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“There were many conversations within the team about whether it should be gender neutral” or “should have an ‘attitude,’ ” said Mr. Winarsky, who didn’t go to Apple, and still works at SRI. The result, before the software was bought by Apple, was “occasionally a light attitude,” he said.
When Apple began integrating Siri into the iPhone, the team focused on keeping its personality friendly and humble—but also with an edge, according to a person who worked at Apple on the project. As Apple’s engineers worked on the software, they were often thinking, “How would we want a person to respond?” this person said.
The Siri group, one of the largest software teams at Apple, fine-tuned Siri’s responses in an attempt to forge an emotional tie with its customers. To that end, Siri regularly uses a customer’s nickname in responses, as well as those of other important people and places in his or her life. “We thought of it almost as a person on the phone,” this person said.
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Ask the iPhone to “Open the pod bay doors”—a reference to the movie “2001”—and some users say it answers back in a frighteningly slow voice, reminiscent of HAL 9000, the computer that leaves an astronaut to die in space. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” says Siri.
Sometimes she punctuates that answer with, “We intelligent agents will never live that down, apparently.”
This is why Siri will work. Trying to get people to give voice commands naturally to an object feels weird, silly, embarrassing, and against all of our learned behavior.
Personify the AI service, and it just feels less awkward. And more fun.
(via WSJ)
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DC-based music duo Bluebrain release a “location-based album” called The National Mall, in which music tracks only activate as you pass through certain zones of the Mall itself.
I think this is fucking brilliant. Technology putting music in context to create something more meaningful and exclusive and personal. Wow.
via Killscreen, where you can also read an interview.
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A terrific Ted talk more for presentation than content. Elaborate magic trick using three iPods and a story about deception. (TED)
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The problem with tattoos is they’re permanent and static, so after a while the novelty wears off. Not so if your tattoo includes a QR code linking to an animation. Not only is it a cool conversation piece, but you could update the video any time you wanted.
(Which I hope this guy does, cause the end result is a bit underwhelming. Still, neat!)
(via Wired)
Not only are 3D printers the future… kids like this are the future. Adorable AND smart. Love it. (via Boing Boing)
Lady Gaga makes her debut as creative director of Polaroid with… Gaga Glasses? (via LAT)
A handy and enjoyably animated look at macro trends for 2011. Other marketing/creative people, repress the gut reaction of, “Pfft, I knew all that already”, because chances are even if we do, we aren’t acting on most of this yet. Let’s catch up to the present before we start demanding better predictions about the future. (via JWT)
Compared to the number of people visiting these stores, the Location-based craze has surely not hit the big time yet. (via AdAge)
I go on the internet. Opening Safari is an actively destructive decision. I am asking that consciousness be taken away from me. Like the lost time between leaving a party drunk and materializing somehow at your front door, the internet robs you of a day you can visit recursively or even remember. You really want to know what it is about 20-somethings? It’s this: we live longer now. But we also live less. It sounds hyperbolic, it sounds morbid, it sounds dramatic, but in choosing the internet I am choosing not to be a certain sort of alive. Days seem over before they even begin, and I have nothing to show for myself other than the anxious feeling that I now know just enough to engage in conversations I don’t care about.
Sorry, writers! As a recent Kindle adopter myself, I’d counter-argue that twice as many people are comfortable spending $12.99 on a book than $28, so I’m guessing it’s the publishers who are really put out by this. Also, writers, I’d gladly fork over the extra $2 if it went straight into your pocket. (via WSJ)
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