When Apple introduced Siri as part of it’s iPhone 4S announcement, developers from other companies quickly began working on equivalent voice assistant technologies. Google’s product has been code-named Majel, after the voice of the Federation Computer in Star Trek. Majel is an enhanced version of Google’s Voice Actions, currently available on most Android devices. Majel will be able to understand more natural language commands than Voice Actions’ “listen to,” “note to self,” and “send text to.”
In an interview on Slashgear, Google’s Matias Duarte recently said
“Our approach is more like Star Trek, right, starship Enterprise: every piece of computing surface, everything is voice-aware. It’s not that there’s a personality, it doesn’t have a name, it’s just Computer.”
Fans of Siri are reluctant to believe that Majel can be as intuitive and humanistic as Apple’s product. Siri’s voice recognition is nearly flawless, and was born out of an artificial intelligence project at SRI International, a research institue. Siri’s personality is “friendly and humble — but also with an edge”. Users can ask ridiculous questions, and Siri responds with a sense of humor. It will be interesting to see if Google’s Majel will be as intuitive as Siri.
One advantage to Voice Actions over Siri has been in navigation – Voice Actions gives turn by turn directions, whereas Siri will connect you to Google Maps. Apple has set the bar pretty high, but initial reports of Majel’s preformance shows it as a solid competitor.
Majel was rumored by the New York Times to be available by the end of December 2011, although more conservative estimates are for January or February of 2012.
