A new artificial intelligence system from the creators of Siri is on the way.
Entitled Viv, it is being claimed that the new virtual assistant will be able to handle more complicated requests than Apple’s or Google’s helpers.
The founders of Viv Labs – Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham – believe Viv’s unique selling point is its ability to analyse different nouns in a sentence to come up with solutions for complicated requests.
The trio have been profiled in Wired, with the publication stating that an assistant like Siri wouldn’t be able to decipher the following statement: “On my way to my brother’s house, I need to pick up some cheap wine that goes well with lasagne.”
Viv on the other hand would pick up kew words in the sentence – such as lasagna, brother, and home – and use various functions on your smartphone – i.e a food app, your contacts, and location services – to recommend a wine you can pick up en route to your destination.
On top of that, the team claims Viv will know what you need without giving it a specific command. For example, if you said “drunk” it would automatically call you a cab. However, we’re not sure if it would order you a drink if you said “sober”.
Viv certainly sounds appealing but it currently faces additional competition from Windows Cortana and Apple’s revamped Siri, which will likely launch alongside the iPhone 6. Not to mention the intriguing voice command functions on Google’s Android Wear smartwatches.