Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#121

Post by ark15 » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:23 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #117

As an Android user, I've found that Siri tends to be generally better than Google Now. I don't usually ask my phone for trivia, but rather to do something. Most of the time I'll get routed to a search query when I'm looking to command the phone instead. This is somewhat frustrating if you don't know the magic incantation to make Google Now do what you are asking it to do. Siri's engineers have done a better job antic…

I am an Android phone user, past iPhone user and current iPad user and my experience has been the exact opposite. Google Now always understands me better than Siri.

When Siri fails for me, I sometimes ask my 7 year old to talk the same thing to Siri and she gets better results. My daughter has a more 'American' accent than me so I have concluded that Android is better at hearing through accents than iOS.

(I haven't yet read the original article but wanted to quickly comment since our observations are completely opposite)

EDIT - iOS tablet user = iPad user.

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#122

Post by escapologybb » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #120

escapologybb wrote: post #94

Having used both of them, I really couldn't live without Siri to be honest. I'm quadriplegic, and whilst obviously I wouldn't die without Siri my life is immeasurably better with her. Some of the killer features of Siri for me are being able to to write emails, send messages and get quick answers to general questions throughout the day. She is much better at the first two than she is at the last one though, but even…

I mean this in a very honest way: How are you posting here? Dictation software or something similar?

Then that deserves an honest answer!

I'm using a device called a TrackerPro[0] which tracks a small reflective dot on my glasses, this translates my head movements into cursor movements. To initiate a left mouse click I use a [buddy button[1] under my right index finger, this means that using just my head and right index finger I can control the mouse just like anybody else.

To input any kind of text into the computer I use DragonDictate for Mac[2], this has the dual function of enabling me to do speech to text really well but also to trigger little shell scripts and AppleScript's I've written.

So, if I say "Xylophone Google" Dragon will recognise that as a command and jump to the Google homepage. That's just a really simple example of what you can do, but as you might imagine it's one I use a lot each day. :-)

[0]:http://www.ablenetinc.com/Assistive-Technology/Computer-Acce... [1]:http://www.ablenetinc.com/Assistive-Technology/Switches/Budd... [2]:http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/dragon-for-...

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#123

Post by msoad » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:30 PM UTC

msoad wrote: post #50

Some query patterns I use in Google that you might be interested in Translate {words} to {language} My flights My schedule My packages What time is at {city}? How tall/old/heavy is {important person}? {description of a photos} in my photos (like 'ocean in my photos') Note: if you have G+ photos. description doesn't need to be typed in the photo meta info compare {food} and {food} (nutritions)

alarm for 5 minutes

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#124

Post by ironcrucible » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:38 PM UTC

zackangelo wrote: post #105

ironcrucible wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a heavy Android user until I bought my first Windows Phone about six months ago. So far, Cortana has been one of the biggest[1] reasons I haven't switched back to Android, despite what feels like a lack of commitment and focus from Microsoft[2]. Her location-based and people-based reminders have been a killer feature for me. I can open Cortana and say "Next time I talk to my mother, remind me to ask her…

For the record, Siri also does location-based reminders and they sync across all of your devices (e.g. "When I get home, remind me to take fish oil").

Thanks for clearing that up, I've never used Siri so I'm not qualified to talk about Apple's personal assistant features.

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#125

Post by ironcrucible » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:41 PM UTC

Toddarooski wrote: post #101

ironcrucible wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a heavy Android user until I bought my first Windows Phone about six months ago. So far, Cortana has been one of the biggest[1] reasons I haven't switched back to Android, despite what feels like a lack of commitment and focus from Microsoft[2]. Her location-based and people-based reminders have been a killer feature for me. I can open Cortana and say "Next time I talk to my mother, remind me to ask her…

Google Now does do location-based reminders. I've never tried the "Next time I'm talking to my mom" thing, though.

I'd be interested to know if Google Now can do people reminders. Unfortunately I sold my last Android device so I'm unable to test it myself, but a quick search brings up this article[1] which suggests that it doesn't exist yet. Either way, I'm sure it's only a matter of time until both Siri and Google Now can do it too (which is a good thing, I've found it incredibly useful).

[1]. https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/3122344?hl=en

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#126

Post by taliesinb » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:45 PM UTC

frik wrote: post #82

taliesinb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they use template databases for different topics? (like afaik WolframAlpha) What do you mean by a template database?

NLP sentence templates: "How tall [object]?" / "[object] height" "Becoming a [job]" "How much is a [unit] of [object]?" "How old is [object]" "When is the next [event]" My question is: Do Siri/Cortana/GoogleNow use such flat templates (per topic) or do the use an IR ontology? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science)

We don't use flat templates in Alpha. We use a full context-free grammar that turns the question into a symbolic representation of what the user wants, which can naturally involve chaining. E.g. "when was the president of the US was born".

Then we execute that symbolic representation using a variety of strategies. There are funnily enough quite a few cases where we can understand the question but don't have the curated algorithms to actually answer it.

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#127

Post by apendleton » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #33

There were not random queries. In fact, they were picked because we felt they were likely to trigger a knowledge panel. For a good believable test your sampling methodology is very important. In fact, you want to have a random sample that is free of biases instead of somebody cherry picking queries. Perhaps you may do random weighted sample of queries with weights = frequency which represents usage pattern more close…

Out of curiosity, how would you propose taking a random sample of all possible questions?

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#128

Post by steveeq1 » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 4:49 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #67

A while back I created a toy IRC bot that answers questions like this just by searching reddit and taking the top comment. It works surprisingly well for questions that are likely to have been asked before. And when it does work, the result is much better than a dry wikipedia excerpt. I then added some simple machine learning to filter search results for the most relevant threads which improved it quite a bit.

This is called the "Take the First" heuristic. If you want to learn more about "fast and frugal" heuristics (which work surprisingly well in a lot of cases), read "Simple Heuristics that Make Us Smart". It explains how to get programs to give good answers when time and processing power are limited (similar to your case).

http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Heuristics-That-Make-Smart/dp/0...

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#129

Post by cheald » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 5:05 PM UTC

msoad wrote: post #123

msoad wrote: post #50

Some query patterns I use in Google that you might be interested in Translate {words} to {language} My flights My schedule My packages What time is at {city}? How tall/old/heavy is {important person}? {description of a photos} in my photos (like 'ocean in my photos') Note: if you have G+ photos. description doesn't need to be typed in the photo meta info compare {food} and {food} (nutritions)

alarm for 5 minutes

"Wake me at 6 AM"

"Remind me to check my air filter when I get home"

Re: Google Now vs. Siri vs. Cortana – The Great Knowledge Box Showdown

#130

Post by joyeuse6701 » Thu, Oct 09, 2014, 5:08 PM UTC

As a huge halo fan, it makes me happy that Cortana is slowly becoming a well known name =). Having said that, I'd really like to give her a try, I would hope that it would exceed google now on my moto x which for the most part has been very useful while driving.