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Honda will show off its in-car AI assistant at CES
At CES 2020, Honda says it will finally show off its long-promised in-car personal assistant. The automaker has been working on its own digital helper since 2018 when it announced a partnership with SoundHound. Aside from the usual claims of "unprecedented" speed and accuracy, the company doesn't say too much about how the tool compares to AI like Google Assistant and Siri. It does note you'll be able to wake it by saying "OK Honda," and that it'll be able to infer context about a question based on your current location, as well as any previous queries.
Dear Veronica: Virtual assistants for human people
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-587518{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-587518, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-587518{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-587518").style.display="none";}catch(e){} I like to pretend that I'm important enough to warrant a personal assistant, but the fact of the matter is that I'm just bad with procrastinating. However, there are some of you out there that could really benefit from a little extra help managing your appointments and emails, and so today we take a look at virtual assistants -- people who may not necessarily live near you, but can help clear some of the noise from your life. Maneesh Sethi, creator of Hacking The System and bad habit-breaking gadget Pavlok, joins me to give us some personal assistant best practices! Also, I cover some of the best (and funniest) things to name your WiFi network. Keep those questions rolling in to me via Twitter by using the hashtag #DearVeronica. See you next week! Subscribe in iTunes, RSS or YouTube!
Cortana's now predicting the outcome of Premier League matches
Microsoft's Cortana has already proven itself to be quite the oracle. Last summer, the Windows Phone assistant accurately predicted almost all of the World Cup's knockout matches, and since then it's started guessing NFL games too. Of course, now that the Super Bowl's all wrapped up, you might have thought Cortana was ready to take a quick break. Well, think again. For its next trick, the Halo-inspired tool is tackling the UK's Premier League. Using Bing-analysed historical match data, Cortana will now happily predict the victor for any upcoming fixture. It's just a bit of fun, although based on its stellar track record, Microsoft's assistant could prove useful when deciding your next football bets.
Yahoo's latest acquisition points to a Google Now rival
Yahoo's latest acquisition is Incredible Labs, the company behind personal-assistant iOS app Donna. Most of the seven-member Incredible Labs team will stay on with Yahoo, though the iOS app will no longer be available for download. Donna, for those who aren't familiar, has been providing traffic updates, weather information and other tips to help you through your daily schedule à la Google Now. Yahoo will likely use Incredible Labs' technology to create a similar app of its own -- we can definitely see it pulling in data from Yahoo's much-loved weather service, for instance.
Donna for iOS is a brainy personal assistant
Donna entered the App Store in the spring of last year. Since then, the app that lets you manage your day has added many new features, fixed a few bugs along the way and done a nice re-design for iOS 7. It's also now free. Donna can tell you when to leave for a meeting, can dial into conference calls, give you the weather outlook for upcoming appointments and let people know if you are running late. It knows when you are on the way without having to input that information, and it provides daily summaries and summaries in the evening for your activities the next day. With all that power, Donna is easy to operate. You do need to sign up for a free account. Favorite locations can be saved, and it syncs with your calendars including Exchange, Google, Apple's iCal and Yahoo. The app can provide driving or transit and walking directions, and using Google Street View, it will show you your destination. I set the app up, and it scanned my calendar and showed me what's coming up. Some of my appointments didn't have addresses, so I added those and saved them as favorites. The company has fully stated its privacy policy, and they pledge to keep your personal information personal and private. The Donna servers do store quite a bit of information about you, because that's what makes the app useful. Of course, this information could be retrieved with a court order, like a lot of other information that comes from your phone, so heads-up. Donna is very useful. It's intuitive to use and can really help you keep track of a busy day. The app settings are granular, so you can decide what notifications you get or don't get, and how much of your location information is shared. The features are similar to Google Now on Android. Some of those functions were incorporated into the Google Search app on iOS, but Donna has more extensive personal assistant functions. Having tested the app, I'll keep using it because it puts a lot of functions in one place. If you are looking for a smart digital personal assistant that goes a bit beyond what Siri can do, (but without voice interaction), give Donna a try. The app requires iOS 7, and it's optimized for the iPhone 5.
