Android vs Siri: The jury is hung

David Pogue, September 2, 2013, NYT:

The usefulness of speech recognition on smartphones depends on how it's used, says David Pogue

Your review was the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. It strains me to avoid profanity in describing how stupid you sound.”  That’s the kind of email that brightened my day after I reviewed Google’s Moto X phone a few weeks ago.
My correspondents seemed especially unhappy with one sentence in that review: “Android’s voice commands are still no match for Siri.”

Man, I really was stupid. Who’d be dumb enough to take sides in a religious war? I’d have been better off writing, “Conservatives are better-looking than liberals” or “Pro-life people are worse drivers than pro-choice.”

But the superiority of cellphone speech-recognition technology is not an idle question. Once touch screens became the future of phones, voice recognition became desperately important. Without physical keys or buttons, entering text and manipulating software controls are fussy, multi-step procedures.

So I’ve just spent two weeks immersed in voice recognition. I carried an iPhone and a phone running Google’s Android operating system with me everywhere. I spoke to both phones simultaneously. I wanted to get to know the differences, the strengths, the weaknesses.

When people talk about speech recognition, they mean, and often confuse, three different functions. There’s dictation, where the phone converts speech to text; commands, where you operate the phone by talking; and Internet information searches. There are vast differences among the successes of the three.

Dictation, for example, is still fairly poor on both systems. Both Android phones and Siri, the iPhone’s speech feature, make many transcription errors. When you hear people bashing cellphone transcription, declaring, “I gave up on it,” they’re usually referring to dictation.

That’s forgivable, but come on. You’re asking your phone to understand varying accents at varying distances from its microphone, in rooms with varying background noise. It’s a wonder this feature works at all.

The latest Android version doesn’t require an Internet connection to do basic dictation. And in Android, the words appear on the screen as you utter them; Siri doesn’t transcribe until you stop talking.

On the other hand, Siri understands formatting controls like “capital,” “all caps” and “no space,” as well as all kinds of punctuation - “colon,” “dash,” “asterisk,” “ellipsis” and so on. Android understands only the basic symbols, like “period,” “comma” and “exclamation point.”

The second category, phone-control commands, is far more successful for far more people. This is when you say: “Call Mom,” “Text Emily,” “Wake me at 7:30,” “Play some Billy Joel,” “Remind me to feed the cat when I get home,” and so on.

Controlling your phone without touching it is important for safety, of course. If you must interact with your phone while driving, speaking to it certainly seems safer than looking at it.

But don’t forget the convenience factor. It’s much faster to say, “Open Angry Birds” than to flip through home screens full of icons. And “Set my alarm for 8 a.m.” is about 375 finger-taps quicker than using the clock app.

Here, Siri has the edge. As you’re driving along, for example, and you hear the incoming message sound, you can say, “Read my new messages,” and Siri reads them aloud. It even invites you to dictate a reply, without ever taking your eyes off the road. Android can’t do that.

Both systems can tap into some of the phone’s own apps. They recognise commands like “Make a meeting with Bob Barnett Thursday at noon” (a calendar interaction), “Make a note to pay back Harold” (notes), “Send an email to Danny Cooper” (mail) and “What’s Steve Alper’s home address?” (contacts).

Android blows away iOS, though, in Web searches. Both kinds of phones do an amazing job fetching weather updates. But Google’s bread and butter is Web searches, so Android responses are generally much, much faster. 

Android is especially amazing at dialling places without having to look them up (“Call the Macy’s on 34th Street”) and directions (“Get me to La Guardia Airport by public transportation”), since its Map app is so unbelievably good. 

Unfortunately, Android has an Achilles’ heel - actually, more like Achilles’ entire leg. To issue spoken commands, you have to tap the microphone icon on the Google search bar. And it’s only on the home screen or the Google Now screen (swipe up from the bottom). 

So you can’t speak commands when your phone is locked, or when you’re in another app.
On the iPhone, you hold down the Home button or the clicker on your earbuds cord, so the voice command feature works when the phone is asleep or in any app.

