Siri support on Apple devices will soon be smarter when it learns the speech patterns of users that stutter when giving voice prompts.
Apple’s Siri drew comedy when it first launched. It was made fun of in sitcoms, cartoons, and memes. Since then, Siri has developed immensely and has been a crucial part of many Apple users worldwide.
It assists busy people with scheduling. Siri also makes driving safer because of hands-free prompts for AI assistance. Searches are also made smarter because of machine learning through Siri.
As such, Apple wants to make Siri even more useful and inclusive for all types of users.
Apple Siri will be able to detect stutters in voice commands
Apple has made Siri the tying connection in all its devices. It can be hailed on the Macs, iPads, and iPhones. As such, it actually learns a user’s tech-usage pattern. With a simple ‘Hey Siri’ prompt, Siri pops up and listens to a voice command. Once the command finishes, it instantly goes to work.
Voice prompts can be confusing for Siri sometimes, especially for users who stutter. When Siri detects a pause from the user, it understands it as the end of the command. It can be frustrating for some Apple users that have speech problems.
Fortunately, the people over at Apple are working on making Siri even smarter by learning a user’s speech pattern. In a report in the Wall Street Journal, developers in Apple are reportedly using audio clips from podcasts to teach Siri to detect stuttering.
The abstract of the study and development identified five areas of voice stuttering. The list includes blocks, prolongations, sound repetitions, word repetitions, and interjections. In other words, Siri will know when to stop listening while at the same time factoring in these stutters.
Facebook is working on a competitor
While Siri is already quite advanced in its development, Facebook has introduced ‘Hey Facebook.’ This new feature from Facebook works exactly like Siri. However, its use is only currently limited to Portal and Oculus Quest devices.
The bounds of this feature are currently limited to the suggestions of Facebook. In its announcement, Facebook wants its users to test making ‘Hey, Facebook’ take screenshots or open certain apps.
The rollout of this feature will be gradual. Facebook also says that Hey Facebook will be a fully opt-in feature. In other words, users have full control over whether they want to join in on the gimmick or not.
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