Tim Worstall from Forbes.com is placing his cards on Google Now. Here is why I think he’s right. First off, I am now an iPhone user, coming from Android. But I still have Android devices that I use from time to time. So I am very familiar with both Google Now and Siri. Recently I had the LG G2 in for review, so I was carrying both my iPhone and Android along for several weeks. During those few weeks I decided to do an unscientific test with Siri and Google Now.
I asked them both the same questions when I needed assistance with something. And without fail, Google Now answered my questions correctly or gave me the information I needed 90% of the time, with minimal need to repeat myself. Siri on the other hand had a few more issues. Not only did I find that I had to repeat myself more than a few times, the percentage of correct answers or correct information given was a dismal 60%. Now this is one man’s test, so I am not claiming this is a test to measure everyone’s experiences by.
Mr. Worstall makes some obvious observations about why Google Now works so much better. And it’s simply, Google Now uses……Google. And Google is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the search engine databases. Mr. Worstall points to a quote from Scott Huffman below.
Scott Huffman, the Google engineering director leading the effort, said the company had a headstart on its competition because the way it calculates the rankings of search results give its systems an understanding of the meaning of how language is used in the real world.
He said: “The reason we feel pretty good in terms of competition is because what we’re seeing and everything we’re building today is built on top of the foundation of core web search rankings.
“If I say, ‘Show me the Eiffel Tower,’ I want pictures of the Eiffel Tower but, if I say, ‘Show me the money,’ I don’t want pictures because I’m talking about the line from the Jerry Maguire movie. Google actually knows that because of web rankings telling us.”
Related articles
- Why Google’s Now Might Beat Apple’s Siri (forbes.com)
- Google and Apple prep for battle over voice-controlled personal assistants (androidcommunity.com)
- Google Now And Siri Aiming For Top Spot As Voice Activated Tech Of The Future (androidheadlines.com)
Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
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