“Apple has acquired a UK-based start-up whose artificial-intelligence software helps computers and people speak to each other in a more natural dialogue, according to people familiar with the deal,” Tim Bradshaw, Sally Davies and Murad Ahmed report for The Financial Times.
“VocalIQ uses machine learning to build virtual assistants that try to recreate the type of talking computers that appear in science-fiction films such as Samantha in Her or Jarvis in Iron Man,” Bradshaw, Davies and Ahmed report. “The deal marks Apple’s third acquisition of a UK company this year.”
“Its technology could help Apple to improve Siri, its virtual assistant, as well as further the iPhone maker’s automotive ambitions,” Bradshaw, Davies and Ahmed report. “In a blog earlier this year, VocalIQ described how a ‘conversational voice-dialog system’ in a car’s navigation system could prevent drivers from becoming distracted by looking at screens. Its ‘self-learning’ technology allows ‘real conversation between human and the internet of things,’ VocalIQ wrote. In another blog, VocalIQ said existing assistants have fallen ‘well short of consumer expectations,’ singling out Siri as a mere ‘toy.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Here’s to Siri – which is certainly not a “toy” – continuing to get better and better!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]