On today’s Pocketnow Daily, we talk about the next Google Pixel event, the latest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 teaser, and more.
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Siri could lose some third-party functionality with iOS 15
It seems that upgrading to iOS 15 may not be such a great idea if you like to use Siri commands with third-party apps
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Siri the leakster: Apple event on Tuesday, April 20
An Apple event has been rumored to take place since the end of February, but no official word has yet surfaced on the matter, neither in the form of an announcement nor invites to the said (virtual) event.
Apparently, we do have a date, and it’s thanks to Siri. Mark your calendars, if Siri is to be believed, for Tuesday, April 20, 2021. In reply to the question “When is the next Apple Event”, Siri responds with “The special event is on Tuesday, April 20, at Apple Park in Cupertino, CA. You can get all the details on Apple.com”, as seen in the screenshot above.
New iPad Pro models as well as the rumored AirTags are expected to take the virtual stage.
Apple usually sends out official invites about a week prior to the event, which happens to be today. We’ll have to wait and see if Apple confirms the Siri leak, which, in and of itself is funny, if you think about it.
Source: MacRumors
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Apple is still committed to developing Siri as it adds two new voices
While Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa have moved forward, Siri hasn’t been developed much in the past few years. However, Apple is still committed to its voice assistant. The company is adding two new voices to Siri’s English offerings. It is also eliminating the default “female voice” selection. Both of these developments are now available in the latest beta version of iOS.
Apple will now allow people setting up their phone to choose a voice for Siri for themselves, and it will no longer default to the voice assistant being female. It seems like Siri is the first mainstream voice assistant to make the choice completely agnostic with no default selection made. This is a positive step forward as it will not allow default bias. These new voices are available to English-speaking users around the world, and the users can select a personal preference of voice in 16 languages.
Coming to the two new voices, these offer more diversity in speech sound and pattern to a user picking a voice that speaks to them. These voices use source talent recordings, which are run through Apple’s Neural text to speech engine. It makes the voices flow more organically through phrases.
“We’re excited to introduce two new Siri voices for English speakers and the option for Siri users to select the voice they want when they set up their device,” said Apple in a statement. “This is a continuation of Apple’s long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion and products and services that are designed to better reflect the diversity of the world we live in.”
The latest beta also upgrades Siri voices in Russia, Ireland, and Italy to Neural TTS. This brings the total voices using the new tech to 38. It is said that Siri handles 25 billion requests per month on over 500 million devices. The assistant supports 21 languages in 36 countries.
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Apple Maps will now help you find COVID-19 vaccination sites
A few weeks ago, Google announced that users will soon be able to locate vaccination sites on Google Maps, starting with the Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas region. Now, Apple has announced a similar convenience for its own mapping and navigation service – Apple Maps. Users can now directly ask Siri, or search for vaccination sites within Apple Maps. To bring the feature to life, Apple has partnered with Vaccine Finder, a free service that helps people – who are eligible for a jab – check vaccine availability at a pharmacy or health facility.
Users can find nearby COVID-19 vaccination locations from the Search bar in Apple Maps by selecting COVID-19 Vaccines in the Find Nearby menu or by asking Siri, “Where can I get a COVID vaccination?”
In addition to finding vaccination spots, users will be able to see other important information such as operating hours, address, contact details, and a link to the official website of the vaccination service provider. All the aforementioned details will be readily accessible from the Apple Maps placecard for each vaccination site.
Operating hours, address, contact details, and a link to official websites can also be found
The company says that in the initial phase of rollout, Apple Maps will cover over 20,000 vaccination sites, with plans to add more in the weeks to come. While Apple is relying on Vaccine Finder’s database to show locations where you can access the COVID-19 vaccine, the company is allowing healthcare service providers, labs, and concerned businesses to submit information about vaccination sites as well as testing spots using the Apple Business Register page. And after due verification, they will be added to Apple Maps as well.
Apple Maps already shows COVID-19 testing locations in countries across multiple continents, details such as working hours for businesses, places that allow takeout facility, and more. Plus, users can also listen to the latest information and news about the ongoing pandemic from reliable sources in the form of short podcasts called Siri Audio briefs.
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Smart Speakers could bring contactless health monitoring by detecting abnormal heart rhythms
According to a new research done by University of Washington, ordinary smart speakers could be used as a contactless way to screen for irregular heartbeats. The researchers came up with an AI-powered system. It relies on sonar technology to pick up vibrations caused by nearby chest wall movements. It it ever comes to existence, it has the potential to change how doctors conduct telemedicine appointments by providing data that would otherwise require wearables, health hardware or an in-person checkup.
