Here is a video of Siri and TellMe in use side-by-side


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I don't think it's programmed to understand Crocodile Dundee.

I did notice Siri had the same Australian acccent (I believe that is the accent, I could be wrong) as the creator of the video, so it did make me wonder if the Windows 7 phone was set to English as the main language and not Australian. Nevertheless, real interesting video, and really an effective yet incredibly simple way of showing the two services.

Isn't TellMe still under development?

But there's no feasible denial that the iPhone clearly won that!

If that were the case, then technically both services are still under development. And they should anyway; development of natural language recognition from speech should be an ongoing process given how relatively new it is.

I did notice Siri had the same Australian acccent (I believe that is the accent, I could be wrong) as the creator of the video, so it did make me wonder if the Windows 7 phone was set to English as the main language and not Australian.

While that seems like a valid point, you could sort of make out an Australian English accent from the WP7 device, although it's hard to tell as the iPhone was considerably louder.

Amusing video nevertheless. Thanks for posting :)

Ignoring the actual recognition problems with TellMe, the test left out many of the features that WP7 offers such as the ability to launch applications.

The other problem I have with Siri is that it's just too wordy and makes me feel as frustrated as I feel when I call a company and get stuck having to listen to all the options in the automated system. It would be faster to just type the calendar appointment in the first example than to sit and wait for Siri to finish prattling on. It's this wordiness that lets Siri down IMO.

At the end of the day though, Microsoft have to improve TellMe's recognition capabilities. I speak very clearly with good pronunciation and find that TellMe only works accurately about 70% of the time. It's generally better with single words or very short phrases rather than entire sentences but it can still be frustratingly inaccurate. Hopefully Microsoft are working hard to improve the service.

The other problem I have with Siri is that it's just too wordy and makes me feel as frustrated as I feel when I call a company and get stuck having to listen to all the options in the automated system. It would be faster to just type the calendar appointment in the first example than to sit and wait for Siri to finish prattling on. It's this wordiness that lets Siri down IMO.

At the end of the day though, Microsoft have to improve TellMe's recognition capabilities. I speak very clearly with good pronunciation and find that TellMe only works accurately about 70% of the time. It's generally better with single words or very short phrases rather than entire sentences but it can still be frustratingly inaccurate. Hopefully Microsoft are working hard to improve the service.

Agreed.

While it is a very good feature (haven't used it yet, so can't comment much), from what I've seen, it is too much talky.

When you say, 'make an appointment'', it shouldn't say, okay, making an appointment now, or stuff like that, instead, it should just get me to the edit page where I can set it up.

Maybe, people prefer this talkish system, but when you're with some friends or family and you want to get your task done ASAP, it can be really frustrating

The other problem I have with Siri is that it's just too wordy and makes me feel as frustrated as I feel when I call a company and get stuck having to listen to all the options in the automated system. It would be faster to just type the calendar appointment in the first example than to sit and wait for Siri to finish prattling on. It's this wordiness that lets Siri down IMO.

I tend to agree. The situations where I would use a vocal interface would be ones where I do not wish to give the phone my full attention, such as driving or in a rush. As such, it's responses should be concise. Siri is not my friend, Siri is a tool.

At the end of the day though, Microsoft have to improve TellMe's recognition capabilities. I speak very clearly with good pronunciation and find that TellMe only works accurately about 70% of the time. It's generally better with single words or very short phrases rather than entire sentences but it can still be frustratingly inaccurate. Hopefully Microsoft are working hard to improve the service.

Again, yes. I was brought up in Hertfordshire in the UK. This may mean nothing to a foreigner, but in the UK it means I speak with "received pronunciation" or commonly called "The Queens English", meaning it is considered to be the clearest and most understandable accent - hence the BBC always using RP speakers until the 80s. And speech recognition on Android just never seems to understand me.

Agreed.

While it is a very good feature (haven't used it yet, so can't comment much), from what I've seen, it is too much talky.

When you say, 'make an appointment'', it shouldn't say, okay, making an appointment now, or stuff like that, instead, it should just get me to the edit page where I can set it up.

Maybe, people prefer this talkish system, but when you're with some friends or family and you want to get your task done ASAP, it can be really frustrating

They should make voice playback optional as it's very useful whilst driving, but not that useful if you're too lazy to type out a text message :p

Again, yes. I was brought up in Hertfordshire in the UK. This may mean nothing to a foreigner, but in the UK it means I speak with "received pronunciation" or commonly called "The Queens English", meaning it is considered to be the clearest and most understandable accent - hence the BBC always using RP speakers until the 80s. And speech recognition on Android just never seems to understand me.

My fiancee lives in herts while I'm from the east midlands, and voice actions on android seems to understand me better! It all depends on the implementation, but yeah herts and London accents are very clear :)

The other problem I have with Siri is that it's just too wordy and makes me feel as frustrated as I feel when I call a company and get stuck having to listen to all the options in the automated system.

They should make voice playback optional as it's very useful whilst driving, but not that useful if you're too lazy to type out a text message :p

Settings -> General -> Siri -> set Voice Feedback to Hands-free Only

Text <some name> works fine with WP7, wonder why he had to say "Send text to XYZ"?

Agreed. In fact, I've just run a few tests and it looks like TellMe failed precisely because he used the wrong syntax. You can argue whether you should have to use syntax or not but he should at least have used TellMe the way it's meant to be used.

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