In other words, to use an Android phone’s speech features, you frequently have to pick it up, and you always have to look at it, which defeats much of the purpose. The exception: Motorola’s new phones, like the Moto X, can be set to listen all the time.

Siri is better with restaurants and movies, too. Both phones understand, “Good Indian restaurants around here” or “Call the Olive Garden on Daleford Road.” But Siri can also book reservations, thanks to integration with OpenTable.com.

Similarly, Siri provides attractive, consolidated answer screens for, “What movies are opening this week?” “Give me the reviews for 'The Way, Way Back,'” or “What are today’s showtimes for 'The Smurfs 2’?” Android just shows you Google search results.
And then there’s the issue of personality: Siri has it, Android doesn’t.

We’re talking about wisecracks, jokes, attitude, addressing you by name. If you ask Siri, “Who’s your daddy?”, she replies: “You are. Can we get back to work now?” Say, “Beam me up, Siri,” and she says: “Please remove your belt, shoes and jacket, and empty your pockets.” Say, “Talk dirty to me,” and she replies, “Humus. Compost. Pumice. Silt. Gravel.”
Now, on the great battlefield of the Apple-Google fanboy war, humour is small potatoes. Apple haters practically claw their eyes out when you mention Siri’s personality. “It’s not useful! It’s a parlour trick! It strains me to avoid profanity in describing how stupid you sound!”

And that’s fine. That’s why there’s choice: two camps in this philosophical school. (Well, there’s also Windows Phone and BlackBerry, but their speech recognition is extremely rudimentary.)

And so: Put down your swords, fanboys. Both systems are exceedingly useful, once you spend the time to learn them. (Here’s a site with a good list of Android voice commands: j.mp/12kEFDo. And here’s one for Siri: j.mp/16Yy4yy.)

Though Siri has the edge, the gap has closed substantially, and both systems are rapidly improving. For example, until recently Android had no phone-control features at all - only Web searches. And in this fall’s iOS 7 update, Siri will gain a more pleasant speaking voice, faster searches and the ability to change settings by voice (“Turn on Airplane Mode,” “Turn up the brightness,” “Turn on Bluetooth”) - something neither phone can do now.

This much is clear: Cellphone speech recognition is getting better fast. Very soon, we’ll do less talking through our phones - and more talking to them.

Microsoft will buy Nokia. Not surprising for me.

Microsoft's buying Nokia is not very surprising coz Nokia was surely about to die and Microsoft just bought a company to have some thing running on Windows Phone. This also might be the last big thing under Steve Ballmer.

(Reuters) - Two years after hitching its fate to Microsoft's(MSFT.O) Windows Phone software, Nokia(NOK1V.HE) collapsed into the arms of the U.S. software giant on Tuesday, agreeing to sell its main handset business for 5.44 billion euros.

Nokia, once the world's dominant handset maker, has failed to close a yawning lead opened up by Apple (AAPL.O) and Samsung (005930.KS) in the highly competitive market for smartphones and will now concentrate on its networking equipment unit, navigation business and technology patents.

Nokia's Canadian boss Stephen Elop, who ran Microsoft's business software division before jumping to Nokia in 2010, will return to the U.S. firm as head of its mobile devices business - a Trojan horse, according to disgruntled Finnish media.

He is being discussed as a possible replacement for Microsoft's retiring CEO Steve Ballmer, who is trying to remake the U.S. firm into a gadget and services company like Apple before he departs, though it has fallen short so far in its attempts to compete in mobile devices.

"It's very clear to me that rationally this is the right step going forward," Elop told reporters, though he added he also felt "a great deal of sadness" over the outcome.

"I feel sadness because inevitably we are changing Nokia and what it stands for," he said.

In three years under Elop, Nokia saw its market share collapse and its share price shrivel.

In 2011, after writing a memo that said Nokia lacked the in-house technology and needed to jump off a "burning platform", Elop made the controversial decision to use Microsoft's Windows Phone for smartphones, rather than Nokia's own software or Google's (GOOG.O) ubiquitous Android operating system.

