7 ms·

Google is close to releasing Siri rival called Majel

61 points by kurtvarner 15y ago

kurtvarner 15y ago
"In other words, don’t expect the Android equivalent to have any of Siri’s cheekiness." Google, don't be boring.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  Let's see if they even call it Majel.
Shivetya 15y ago
Majel's voice would be awesome... there is a crapton of good voices to choose from and some can be recreated. We have HAL and SAL. My personal favorite used to be the lady who did the voice overs for Mechwarrior 2. Still I am not sure I want to live in a world of devices blurting out everything I ask about or others. I already tire of people who use their phones walkie talkie style.
hahainternet 15y ago
I would rather Google didn't work on this. If anything they need to a) Improve the default TTS voice so it does not sound as jarring b) Include intent based inter-operation with apps Ideally Google will provide only the services they do already, with mapping and searching, but will allow people to easily hook in and provide the rest. I also tend to think that voice activation is mostly a gimmick outside of being in the car, and Vlingo already works excellently with a 'Hey Vlingo' realtime trigger.
- vidarh 15y ago
  Vlingo doesn't understand a single word I've tried saying to it (I have a Scandinavian accent), so while I don't really see myself using this stuff much, Vlingo is a non-starter unless it's recognition gets vastly better. I wonder how large a part of the potential user base it has problems handling.
  - michaelcampbell 15y ago
    Out of curiosity have you tried Siri, and if so does it do any better? I've often wondered how well it worked on non-Midwestern-UnitedStates accents.
- tensor 15y ago
  If you want better TTS, the SVOX voices are superb and very inexpensive.
drats 15y ago
I fairly certain Google can leapfrog Apple here, it's a machine learning company with big data built into its DNA vs. a computer company with Siri grafted on. Google simply has more training data and more expertise to build this on top of their already impressive voice recognition (which like their translation facilities just smoothly gets better and better). I am also certain people will scream that Apple "invented" this despite the decades of public and private research on the problem and the fact that IBM's Watson (far more impressive than Siri) was released and won Jeopardy before Siri was even launched.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- paul9290 15y ago
  They didn't invent the tech but as they did with the iPhone they nailed the user experience and used their unique marketing prowess to sell it to the masses. This Majel is Google copying Apple's user experience & marketing. But, again not the tech as it's been around for a long time. Though prior to Apple the tech wasn't sexy or exciting to the masses (how many talked about this tech prior to Siri?).
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  "it's a machine learning company with big data built into its DNA" Is that really an overwhelming advantage? On the one hand, "data" definitely helped Google build solid speech recognition, on the other, Google has shown us time and time again that big data isn't an advantage in creating graphical user interfaces. My sense is that the problems in an AI interface involve just as much design and interface expertise as they do data expertise.
  - felipehummel 15y ago
    Siri has pretty much no interface. The AI/data part of the problem is much, much harder.
    - notjoeflynn 15y ago
sambeau 15y ago
"It’s wise of Google to quickly develop its own Siri rival" I totally disagree. The worst thing Google could do is quickly develop a copy-cat. Google should slowly and carefully evaluate whether they need a Siri rival and then create something that their customers will use that enhances their core services.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  To be fair it's not like Google has never done anything with voice before and saw this Siri thing and panicked and rushed to put out an equivalent. Google has been working to improve voice recognition for years, and Android already has significant voice features built-in (speech-to-text text input, Voice Dialer, Voice Search). Google has been exploring this field for a long time. It's not crazy to package things in a way that's comparable to your competitors.
  - Torn 15y ago
    Don't forget google is sitting on probably the world's largest repository of video it can datamine and train speech on.
    - jgw 15y ago
      That raises an interesting question. Does voice recognition need to be tailored to the type of lossy encoding used? Since perceptual encoders are designed to capture what the human ear thinks it hears, rather than what the sound wave actually looks like, does an algorithm trained on one perceptual encoder apply well to material encoded with another?
marshallp 15y ago
The article gets it all wrong. The technology siri is based on was only a project for a few years and ended in 2005, basically because it was a failure and already far behind search engines at the time. The majel thing is likely far more than siri, rumors are that it gives 93% accuracy on the turing test, and includes emotion and object detection technology.
- gjm11 15y ago
  What on earth is "93% accuracy on the turing test" meant to mean? Do you know what the Turing test actually is?
  - marshallp 15y ago
    What are you talking about? You can look up the turing test on wikipedia. I'm talking about the reddit leak by a former google x lab member. See this page for more. http://www.artificialbrains.com/google-x-lab http://www.artificialbrains.com/google-x-lab
wslh 15y ago