Google's Alfred to shut down on July 19
Venture Beat reports that Google will quietly retire Alfred on July 19th. Alfred was billed as a personal assistant, similar to Siri, according to Forbes. In 2011 Google acquired Clever Sense, Alfred's developer, but it seems they let him languish. Alfred isn't the first company purchase on which Google has stopped development, but instead of announcing Alred's demise on the Google blog, a notice was inserted into the Alfred app. You can still download Alfred on the iTunes store, but he hasn't been updated since May, 2012 and after yesterday, July 12th, he will be guiding you no longer. [via VentureBeat and TechCrunch]
New iOS app Winston is your Siri personal assistant for news
Winston is a new and ambitious product from Colorado-based startup, Reactor Labs. It's a take on the Siri personal assistant idea that focuses on news instead of sending messages. At the heart of the app is Winston, a personable British butler that compiles a daily brief from your selected news sources and social network feeds. When you launch Winston for the first time, you are prompted to connect to Twitter and Facebook as well as setup channels for your news. The app includes a handful of news sources that cover technology, headline news, sports, fashion and more. Once you have configured your channels, you are ready for your first briefing. Each briefing compiles content from your various channels and presents them in a slideshow that you can watch on your iPhone or stream to your Apple TV via AirPlay. The AirPlay option is perfect for visual news feeds like fashion and sports. You can watch the slideshow of images as Winston reads the news to you in his choppy, but charming British accent. You can swipe to jump forward or scroll back through the briefing. If you don't want all your news, you can also select an individual channel for your brief. Winston, though, isn't just a long-winded regurgitation of your news feed. The personal assistant has some intelligence and gives you a brief synopsis of your news and status updates. Winston pulls out the important information and discards most of the fluff. I used Winston primarily to prepare briefs for me when I was driving. It was wonderful to be able to launch Winston after a day of skiing and get a quick update of what I missed while I was on the slopes. An offline caching feature made sure I received my entire news brief while driving my rural route home. Winston launched publicly today and it's still a bit rough around the edges. There's only one voice option (British Male), and the news sources are limited to what's available in the app. Winston also sometimes struggles with status updates when it tries to summarize and misinterprets the person's post. Nonetheless, I'm impressed by what I have seen in my time with Winston, and I look forward to the improvements the developers have planned for the future. If you enjoy following up-and-coming technology, then you should definitely add Winston to your must-watch list. You can download Winston for free from the iOS App Store and watch the promo video below. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.
Intelligent personal assistant Cue adds support for iPhone calendars, iOS 6
One thing that stands out in our modern digital age is the sheer volume of information that we must process. There is so much information coming at us from our calendars, emails and social feeds that it seems like we have information everywhere -- and never where we want it to be. This information overload is one reason why Cue piqued my interest when it recently launched the latest version of its iPhone app. Cue is a startup that lets you organize information across many of your online accounts. Originally launched as Greplin, it started off as a way to search through your personal information, but the company realized early on that it could do more than just regurgitate your calendar entries. Now the service indexes all your incoming information, parses it for important snippets and intelligently ties it together. When you look at a meeting on your calendar in Cue, you can see the contact information for the people attending the meeting, any associated emails about the meeting and the necessary contact information from your address book. The latest version of the Cue app lets you view all the events from your iPhone calendar and gives you additional control over which calendars show up on your Cue. As someone who uses multiple calendars, this is a welcome improvement. Cue has also been updated to support all versions of iOS, including the upcoming iOS 6. The Cue: Know What's Next app is free and syncs information from several online services including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, iPhone Calendars, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, iCloud Mail, Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Premium account holders who pay $50 a year or $5 monthly for the service can also add in their Evernote, Salesforce, Yammer, Basecamp, Reddit, Pinboard, Delicious, Tumblr and Google Reader accounts. That is a lot of information indexed in one place and available at your finger tips. If you enjoy being on the cutting edge of technology, then you should check out Cue. I talked with founder Daniel Gross and he said the company has big plans to expand its scope beyond contacts, calendars and files. The company has been building the infrastructure to process a large amount of incoming data and now it is signing third-party agreements that will let you track other information like order statuses and travel reservations from within the iPhone and web app. Backed by Sequoia Capital and other angel investors, Cue has a shot at making a dent in the fledgling personal assistant market. With services like Cue, Siri and Google Now, this is going to be an area of explosive growth in coming years.