Nokia, which had 40 percent of the handset market in 2007, now has just 15 percent, and only 3 percent in smartphones.

Shares in Nokia surged 39 percent to 4.10 euros on Tuesday. While up from their decade-low of 1.33 euros hit last year, they are still only a fraction of their 2000 peak of 65 euros.

After today's gains the whole company is worth about 15 billion euros, a far cry from its glory days when it peaked at over 200 billion euros.

Tuesday's deal includes an agreement to license Nokia's patent portfolio for 10 years. Without it, Nokia's devices and services business would have been worth about 3.7 billion euros, the companies said.

Microsoft shares in Frankfurt were down about 5 percent.

GRAPHIC-Nokia's numbers: link.reuters.com/sus72v

Interactive look at Nokia: link.reuters.com/guz42t

GRAPHIC: Microsoft's share price foundered under Ballmer link.reuters.com/cyd62v

SOLD FOR "PEANUTS"

While some investors have credited Elop for bringing urgency to Nokia, which has stepped up its pace of product development in recent months and is due to announce a "phablet"-type large-screen handset this month, his legacy will be a bitter one for Finland. The company, which began life as a paper mill and has sold an eclectic range from television sets to rubber boots in its 148-year history, was a national champion in its heyday, accounting for 16 percent of all exports.

Hired by former chairman Jorma Ollila, Elop was the first foreigner to lead it.

For many Finns, the fact that a former Microsoft executive had come to Nokia, bet the firm's future on an alliance with Microsoft, laid off about 40,000 worldwide and then delivered it into Microsoft's hands, was a galling snub to national pride.

"Jorma Ollila brought a Trojan horse to Nokia," a column in widely read tabloid Ilta-Sanoma said.

"As a Finnish person, I cannot like this deal. It ends one chapter in this Nokia story," said Juha Varis, Danske Capital's senior portfolio manager, whose fund owns Nokia shares. "On the other hand, it was maybe the last opportunity to sell it."

Varis was one of many investors critical of Elop's decision to bet Nokia's future in smartphones on Microsoft's Windows Phone software, which was praised by tech reviewers but hasn't found the momentum to challenge the market leaders.

"So this is the outcome: the whole business for 5 billion euros. That's peanuts compared to its history," he said.

Alexander Stubb, Finland's Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, said on his Twitter account: "For a lot of us Finns, including myself, Nokia phones are part of what we grew up with. Many first reactions to the deal will be emotional."

Nokia's new interim CEO Risto Siilasmaa painted a picture of just how grudgingly the call to sell had been arrived at, describing how the board had met almost 50 times after the approach by Microsoft around February.

Ballmer, at a news conference in the Finnish capital, sought to assuage fears the deal would hit jobs in the Nordic country and said Microsoft would build on the recent growth of Nokia's flagship Lumia smartphones.

Nokia said it expected around 32,000 people of its roughly 90,000 worldwide staff would transfer to Microsoft, including about 4,700 who will transfer in Finland.

PIVOTAL FOR MICROSOFT

It is also a pivotal moment for Microsoft, which still has huge revenues from its Windows computer operating system, Office suite of business software and the X-Box game console, but has failed so far to set up a profitable mobile device business.

Microsoft's own mobile gadget, the Surface tablet, has sold tepidly since it was launched last year.

"It's a bold step into the future - a win-win for employees, shareholders and consumers of both companies," Ballmer said. "Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft's share and profits in phones and strengthen the overall opportunities for both Microsoft and our partners across our entire family of devices and services."

The move leaves the Finnish company with Nokia Solutions and Networks, which competes with the likes of Ericsson (ERICb.ST) and Huawei (002502.SZ) in telecoms equipment, as well as a navigation business and a broad portfolio of patents.

The Nokia deal thrusts Microsoft deeper into the hotly contested mobile phone market, despite some investors urging it to stick to its core strengths of business software and services.

Elop will return to Microsoft as its board ponders a successor to Ballmer, who will depart in the next 12 months.

Activist fund manager ValueAct Capital Management, which has been offered a board seat, is among those concerned with Ballmer's leadership and his attempts to plough headlong into the lower-margin, highly competitive mobile devices arena.