I would love to finally see voice web browsing. The TTS and VR quality is the main issue. I've written an HN voice navigation and article reading but the .NET TTS is far from good.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  Google's "Phonetic Arts" TTS engine sounds a lot better don't you think? It seems pretty natural to me. Go ahead and try a Google Translate from English to Spanish, or the other way around.
  - wslh 15y ago
    It's better but not Siri.
VonLipwig 15y ago
> Apple: Takes risk, makes iPhone > Google: I want some of that. Android Go! > Apple: Takes risk, launches iPad > Google: I want some of that. Android is tablet optimised > Apple: Lets innovate here and add Siri > Google: Voice? To control a phone? Lets do that! It probably isn't like this at all but this is how it comes across. It seems that when Apple innovates, Google copies. Bringing out your own version of insert item here is fine but it would be nice if Google didn't come across as plainly copying someone else. Apple has Siri, 3 month's later: "Introducing Siri for Android! I mean Majel!" Would be nice if the next version of Android has its own killer feature people could shout about instead of waiting for someone else to invent it first.
- mayanksinghal 15y ago
  As is pointed out in another comment here, Google has been working on Voice recognition for a long time now and had voice commands prior to Siri. It was not conversational like Siri, that was mentioned int the article as well - but to have a conversational AI is not something new either (there are probably hundreds of these). Secondly, voice recognition and conversational AI is not a new product that was invented by Apple. You seem to overestimate the importance of Siri in terms of the originality it brings. It indeed seems awesome to have and interact with, I have not done that yet. I have an Android, and I am not even waiting for something similar because I find it unnecessary to have one and it might be intrusive to use in presence of others. So probably for the few who are like me, it is not a killer feature - not even close.
  - VonLipwig 15y ago
    I was aware that Apple didn't invent Siri. They brought the company which made it then tidied it up. The point still is that Apple recognised its use in one of their products, they took the punt and made it happen. I am also an Android user. This feature isn't something I need. Like I said in my original post, it probably isn't how it seems. The fact remains though that Apple saw an opportunity with voice commands on its mobile platform. Google may have been working on voice technology before hand but was it for Android? Google is doing great on other things. Chrome, Chromebooks (maybe released a few years too early but they took a risk on it) and driverless cars. With Android, I have yet to see it really innovate by itself. I should say that I do not follow Android development. I am just an Android user who casually looks at an iPhone from time to time to compare the two.
easyfrag 15y ago
Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Google's main income comes from advertising. Let's assume Majel equals or surpasses Siri, this would be a clear benefit to users. But how does this benefit Google? Siri can answer questions (using partners) without using a search engine, yes it's a limited use right now but surely that functionality will grow. The million dollar question is how does Google make money with Majel?
- schrieaj 15y ago
  Siri is hot right now, capitalizing on that buzz will allow more phones to go out the door which will give Google more information to target ads with.
- rudiger 15y ago
  I'm sure Google can come up with interesting ways to advertise through Majel. They'll probably use the unique voice data to profile users and target ads even more effectively.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
redcap 15y ago
For those who aren't aware, and it wasn't stated clearly in the article, Majel is for Majel Barret-Roddenberry, who among other Star Trek roles was the voice of the computer throughout the series [1] That's what the article means by the Star Trek link. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett
- makmanalp 15y ago
  Cool reason but bad branding. How do I pronounce it? Mah-gel? May-jill? Then again, I guess they succeeded in making "Google" a household name ...
  - freehunter 15y ago
    I hate trying to enunciate Google over a cell phone. I hate it with a passion. But Siri isn't much better. "Sir-ei"? "Seer-e"? "Sir-eh"?
Havoc 15y ago
I thought Google was terrified of this because its no good for injecting ads?
swalsh 15y ago
This is very exciting. Apple may have gotten to the market first, but Google has proven themselves to be an AI company at the core. They have have a pretty good head start on some more complex intelligent tasks (Image search for example via google goggles). It's not hard to see them surpassing Siri in quality. Additionally combining that with an open source platform such as android, the possibilities for what this could do really open up excite me. Google TV could be voice controlled "Can you record chuck tonight?". You can be standing in the kitchen talking to your house computer "what was the next step in this recipe?". The real power is you're not constrained to just your phone or tablet.
falling 15y ago
I'm sure Google will have something different than just a Siri clone, since apparently they thought it is a bad idea http://gigaom.com/apple/googles-andy-rubin-doesnt-think-siri-makes-a-good-friend/ http://gigaom.com/apple/googles-andy-rubin-doesnt-think-siri...
funkah 15y ago
22 Siri "clones" come out every week. Consider me underwhelmed.
- spydertennis 15y ago
  examples?

