Siri creators will unveil rival virtual assistant Viv

New AI Bot – Taking Technology to Next Level

Apple has been getting ready to unveil, two creators of Siri, virtual assistant for iPhone and iPad, with a new AI bot which say will be taking the technology to the next level. According Washington Post report, for the first time, Viv which will be demonstrated publicly at a most important conference soon is said to be the most highly expected technology to come out of a start-up this year.

However, Viv is by no means alone in this attempt. The mission to define the next generation of artificial intelligence technology had generated an arms race among the five major tech giants namely Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon.com who have announced major investments in virtual assistant software over the past year. Envisioned to be an improved vision of Siri, developers want consumers to capable of getting a pizza delivered for instance, without the need to phone, fill out a form online to use a restaurant app.

All that is needed is to tell Viv what pizza is needed and from which location. AI assistants have been advertised for long as the next big shift in digital commerce enabling users of smartphone to book a cab, make reservation in a restaurant as well as buy film tickets without the need to type a letter.

Makers Want Technologies in a Range of Products

According to the Post, Viv Labs has been partnering with about 50 outside companies comprising of GrubHub, Uber, Zocdoc and SeatGuru to enable its AI tap into their services. Viv’s chief executive, Dag Kittlaus, informed Washington Post that `it is about taking the way that humans have naturally interacted with each other for thousands of years and applying that to the way they interact with services. Everyone knows how to hold a conversation.

Mr Kittlaus together with his colleague Adam Cheyer were among the co-founders of Siri that had been the first mainstream virtual assistant when it had been obtained in 2010 by Apple. The newspaper had reported that instead of restricting Viv to another company, like Siri, the makers wanted the technology in a range of products comprising of TVs, cars and all types of connected devices. Siri, since its launch in 2011 has become progressively intelligent and now can hold basic two-way conversation with its users. Though it is not without faults but still tends to struggle in understanding different accents as well as specific commands.

Changeover to Turn Smartphones/Smart Homes/Cars – Virtual Assistants

In 2014, Microsoft had launched its own assistant known as Cortana while Facebook had unveiled `M’ in August. The silent four year old Viv is among the extreme along in an endeavour which several in Silicon Valley believe heralds the next big shift in computing and digital commerce.

 Julie Ask, an expert in mobile commerce at Forrester, stated that for the next five years, that changeoverwould turn smartphones and probably smart homes as well as cars together with other devices into virtual assistantswith supercharged conversational abilities.Powered by artificial intelligence and exceptional volumes of data, they could be the portal wherein billions of people tend to connect to every service and business in the internet world.

Apple Loses Trademark Fight Over iPhone Name in China

Apple Lost Trademark Fight in China

Apple has lost a trademark fight in China which means that the firm that tends to sell handbags together with the other leather goods can continue using the name `iPhone’ and the `R’ registered trademark symbol. According to the official Legal Daily newspaper, the Beijing Municipal High People’s Court had ruled in favour of Xintong Tiandi Technology.

 Xintong Tiandi, in 2010 had trademarked `iPhone’ for leather products. In 2002, Apple had filed a trademark bid for the name for electronic goods but the same had not been approved till 2013. The Legal Daily, in Chinese, is extensively recognised as the official spokesperson for the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the country and its report had come out in late April though it had only just been widely circulated.

Apple had first bought the case against the company to the Chinese trademark authority in 2012 then when that failed had filed a lawsuit in a lower Beijing court. However, both had ruled against Apple and so it had appealed to the higher court. The higher court ruled that Apple could not prove that it was a popular brand in China before Xintong Tiandi had filed its trademark application in 2007.

Apple Facing Problems in Other Operations

Apple iPhone had first gone on sale in China in 2009. The decision comes close to the latest quarterly earnings report of Apple which indicated a 13% drop in revenue on slower iPhone sales and sales had dropped by 26% in China.

Apple has also been facing problems in other operations in China. Beijing had passed a law in March which required all content shown in China to be stored on servers established on the Chinese mainland. As a consequence iBooks and iTunes services of Apple were shut down in the country. Apple had mentioned that it expected access to the service would be restored quickly.

This move had been seen as a blow to Apple since China seems to be the second biggest market for its products. Carl Icahn, billionaire investor had recently sold all his shares in Apple due to concerns regarding the technology firm’s predictions in China.

Apple Credited for Popularizing iPhone

According to a source familiar with the matter, Apple and Xintong Tiandi had also earlier knocked each other. The U.S. firm had won at least five distinct iPhone-related trademark disputes against Xintong Tiandi in other categories like rubber products as well as advertising services. At least from Xintong Tiandi’s side there does not seem to be any hard feeling regarding the lawsuit. Mr Xiong had stated that his company would be open to any kind of commercial cooperation with Apple in the near future.