“We have Google and Alexa in our homes all around us. We predominantly use them to wake us up in the morning or play music,” said Shyam Gollakota, a UW computer science professor and co-author of the report. “The question we’ve been asking is, can we use the smart speaker for something more useful.” Smartphone makers could integrate the technology into existing products via software updates, researchers say.
As per the researchers, their goal was to find a way to use devices that people already have to edge cardiology and health monitoring into the future. This system has a mounted chest wall. If you want a reading, you will have to sit within two feet of the speaker for it to work.
It works by emitting audio signals into the room at a volume humans can’t hear. The pulses bounce back to the speaker, and an algorithm works to identify beating patterns generated from a human’s chest wall. Another algorithm is then applied to determine the amount of time between two heartbeats. These inter-beat intervals could allow doctors to gauge how well your heart is functioning.
This data was compared to results from medical-grade ECG monitors. Surprisingly, the smart speakers’ readings turned out to be relatively accurate, only deviating from the ECG readings by an amount that “wasn’t medically relevant,” the researchers say. The test was done on a developer version of Alexa with a low-quality speaker to run their tests. Hence, speakers in mainstream devices could be more powerful, which could enable readings from farther away.
Via: The Washington Post
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Apple, Google training their voice assistants to understand people with speech disabilities
According to National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, approximately 7.5 million people in the U.S. have trouble using their voices. This group is at the risk of being left behind by voice-recognition technology. But we are in 2021 – the era to make technology more accessible to everyone. And, tech firms, including Apple and Google are working on improving their voice assistants to understand atypical speech. They are now trying to train voice assistants to understand everyone.
“For someone who has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair, being able to control their environment with their voice could be super useful to them,” said Ms. Cattiau. Google is collecting atypical speech data as part of an initiative to train its voice-recognition tools. Training the voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant could improve the voice-recognition experience for a number of groups including senior with degenerative diseases.
Apple is working to help Siri automatically detect if someone speaks with a stutter
Apple debuted its Hold to Talk feature on hand-held devices in 2015. It gives users control over how long they want the voice assistant Siri to listen to them. The feature prevents the assistant from interrupting users that have a stutter before they have finished speaking. Now, Apple is working to help Siri automatically detect if someone speaks with a stutter. The company has built a bank of 28,000 audio clips from podcasts featuring stuttering to help its assistant recognize atypical speech.
Google’s Project Euphoria is the company’s initiative where it is testing a prototype app that lets people with atypical speech communicate with Google Assistant and smart Google Home products. It aims to train the software to understand unique speech patterns. The company hopes that these snippets will help train its artificial intelligence in the full spectrum of speech.
Amazon isn’t far off with its Alexa voice assistant. The company announced Alexa integration with Voiceitt, which lets people with speech impairments train an algorithm to recognize their own unique vocal patterns.
Source: WSJ
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Apple buys AI startup to possibly improve Siri’s natural language understanding
Apple might employ Voysis’ expertise and resources to further improve how Siri responds to natural language, catching up with Google Assistant.
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Apple, Amazon and Google will now work together to improve smart homes
Google, Amazon, and Apple are joining forces with other brands to make a new and unified Connected Home platform for all smart home devices
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Former head of Apple Siri team joins Microsoft’s AI division
According to a newly published report, Stasior is now joining Microsoft as a corporate vice president, reporting to Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott.
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Research: Alexa is dumber than Siri and Google Assistant
A recent research, taking a look at popular digital assistants Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant reveals how they compete.
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Pocketnow Daily: Moto RAZR foldable design leak, Samsung Gaming Service & more (video)
On today's Pocketnow Daily, we talk about the new renders of Motorola's new RAZR foldable smartphone, the periscope camera in the Honor 20 Pro, and more.
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Facebook Assistant planned to compete with Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant
A couple of recent reports are suggesting that Facebook might be working on what could end up being the Facebook Assistant.
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To all the 2018 tech we… tolerated? | #PNWeekly 338
We are wrapping up the year in mobile tech news from Apple's battery throttling bungle to the nightmare and adrenaline rush that was Techtober!
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Galaxy Flex, Mate Flex, LG G Flex, Flexis Praxis | #PNWeekly 333
Jacklyn Dallas (aka NothingButTech88) joins us to talk about folding phone branding, Black Friday deals and news of future flagships!
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