Others applauded Ballmer's aggressive gambit.

"Microsoft cannot walk away from smartphones, and the hope that other vendors will support Windows Phone is fading fast. So buying Nokia comes at the right time," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner.

"In today's market it is clear that a vertical integration is the way forward for a company to succeed. How else could Microsoft achieve this?"

As part of Microsoft, Elop will head an expanded Devices unit. Julie Larson-Green, who in July was promoted to head a new Devices and Studios business in Ballmer's reorganisation, will report to Elop when the deal is closed.

FIRE SALE

Analyst Tero Kuittinen at consultancy Alekstra said the sale price of Nokia's phone business, about a quarter of its sales last year, represented a "fire sale level", though others were less clear about what a shrunken Nokia was worth.

The price agreed for the devices and services business gives it an enterprise value of about 0.33 times sales for a loss-making business, about half what Google paid for Motorola's handset business in 2012.

"What should be paid for a declining business, where market share has been constantly lost and profitability has been poor?" said Hannu Rauhala, analyst at Pohjola Bank. "It is difficult to say if it's cheap or expensive."

Nokia is still the world's No. 2 mobile phone maker behind Samsung, but it is not in the top five in the more lucrative and faster-growing smartphone market.

Sales of Nokia's Lumia series have helped the market share of Windows Phones in the global smartphone market climb to 3.3 percent, according to consultancy Gartner, overtaking ailing BlackBerry Ltd (BB.TO) for the first time this year. Still, Google Inc's (GOOG.O) Android and Apple's iOS system make up 90 percent of the market.

Nokia said in a statement it expected that, apart from Elop, senior executives Jo Harlow, Juha Putkiranta, Timo Toikkanen, and Chris Weber would transfer to Microsoft when the deal is concluded, probably in the first quarter of 2014. (Additional reporting by Terhi Kinnunen, Jussi Rosendahl and Niklas Pollard; Editing by Peter Graff and Will Waterman)

Zombies Ate My Friends

Zombie games are dime a dozen on nearly every platform. It seems as though these poster children of '80s entertainment have arisen from the grave once again to try and overrun the planet.

While some zombie games manage to shuffle into the mainstream and stay there, the majority just fall by the wayside like so much decomposing matter.

Those that do succeed tend to have a selling point - perhaps an emphasis on story or a tower defence structure. Glu Mobile has attempted to give Zombies Ate My Friends its own unique selling point, but the results are mixed at best.

State of emergency

Having created a customisable character, which can be further kitted out through the use of cosmetic in-app purchases, you're thrust into a strangely cartoony world of zombie survival.

IAPs explained In Zombies Ate My Friends, there are two main resources for you to spend your money on: Golden Skulls and Cash. Cash is primarily collected through scavenging, fighting zombies, finishing missions, and levelling-up. But you can also buy it if you need more for ammunition, clothes, repairs, and so forth. Golden Skulls, known as Gold in menus, is the premium purchasing currency. It's near impossible to come across easily, but you'll need it to buy new weapons and upgrades from the time-limited hobo salesman who's always on hand. The smallest purchase you can make is £3.99 / $6 for 1000 units of Cash or 100 Skulls. Things then ramp up a little as the highest purchase is £77.99 / $120 for 30,000 Cash or 3000 Skulls. To put that into perspective, it costs around 10 Gold for 10 units of energy. Alternatively, you can pay around 20 to 40 Gold for an early rare weapon.

Your first task is to rescue a fellow survivor and grab some supplies for your helicopter-enabled escape. This means venturing across town, defeating zombies on the way, and grabbing supplies from garbage cans too.

To do this, you'll be tapping on navigation arrows to traverse screens, tapping on zombies to initiate battles, tapping on menus to fight, and, ultimately, just tapping an awful lot. Even bigger fights, like boss encounters, require the same tap, tap, tap mechanic, and it becomes mundane rather quickly.

This is also true of how you progress through the story as all you ever seem to do is run back and forth through waves of zombies doing mundane and menial tasks.

