A multi-platform Siri could be unveiled as early as next week, when Apple announces the iPad 3. Google, no one to miss out on an opportunity to compete, has come up with its own answer to Siri, Google ‘Assistant’.
Google has had the in-house voice technology for ages — it hired Mike Cohen, who started Nuance. But ‘Assistant’ is set to go beyond Siri in many ways, most importantly in that the search company will retain complete control of all the layers involved. The project, helmed by the Android team has three parts:
1) Get the world’s knowledge into a format a computer can understand.
2) Create a personalization layer — a way of gathering data on precisely how people interact with content.
3) Build a mobile, voice-centered “Do engine”.
Unlike Apple's Siri, Google is planning on extending this service to developers so they can build new apps, websites, etc., interested in joinging forces with ‘Assistant’.
