Do you love your Android smartphone but hate that one friend who brags about his iPhone 4S having Siri? Well it looks as though you could soon have a comeback, as Google is secretly working on a Siri rival for its Android software.
Android already has voice control – you can tell your phone to make calls, dictate text messages and choose what to listen to – but it’s lacking that natural feel that you get with Siri; some say Siri is more ‘conversational’ when compared to Android. However, Google is reported to be working on something called ‘Project Majel’, which will improve Android Voice Actions tenfold.
Android and Me broke the story earlier today, spilling the beans on Google’s secret project. If the details turn out to be true, we can imagine Google are probably seething right now.
According to the blog, Google are working on the next step for Android Voice Actions, and will be adding ‘natural language processing’ to the software. This means that future versions of Android will allow you speak more naturally when placing a request, just like with Siri. For example, you’ll be able to say “text Mum”, rather than “send text message” followed by a secondary command to choose the contact.
Google is working on the project in their most secret of development labs, which is headed by one founder of the company – Sergey Brin – and is dubbed “Clandestine Google X”.
With thelatest version of Android only just hitting the market, we can envision Google aiming to bake these Siri-like features into the first major update. Perhaps we’ll see the fruits of Project Majel in Ice Cream Sandwich version 4.1?
As for the name of Project Majel? Majel was the voice of the computer in Star Trek, so it certainly suits such a project.
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Via: 9to5Google