61 points by kurtvarner 15y ago

kurtvarner 15y ago

"In other words, don’t expect the Android equivalent to have any of Siri’s cheekiness." Google, don't be boring.

waterlesscloud 15y ago
Let's see if they even call it Majel.

Shivetya 15y ago

Majel's voice would be awesome... there is a crapton of good voices to choose from and some can be recreated. We have HAL and SAL. My personal favorite used to be the lady who did the voice overs for Mechwarrior 2. Still I am not sure I want to live in a world of devices blurting out everything I ask about or others. I already tire of people who use their phones walkie talkie style.

hahainternet 15y ago

I would rather Google didn't work on this. If anything they need to a) Improve the default TTS voice so it does not sound as jarring b) Include intent based inter-operation with apps Ideally Google will provide only the services they do already, with mapping and searching, but will allow people to easily hook in and provide the rest. I also tend to think that voice activation is mostly a gimmick outside of being in the car, and Vlingo already works excellently with a 'Hey Vlingo' realtime trigger.

vidarh 15y ago
Vlingo doesn't understand a single word I've tried saying to it (I have a Scandinavian accent), so while I don't really see myself using this stuff much, Vlingo is a non-starter unless it's recognition gets vastly better. I wonder how large a part of the potential user base it has problems handling.
- michaelcampbell 15y ago
  Out of curiosity have you tried Siri, and if so does it do any better? I've often wondered how well it worked on non-Midwestern-UnitedStates accents.
tensor 15y ago
If you want better TTS, the SVOX voices are superb and very inexpensive.

drats 15y ago

I fairly certain Google can leapfrog Apple here, it's a machine learning company with big data built into its DNA vs. a computer company with Siri grafted on. Google simply has more training data and more expertise to build this on top of their already impressive voice recognition (which like their translation facilities just smoothly gets better and better). I am also certain people will scream that Apple "invented" this despite the decades of public and private research on the problem and the fact that IBM's Watson (far more impressive than Siri) was released and won Jeopardy before Siri was even launched.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
paul9290 15y ago
They didn't invent the tech but as they did with the iPhone they nailed the user experience and used their unique marketing prowess to sell it to the masses. This Majel is Google copying Apple's user experience & marketing. But, again not the tech as it's been around for a long time. Though prior to Apple the tech wasn't sexy or exciting to the masses (how many talked about this tech prior to Siri?).
saturdaysaint 15y ago
"it's a machine learning company with big data built into its DNA" Is that really an overwhelming advantage? On the one hand, "data" definitely helped Google build solid speech recognition, on the other, Google has shown us time and time again that big data isn't an advantage in creating graphical user interfaces. My sense is that the problems in an AI interface involve just as much design and interface expertise as they do data expertise.
- felipehummel 15y ago
  Siri has pretty much no interface. The AI/data part of the problem is much, much harder.
  - notjoeflynn 15y ago

sambeau 15y ago

"It’s wise of Google to quickly develop its own Siri rival" I totally disagree. The worst thing Google could do is quickly develop a copy-cat. Google should slowly and carefully evaluate whether they need a Siri rival and then create something that their customers will use that enhances their core services.

cookiecaper 15y ago
To be fair it's not like Google has never done anything with voice before and saw this Siri thing and panicked and rushed to put out an equivalent. Google has been working to improve voice recognition for years, and Android already has significant voice features built-in (speech-to-text text input, Voice Dialer, Voice Search). Google has been exploring this field for a long time. It's not crazy to package things in a way that's comparable to your competitors.
- Torn 15y ago
  Don't forget google is sitting on probably the world's largest repository of video it can datamine and train speech on.
  - jgw 15y ago
    That raises an interesting question. Does voice recognition need to be tailored to the type of lossy encoding used? Since perceptual encoders are designed to capture what the human ear thinks it hears, rather than what the sound wave actually looks like, does an algorithm trained on one perceptual encoder apply well to material encoded with another?

marshallp 15y ago

The article gets it all wrong. The technology siri is based on was only a project for a few years and ended in 2005, basically because it was a failure and already far behind search engines at the time. The majel thing is likely far more than siri, rumors are that it gives 93% accuracy on the turing test, and includes emotion and object detection technology.

gjm11 15y ago
What on earth is "93% accuracy on the turing test" meant to mean? Do you know what the Turing test actually is?
- marshallp 15y ago
  What are you talking about? You can look up the turing test on wikipedia. I'm talking about the reddit leak by a former google x lab member. See this page for more. http://www.artificialbrains.com/google-x-lab http://www.artificialbrains.com/google-x-lab

wslh 15y ago

I would love to finally see voice web browsing. The TTS and VR quality is the main issue. I've written an HN voice navigation and article reading but the .NET TTS is far from good.

nextparadigms 15y ago
Google's "Phonetic Arts" TTS engine sounds a lot better don't you think? It seems pretty natural to me. Go ahead and try a Google Translate from English to Spanish, or the other way around.
- wslh 15y ago
  It's better but not Siri.

