Siri may have its first top contender for voice recognition dominance as soon as this fall.
Ask Ziggy, a virtual voice-powered assistant available for Windows Phone, announced Tuesday it has received $5 million in funding from “a publicly traded multinational corporation” that was not disclosed. Ask Ziggy will work with Nuance Communications to use this influx of finances to deliver mobile apps for “nearly all Android, Apple and Microsoft mobile devices by Q3 2012,” according to a press release.
Ask Ziggy, which purports to have processed more than 3 million voice searches since launching this year for Windows Phone 7, was deemed less than impressive in a review posted to The Next Web in January. “The interface is confusing, hard to parse, and dark,” wrote Alex Wilhelm. “Even more, the voice recognition is less than what Siri offers, which is itself insufficient.”
Further, Ask Ziggy announced its SDK will be available “shortly and that its first client will be the world’s first multi-billion dollar multinational corporation to use a personal assistant voice SDK for international transactions.”
As Chad discusses in his book Learning Everywhere, voice detection, voice control and dictation could have a tremendous impact on learning because of its potential to reduce the barrier to entry in interacting with phones and native apps. How frustrated do you get when you’re typing a word and the “smart” keyboard just can’t get it right? Tell your phone exactly what you want by using interactive voice response (IVR) technology to say what you want.
Tell us: What has your experience been like with Ask Ziggy if you’re a Windows Phone user? How has Siri helped your learning process? What do you think of the $5 million investment?