Siri lends a hand via your Bluetooth-enabled car stereo, reminds you to buy milk (video)
Sure, we've seen Siri used to do a host of things, including controlling the temperature in a hacker's home. But the folks over at Autoblog were curious to know just how well the virtual assistant would work with Bluetooth-enabled car stereos. Once your iPhone 4S is properly tethered, holding down the handset's home button will activate Siri. Treating her as an incoming call, your Notorious B.I.G. playlist will pause before the ready-for-command chime sounds. The in-car assistant was tested on two Mercedes-Benz automobiles, a Chrysler 300, a Dodge Charger and a Nissan Maxima, with the Maxima showcasing the best results. It comes as no surprise that mic placement on each stereo and in-cabin background noise provided a noticeable difference in Siri's listening abilities during the test. For a glimpse of the action before trying it out yourself, hit the video just past the break.
Developer creates proxy server for Siri, controls thermostat with his voice (video)
Now that Siri's protocol has been freshly dissected and laid bare for the world to behold, hackers have been busy finding ways to move Apple's personal assistant beyond the realm of the iPhone 4S. That task may be getting easier, however, now that a developer has created his very own third-party proxy server, designed specifically for Siri. The dev, known by his Twitter handle @plamoni, demonstrated his brainchild in a recent video clip, using a plug-in to control a WiFi thermostat with only voice commands. As @plamoni explains, the hack won't require users to jailbreak their iPhone 4S, but it won't let them port Siri over to earlier iPhones or iPod Touch models, either -- not yet, at least. The idea, according to the developer, is to make it easier for other hackers to experiment with and build upon Siri's functionality. Head past the break to see the demo video for yourself, or if you're up for it, grab the source code and instructions on how to create your own server, at the source link below. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Switched On: As Siri gets serious
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Nearly 15 years passed between Apple's first foray into handheld electronics -- the Newton MessagePad -- and the far more successful iPhone. But while phones have replaced PDAs for all intents and purposes, few if any have tried to be what Newton really aspired to -- an intelligent assistant that would seamlessly blend into your life. That has changed with Siri, the standout feature of iOS 5 on the iPhone 4S, which could aptly be described as a "personal digital assistant" if there weren't so much baggage tied to that term. Siri is far more than parlor entertainment or a simple leapfrogging the voice control support in Android and Windows Phone. At the other end of the potential spectrum, Siri may not be a new platform in itself (although at this point Apple has somewhat sandboxed the experience). In any case, though, Siri certainly paves the way for voice as an important component for a rich multi-input digital experience. It steps toward the life-management set of functionality that the bow-tied agent immortalized in Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator video could achieve.
Voice Brief for iPhone is updated with some welcome new features
I first reviewed Voice Brief in March. The app uses a synthesized voice to read your email, Twitter feed, Facebook, the current weather, stock prices you follow and some RSS feeds that you choose. I liked the app and said it had great potential but needed some updated features. Today it has some of those new features, and they are worthwhile improvements.The new version integrates with your alarm clock, so it can wake you up to the latest news and weather. It supports Google Reader and improves linking with RSS feeds. It now allows integration with multiple calendars and allows a musical selection to function as a bridge between topics. There are also some bug fixes that should make the app more stable, although I didn't find any issues with the original version. Voice Brief is not a small app. It weighs in at 271 MB because all the voice files are on your iPhone. The next update will add a fresh GUI and improved mail account support. The current version only supports Apple's built-in mail and Gmail. I always thought Voice Brief would be great if it was combined with the Siri app, which has powerful search and speech recognition, but it doesn't talk. Apple has bought Siri, and it's likely to be part of the iPhone OS at some point in the future, so I expect lots of upgrades. Voice Brief is US$3.99 in the App Store, and you can see a video of the app in action here.
