Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#181

Post by gambiting » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

agotterer wrote: post #50

DrBazza wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly haven't had the pleasure of trying to use voice control in a Mercedes-Benz. It makes Siri and Cortana seem telepathic by comparison.

Same with the Audi. I don’t understand why all the car companies aren’t licensing the assistant technology from the big tech companies and using it as the default. I get Siri via car play, but even car play is sandboxed because it can’t control things like the radio or temperature.

Because even the "big" tech from "big" companies is still shit. Have a 2020 LG TV with Google assistant built in, and it's a piece of hot garbage.

Example: I frequently switch between display profiles to suit what I need. Saying

"switch to cinema display mode" - works fine.

Saying:

"switch to user display mode" - 100% of the time results in the TV replying "which user would you like to select?".

Like...it's not my fault that the dumb TV has the custom profile named "User".

Google probably spent billions on voice recognition, but it's all worthless, because someone without an ounce of imagination just coded it to react to the words "change" and "user" as the user profile selector, the rest of the sentence be damned.

But back to cars - Google Assistant in Android Auto is equally shit. Try saying "hey google, open spotify", then "hey google, play music". 100% of the time, it switches from Spotify to Google Music. It's insane.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#182

Post by jxramos » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #131

tootie wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Nuance also does the Comcast Xfinity voice remotes. They are actually really well done. And it's a humongous customer to have your claws in.

It’s literally better than Siri. I don’t know how, but it is. I’d say it’s even better than Alexa in terms of its ability to recognize things I say.

I think they've been at it for a pretty long time with old products like Dragon. A friend used to work there some years back and said they pretty much perfected speech detection up to some very reasonable error rate. I imagine they've just continued to cover all the dark corner cases and irregularities and accents etc.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#183

Post by aembleton » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #157

What does an all cash deal of $20bn look like? I'm assuming it's really just an ACH transaction or something? There's not a convoy of armored cars with silver briefcases or anything... Is there?

It means that Microsoft are giving money in exchange for shares of Nuance instead of giving Microsoft Stock in exchange for Nuance Stock.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#184

Post by conanbatt » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

16bytes wrote: post #63

For those confused, this acquisition is due in large part by Nuance's dominance in healthcare related products. From Nuance's last earnings release[1]: “We are very pleased with the strong start to the fiscal year, as we delivered revenue and EPS above our guidance range expectations,” said Mark Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer at Nuance. “We continued to advance our strategic initiatives, accelerating our cloud tra…

Oh wow. The Dragon headset is a very strange product space. It is used by non-tech savvy doctors to avoid having to type into the EMR.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#185

Post by Jcowell » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #62

bombcar wrote: post #7

Is it just me or have speech recognition platforms like Siri actually gone backwards in the last few years (roughly coinciding with the AI/ML craze)? It feels (anecdata) that Siri is doing a bit better on voice to tex when sending messages but much worse on simple commands like “turn off living room lights”.

This is not much to do with the speech recognition itself, but with the AI behind interpreting the commands. I'm indeed also a bit surprised that this hasn't progressed. It's still not possible to say things like "Turn on my living room lights and the hallway as well". It still feels very scripted where you have to say things exactly the right way and in bite-sized chunks to make it work. The same with Alexa by the w…

I would say it has progressed compared to 10 years ago. Speech technology in general to. I remember when YouTube auto captions didn’t even hit close to what was being said we now they’re way more usable.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#186

Post by bentcorner » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #84

skrowl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri is especially bad when compared to Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, both of which are light years ahead. Usual Apple reliance on their fans buying their devices no matter how bad the software is.

Isn’t it more likely that the quality of the voice assistant isn’t that important to most buyers?

I think that's an effect rather than the cause.

My guess is that Apple management doesn't see voice assistants as the "next big thing" to differentiate themselves from the competition. I think VR/AR is where they are focusing and Siri is on life support.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#187

Post by mrkstu » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #7

Is it just me or have speech recognition platforms like Siri actually gone backwards in the last few years (roughly coinciding with the AI/ML craze)? It feels (anecdata) that Siri is doing a bit better on voice to tex when sending messages but much worse on simple commands like “turn off living room lights”.

Its been weirdly variable- my Apple Watch and the HomePod mini seem much more accurate than my iPhone.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#188

Post by dalbasal » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

I think a lot of big acquisitions make "sense," given the current market.

The most successful companies have lots of cash, high share prices, and amazing cash cows. They could borrow for (almost) free, so resources are practically unlimited. Their R&D is already well funded. Most of their big, growth oriented endeavours are not cash-constrained. There are usually no factories to build or production to scale up.

Google tried "20% time." They tried "let many flowers grow." Those things seemed ambitious at 2007-scale. In 2021 terms... new flowers need to be S&P 500 companies to represent growth, instead of just clutter. "Meaningful growth," for Alphabet, is a big number.

How else does a MSFT, Google or (especially) FB put $20bn to work? Acquiring "just works."

Of course, there are in-house alternatives. Waymo is an in-house investment by Alphabet that's bigger than this Nuance acquisition... especially if you consider the $bns Waymo will continue to need until some unknown future date. Self driving is looking more hopeful (certainly to investors) than it was when waymo started.... but waymo is still a dubious investment.

Consider that Google could have bought any car company, for about as much as waymo will cost eventually. Car companies have loans, so you could quibble the math... but details.

Acquiring is easy. The path of least resistance wins >50% of the time. We have that dynamic here, both in the human/managers sense and in the arbitrage-like incentives in the market currently.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#189

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #124

bombcar wrote: post #7

Is it just me or have speech recognition platforms like Siri actually gone backwards in the last few years (roughly coinciding with the AI/ML craze)? It feels (anecdata) that Siri is doing a bit better on voice to tex when sending messages but much worse on simple commands like “turn off living room lights”.

This never seems to be a popular opinion on hn, but this is the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine: A complex ai built by a billion dollar company, an enormous amount of man hours, only so that switching a light switch because slower, and less deterministic. I'm certainly not suggesting that there are no valid uses for ML/AI, but digital assistants seem to be an enormous waste.

Speech recognition goes way beyond digital assistants. Plain old transcription is super useful, especially in terms of accessibility. I was voice coding for a while because of RSI and even as immature as the tech is, it saved my ass.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#190

Post by bombcar » Mon, Apr 12, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #188

I think a lot of big acquisitions make "sense," given the current market. The most successful companies have lots of cash, high share prices, and amazing cash cows. They could borrow for (almost) free, so resources are practically unlimited. Their R&D is already well funded. Most of their big, growth oriented endeavours are not cash-constrained. There are usually no factories to build or production to scale up. Googl…

Acquiring is a simple way to show the Board/Shareholders that you're "doing something" - but I suspect it's rarely very successful in the long run. Unless you acquire a business that ACTUALLY provides some synergies you're just on the path of transitioning from a successful company to a poor imitation of Berkshire Hathaway.

It does have the advantage that you can "spin off" your acquisitions once they fail to do anything interesting (though this is more commonly seen in sunset industries/dying companies (see AOL, Compaq, etc)).