The Chinese firm, in a press release had also credited Apple with popularizing the iPhone name and in turn contributed to the success of Xintong Tiandi. Xintong Tiandi had mentioned in the release which had been posted online by PRNewswire and verified by Mr Xiong that the successful commercial operation and marketing of Apple had made `’iPhone the symbol of high tech and fashion.

Addictive new iPhone Game Lets You Play Without Unlocking Your Screen

Play Games from Lock Screen

Anyone who has spent a little time around the App Store will confirm that users of iPhone and iPads tend to have no shortage of games from which to select. App Store tends to have a variety of choices to choose from. Besides this game, there are six games which the user can play from your Lock Screen.

The need of unlocking the phone to play the new Flappy Bird which is quite addictive does not arise, since it tends to live in your Notification Centre. The same was built by Ivan De Cabo, a 22 year old who had built it in a weekend. The creator informed TechCrunch that he wanted to do a simple game just for improving his code skills and decided to do it in the Notification Centre. This was done for two reasons; one was to challenge himself and to see if it could be possible.

The little dinosaur tends to sit between the weather and the stocks and one can get him to jump over cacti for as long as possible. The game is said to be based on the Google Chrome Easter egg. This enables the player to play a version of the game when Google Chrome is unable to access the internet.

Favourite Locked Screen App

To play the Chrome version of Steve The Jumping dinosaur one needs to just press the space bar when the computer informs that the internet is not available and can play the game. Though Steve The Jumping Dinosaur is surely the favourite locked screen app, it is definitely not the first. In 2014 the tech company had cracked down on developers creating apps for the Notification Centre since they stated that it was for `information presentation only’.

On the App store, an unlikely platform game which one would recognise from the broken safari browser `Steve The Jumping Dinosaur, is now made available to the user. The game for now is fun and one can unlock new characters as you progress. Steve The Jumping Dinosaur is a free game which can be accessed without unlocking the phone. It not only kills time but also makes it just a bit easier to have fun with gaming without the need to fidget about while entering the passcode. It is a fun game wherein users can play on pulling down the Notification Centre of the iPhone on the locked screen.

Integration with iOS Notifications

On doing so, it will bring up Steve The Jumping Dinosaur as he tends to sit between the weather and the stocks, running as well as jumping over the incoming cacti. It also tends to feature Nyan Cat. Being highly addictive and oddly baffling, the game tends to work as a widget in notification enabling the iPhone user to play any time without the need of unlocking the phones. The remarkable thing is the integration with the iOS notifications. Some of the apps that had been blocked from being utilised include PCalc, a quick access calculator, Launcher, an app-launching widget for the notification centre and Drafts an app to make notes.

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Autocorrect Fail? Apple has a Solution

Apple’s Patent Application – Autocorrected Words Underlined within Text Message

Autocorrect has been an indispensable tool to text quickly though it could also lead to some humiliating errors. A new patent application has been reported that Apple intends fixing autocorrect and has come up with a solution to this error. The company had filed a patent for a fix which would see message recipients warned that the words by the sender have been automatically corrected, thus averting the confusion of viewing incoherent or rude message.

At the moment, autocorrected words are presented just the way as any other word, when messages are being written as well as read. The proposal of Apple is that they would be highlighted using an underscore in both the typing window andwhen it is read by its intended target, distinguishing an autocorrected word from any other word.

The document which had first been marked by blog Apple Insider, intends a feature which would distinguish visually specific words in a text message which has been autocorrected. It is not known how Apple intends to do so, though the images of the patent application portray autocorrected words being underlined within a text message. Thepatent reads `an improved user interface for displaying electronic messages including replacement character strings is needed.

Accept Changes/ Request Clarification

An idea illustrated in the document included an `Accept changes’ button which a user can tap to approve the autocorrected message prior to sending it. Another image shows a `Request Clarification’ button that seems to be an option for the recipient to utilise it while receiving a text which does not make much sense owing to autocorrect edits.

 Additional method could include a few proposals for words which could make more sense in the given context. iPhone keyboard of Apple tends to offer option to choose from, while autocorrecting a misspelled word yet once the change has been applied, has no graphic display that a word had been edited. It is a good idea which could eradicate confusion but there is no sign that Apple intends to bring this feature to iPhone software in the near future. Patent application only indicates that this is an issue which Apple is looking into.

Additional Details at Worldwide Developers Conference

Devices, methods and graphical user interfaces for sending and receiving electronic messages comprising of replacement character strings, tends to improve communication between a sender as well as recipient, which is done by notifying the sender or the recipient when a character string had been replaced by an electronic device. As in the case of several patents of Apple, it is not clear when or if this would really make it into its software and probably the fix would work only on iMessage of Apple.

 The metadata involved in marking some words as corrected would not be suitable for text messages together with other services like WhatsApp or emails would find it complex to support the standard. Apple would probably unveil additional details regarding the new features coming to the iPhone at the time of the opening keynote at its Worldwide Developers Conferences to be held on June 13.