google announced that users of Google Home would be able to shop entirely by voice for products through its Google Express shopping service, with products available from Whole Foods Market, Costco, Walgreens, PetSmart, and Bed Bath & Beyond at launch, and other retailers added in the following months as new partnerships were formed. The Google Assistant can maintain a shopping list; this was previously done within the note taking service Google Keep, but the feature was moved to Google Express and the Google Home app in April 2017, resulting in a severe loss of functionality.

In May 2017, Google announced that the Assistant would support a keyboard for typed input and visual responses, support identifying objects and gather visual information through the device's camera, and support purchasing products and sending money. Through the use of the keyboard, users can see a history of queries made to the Google Assistant, and edit or delete previous inputs. The Assistant warns against deleting, however, due to its use of previous inputs to generate better answers in the future. In November 2017, it became possible to identify songs currently playing by asking the Assistant.

So next time you are in need of a personnel assistant think again call out to any of the Virtual Assistants already installed on your mobile . A little help from them can go a long way in easing your life. So sit back relax and enjoy a little Sci-Fi in your real life … Cheers to the future..