Posts Tagged: "siri"

Portal Communications Alleges Apple’s Siri Willfully Infringes on Natural Language Processing Patents

Portal Communications filed a suit for patent infringement against Cupertino, CA-based consumer tech giant Apple Inc. At issue in the case, which was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, are a series of patents covering natural language voice query technologies which are allegedly in use by Apple’s Siri digital personal assistant.

Apple Files Patent for Recognizing Whispered Voice Commands

One digital assistant technology developed by Apple allowing Siri to respond to whispered voice commands is disclosed by U.S. Patent Application 20170358301, titled Digital Assistant Providing Whispered Speech… In some places, such as libraries or board meetings, the use of voice-activated digital assistants is discouraged because of the intrusion of sound, so this patent application would protect a technology that recognizes a user’s command, even when the user is whispering. The device would then respond in a similar whispered tone so as to be less distracting in quiet settings.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple will lead intelligent virtual assistant sector over the next few years

We’re three months into 2017 and already the early returns are showing that this year should be a banner one for intelligent voice assistant technologies. The 2017 Voice Report from VoiceLabs, a voice assistant app development firm, forecasts a total of 24.5 voice-first devices sold by the end of the year, increasing the overall footprint for such devices to 33 million in circulation. The report also indicates that specialization between voice assistants will become much more pronounced this year as the largest players in the field continue to develop their voice assistant technologies in ways that benefit their core business.

Intelligent virtual assistants will support one-fifth of all human interactions with smartphones by 2019

The next decade should see a major increase in intelligent virtual assistants with market research firms predicting that the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 34.9 percent up to 38 percent between 2016 and 2024, reaching a global market size which could be as large as $12.28 billion by 2024. Industry sectors where virtual assistants will see major applications develop soon include banking, financial services and insurance, due in large part to the growth of mobile banking, as well as end-uses in the healthcare and e-commerce sectors.

China’s Great Leap Forward in Patents

On March 28, Apple Inc. appeared in court in Shanghai to defend charges that Siri, its voice-recognition, personal-assistant software, allegedly infringes a Chinese patent. The plaintiff and owner of the patent, Zhizhen Internet Technology Co., claims its version of the software has over 100 million users in China and is requesting the court to ban all manufacturing or sales of Apple’s product in China. This was not the first time Apple faced patent infringement claims in China. Last summer a Taiwanese man sued the company in China for alleged infringement relating to its Facetime technology.