VonLipwig 15y ago

> Apple: Takes risk, makes iPhone > Google: I want some of that. Android Go! > Apple: Takes risk, launches iPad > Google: I want some of that. Android is tablet optimised > Apple: Lets innovate here and add Siri > Google: Voice? To control a phone? Lets do that! It probably isn't like this at all but this is how it comes across. It seems that when Apple innovates, Google copies. Bringing out your own version of insert item here is fine but it would be nice if Google didn't come across as plainly copying someone else. Apple has Siri, 3 month's later: "Introducing Siri for Android! I mean Majel!" Would be nice if the next version of Android has its own killer feature people could shout about instead of waiting for someone else to invent it first.

mayanksinghal 15y ago
As is pointed out in another comment here, Google has been working on Voice recognition for a long time now and had voice commands prior to Siri. It was not conversational like Siri, that was mentioned int the article as well - but to have a conversational AI is not something new either (there are probably hundreds of these). Secondly, voice recognition and conversational AI is not a new product that was invented by Apple. You seem to overestimate the importance of Siri in terms of the originality it brings. It indeed seems awesome to have and interact with, I have not done that yet. I have an Android, and I am not even waiting for something similar because I find it unnecessary to have one and it might be intrusive to use in presence of others. So probably for the few who are like me, it is not a killer feature - not even close.
- VonLipwig 15y ago
  I was aware that Apple didn't invent Siri. They brought the company which made it then tidied it up. The point still is that Apple recognised its use in one of their products, they took the punt and made it happen. I am also an Android user. This feature isn't something I need. Like I said in my original post, it probably isn't how it seems. The fact remains though that Apple saw an opportunity with voice commands on its mobile platform. Google may have been working on voice technology before hand but was it for Android? Google is doing great on other things. Chrome, Chromebooks (maybe released a few years too early but they took a risk on it) and driverless cars. With Android, I have yet to see it really innovate by itself. I should say that I do not follow Android development. I am just an Android user who casually looks at an iPhone from time to time to compare the two.

easyfrag 15y ago

Apple makes most of its money by selling hardware, Google's main income comes from advertising. Let's assume Majel equals or surpasses Siri, this would be a clear benefit to users. But how does this benefit Google? Siri can answer questions (using partners) without using a search engine, yes it's a limited use right now but surely that functionality will grow. The million dollar question is how does Google make money with Majel?

schrieaj 15y ago
Siri is hot right now, capitalizing on that buzz will allow more phones to go out the door which will give Google more information to target ads with.
rudiger 15y ago
I'm sure Google can come up with interesting ways to advertise through Majel. They'll probably use the unique voice data to profile users and target ads even more effectively.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

redcap 15y ago

For those who aren't aware, and it wasn't stated clearly in the article, Majel is for Majel Barret-Roddenberry, who among other Star Trek roles was the voice of the computer throughout the series [1] That's what the article means by the Star Trek link. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett

makmanalp 15y ago
Cool reason but bad branding. How do I pronounce it? Mah-gel? May-jill? Then again, I guess they succeeded in making "Google" a household name ...
- freehunter 15y ago
  I hate trying to enunciate Google over a cell phone. I hate it with a passion. But Siri isn't much better. "Sir-ei"? "Seer-e"? "Sir-eh"?

Havoc 15y ago

I thought Google was terrified of this because its no good for injecting ads?

swalsh 15y ago

This is very exciting. Apple may have gotten to the market first, but Google has proven themselves to be an AI company at the core. They have have a pretty good head start on some more complex intelligent tasks (Image search for example via google goggles). It's not hard to see them surpassing Siri in quality. Additionally combining that with an open source platform such as android, the possibilities for what this could do really open up excite me. Google TV could be voice controlled "Can you record chuck tonight?". You can be standing in the kitchen talking to your house computer "what was the next step in this recipe?". The real power is you're not constrained to just your phone or tablet.

falling 15y ago

I'm sure Google will have something different than just a Siri clone, since apparently they thought it is a bad idea http://gigaom.com/apple/googles-andy-rubin-doesnt-think-siri-makes-a-good-friend/ http://gigaom.com/apple/googles-andy-rubin-doesnt-think-siri...

funkah 15y ago

22 Siri "clones" come out every week. Consider me underwhelmed.

spydertennis 15y ago
examples?