Robovie R3 all set to assist, freak out elderly and handicapped shoppers this November (video)
The Robovie R3 is the latest in a distinguished line of humanoid bots developed for the purposes of research, discovery, and (a tiny bit of) geeky fun. Following its predecessor's footsteps -- the R2 secured employment as a guide to lost shoppers -- the R3 will be making its mall debut in November of this year, where it'll assist people by carrying their shopping, providing information about nearby products, and holding their hand as it guides them through the crowds. Intended as a way to get elderly and handicapped people back out into the community, this is part of a viability study for the robot's usefulness, and if it finds success maybe its anime eyes and dalek form factor will find their way outside Japan as well. Video of the R3 after the break.
Robosoft Kompai takes care of your elderly so you don't have to (video)
This one has been quite a long time in coming, but Robosoft's service drone has finally made it off the drawing board, collected a catchy name, and headed off to the big world to seek its fortune as an R&D platform. Kompai is a personal assistance bot built around speech -- it understands basic instructions and requests and offers appropriate responses with its own monotonic style. It'll serve as a note and shopping list recorder, a calendar, a music player, or a video conferencing tool for when old grandpappy needs to call his doctor. If you think having a programmable hunk of mobile metal that's permanently connected to the net in your house is a good idea, look out for OEMs picking up the design during the Intercompany Long Term Care Insurance Conference taking place next week. And if you just wanna see a bug-eyed bot talk to an old dude, click past the break for the video. [Thanks, Erico]
Siri for iPhone is like the proverbial Genie in a bottle
We're getting closer and closer to some of the stuff we see it science fiction literature and films. Siri [iTunes link] is a small Silicon Valley startup with a really breakthrough product that for now only works on the iPhone. Here's the deal. You download the free app, start it up, and tell it what you want. It could be "Will it snow in Des Moines today?" or "Where can I find the nearest burger" or it could be "Find the nearest parks". It parses your comments, runs out to the web for a few seconds and comes back with a lot of suggestions. It gives you buttons to call the places you've found, or to show them on Google Maps and get you directions. I tried to get a bit fancier saying "Make me a reservation for 2 at the nearest Olive Garden tonight at 7." The app figured out Olive Garden didn't take reservations through their service, but it provided me a number for the nearest Olive Garden and offered to map it.
MIT's Affective Intelligent Driving Agent is KITT and Clippy's lovechild (video)
If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times, stop trying to make robots into "friendly companions!" MIT must have some hubris stuck in its ears, as its labs are back at it with what looks like Clippy gone 3D, with an extra dash of Knight Rider-inspired personality. What we're talking about here is a dashboard-mounted AI system that collects environmental data, such as local events, traffic and gas stations, and combines it with a careful analysis of your driving habits and style to make helpful suggestions and note points of interest. By careful analysis we mean it snoops on your every move, and by helpful suggestions we mean it probably nags you to death (its own death). Then again, the thing's been designed to communicate with those big Audi eyes, making even our hardened hearts warm just a little. Video after the break. %Gallery-76874%
White Box Robotics' 914 PC-BOT on the loose
It's been a long seven years for the folks at White Box Robotics, but it appears that the company is all but ready to start pushing a limited production lineup of 914 PC-BOTs out the door. While a past interview with White Box's CEO showed (false) promise of seeing shipments in 2005, an official pre-order page typically means business. Those anxious to get their hands on a maid that won't demand a raise once or twice annually will be forced to pay substantially more than the company's target price (which seems to vary from time to time), but will receive a 55-pound motorized personal assistant reminiscent of R2D2 that comes prepped and ready to learn. The 21-inch tall 'bot sports a differential drive train with independent front suspension, two DC "stepper" motors, dual M2-ATX PSUs with automatic battery monitoring and auto-shutoff, head-mounted webcam, eight integrated IR sensors, an IO board rocking a myriad of control inputs, a VIA motherboard, 1GB of RAM, 40GB 2.5-inch SATA drive, DVD burner, WiFi, Windows XP Home, and most importantly, PC-BOT software (code name "Brian") to get those wheels moving in the right direction. The company boldly claims its robotic companion can do "anything you want it to do" -- so long as you can program it -- and should begin shipping "anytime" for around $5,000 (or $5,599.99 for the mounties in Canada).[Via GoRobotics]
