'we all know siri as the virtual assistant there to help with anything, but what really went into making this assistant, and what was the inspiration?'--ynez foxe-robertson, 7th grade
Siri was an ongoing project that was added on to, and attempted many times, but the idea was originally created 1993. Siri’s original name was actually Iris; they went with Siri, because Siri was Iris spelled backwards. They wanted this name because they thought it was elegant but short, and something everyone could say or like. The idea in mind was to create a way to interact verbally through a smartphone.
We all love Siri, and it sparked many ideas for other virtual assistants, but the first voice activated piece of technology history was a children's toy named radio rex . It featured a dog in a dog house that would come out of its wooden pen when you called his name.
It’s scary to realize that know your phone might be listening to you, but there are definitely efforts to make this fear disperse. Like a bracelet, that you use to make sure neither Alexa or Siri is listening in on your conversation. You simply slip it on your hand and the ultrasonic transducers emit a sound at a frequency that humans can’t hear, that scrambles your speech, so that Alexa or Siri can't hear what you're saying. It works within a few feet remotely when the bracelet is worn. This technology was created and designed by students at the University of Chicago, and made a breakthrough in tech and science. The bracelet jammer uses your hand movements to amplify the range over which it works, which helps the bracelet mute your speech in perspective of any phone’s microphone within that range. this bracelet was named the bracelet of silence because when on, Siri can't hear anything.
Whenever you search for information on how Siri was recorded, a picture of a fairly old woman (Susan Bennett) comes up, leading you to think that Siri's voice was recorded from an actual human. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Susan Bennett is actually just the face of Siri. They used her voice, not her words. Then, how exactly is Siri created? Well, Siri's voice is a combination of voice recognition and natural language processing. Siri’s voice is made of codes, and not recording.
After saying a wake-up or initiating phrase, like “Hey Siri,” Siri’s small circular icon pops up on the screen, resembling a ball of the Northern Lights. When asked a question, Siri will answer with what's programmed. A program is like a reflex, just like our mind would tell our hand to stop putting our hand on a hot stove, because it was burning us.
Virtual assistants have a long history and big place in the world, and are important to know about. Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant all have beneficial factors in our life. Of course there are problems too, but as you have probably learned by reading this article, solutions are out and coming our way. Virtual assistants are one more step towards the future, and of course still need to be improved upon, but society is getting close to the perfect virtual voice.