While there's clearly an air of survival in the narrative and environments, the only pressure to survive that you'll find in the gameplay is the will to carry on.

Zombie fatigue

Still, it shouldn't really come as a surprise that Glu Mobile wants the focus to be on zombie-slaying - even if it does try to put this in the wider context of helping people.

Engaging in combat with the undead expends various units of energy depending on the type of attack you pick. It also causes your weapon to wear and supplies of ammunition to dwindle. All of this just increases the likelihood that you'll be spending money on in-app purchases.

And that's Zombies Ate My Friends in a nutshell. It's just a series of opportunities to spend money.

At first, you're regularly rewarded with Cash and XP, with the occasional Energy boost thrown in alongside the rare Gold Skull. As you can imagine, this fills you with a sense of progression and getting something for nothing. But it quickly fades.

This is probably not too much of an issue if you're a freemium regular. However, it's hard to find much of a reason to keep coming back to a game that essentially involves tapping menu buttons before being ferried onto another screen for more of the same.

There are some neat ideas on show here, such as timed events that see zombie hordes approaching if you fail to finish a mission in time - thus making your task harder.

But those more interesting gameplay perks, alongside the charming visuals, are all overshadowed by a rather oppressive and unintuitive freemium system. This is a game about mindless, indiscriminately consuming drones that apparently wants to be played by them too.

Indian consumers love phablets, IDC says

NEW DELHI: The latest numbers for Indian smartphone market are out. And, they show a steep growth in the phablet category in the country. According to market research firm IDC, the number of smartphones shipped in India has grown by over 200% in the last one year. It said 9.3 million smartphones were shipped in Q2, 2013, compared to 3.5 million in Q2, 2012.

The growth was particularly significant in the phablet (the phones with large screens) category. IDC said the number of smartphones that have a screen size between 5 inches and 7 inches grew by 17 times in the last one year. The phablets constituted 30% of all smartphones shipped in Q2, 2013.

Phablets, a term used by the technology journalists to describe the large-screen phones that started appearing after Samsung launched Galaxy Note, was recently added to online dictionary maintained by Oxford University Press.

Compared to Q1, 2013, the number of smartphones shipped in India registered a 50% growth in the second quarter of this year, IDC said in a statement. "As the largest feature phone market in Asia Pacific region and second largest for smartphones, India recorded a 21% growth YoY and a modest 4% growth quarter over quarter for total mobile phones," said an IDC spokesperson.

"The growth in the India smartphone market is driven by consistent performance by local vendors, who accounted for more than half of the total smartphone market in Q2, 2013. These vendors have been scaling up operations, owing to rising migration of the user base from feature phones to smartphones," said Manasi Yadav, senior market analyst with IDC India.

Samsung leads the list of biggest smartphone vendors in India with a market share of 26%. Micromax is second with 22% share, while Karbonn is third with 13% share. Nokia and Sony each have 5% market share, while other companies account for 29% of smartphones shipped in India.

"Samsung maintained its leadership spot in Q2, 2013, with the newly launched Samsung Galaxy Star bringing in huge volumes at the low end," noted IDC.

Pak bans voice and sms chat packages citing moral values

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) consumer protection directorate has ordered cellular mobile operators to immediately stop all kinds of chat packages including voice and sms at any time of the day.

A statement titled ‘Directive relating to CMTOs (Cellular Mobile Telephone Operators) contrary to moral values of society”, of the PTA said a comprehensive survey had been launched by the PTA zonal offices and services division to verify implementation of a directive it had issued on November 14, 2012. The survey revealed that the chat packages are still in operation under different names. It noted the violation of the directive with concern.

Keeping this in mind all cellular mobile operators are directed to stop all kinds of packages voice and sms irrespective of the time of day and submit compliance by September 2, 2013 positively.

Initially the PTA had banned night packages last year but the mobile phone operators went to the Islamabad high court to oppose it. A news report said that the petition was withdrawn after the PTA submitted transcripts of conversations with “obscene” content. A case is also pending in the Supreme Court. The industry has reacted with dismay at the latest order.