Linked List: December 20, 2018

Thursday, 20 December 2018

Siri Gains in Loup Ventures’s Annual Smart Speaker IQ Test ★

Related to John Giannandrea’s leadership of Apple’s AI and ML teams:

We recently tested four smart speakers by asking Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana 800 questions each. Google Assistant was able to answer 88% of them correctly vs. Siri at 75%, Alexa at 73%, and Cortana at 63%. Last year, Google Assistant was able to answer 81% correctly vs. Siri (Feb-18) at 52%, Alexa at 64%, and Cortana at 56%. […]

Over a 12-month period, Google Home improved by 7 percentage points, Echo by 9 points, Siri (9-month) by 22 points, and Cortana by 7 points in terms of questions answered correctly.

And:

It’s also important to note that HomePod’s underperformance in many areas is due to the fact that Siri’s ability is limited on HomePod as compared to your iPhone. Many Information and Commerce questions are met with, “I can’t get the answer to that on HomePod.” This is partially due to Apple’s apparent positioning of HomePod not as a “smart speaker,” but as a home speaker you can interact with using your voice with Siri onboard.

There’s no “apparent” about it — that’s exactly how Apple has positioned HomePod. So part of the gap between HomePod and Google Home is in questions Siri can answer on other devices.

Apple’s biggest problem with Siri will soon be convincing people that it has improved enough to be worth trying again. Siri faces a “boy who cried wolf” problem — except instead of lying, people stopped trying it because it sucked.

John Giannandrea Named to Apple’s Executive Team ★

Apple Newsroom:

Apple today announced that John Giannandrea has been named to the company’s executive team as senior vice president of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy. He joined Apple in April 2018.

Giannandrea oversees the strategy for AI and Machine Learning across all Apple products and services, as well as the development of Core ML and Siri technologies. His team’s focus on advancing and tightly integrating machine learning into Apple products is delivering more personal, intelligent and natural interactions for customers while protecting user privacy.

Giannandrea, you will recall, came to Apple from Google, where he was in charge of AI and search. It is quite possible that he is the best person in the world Apple could have hired to head up artificial intelligence and machine learning. Apple’s goal, obviously, is to meet or exceed Google in these areas — which is to say to lead the industry.

Drones Ground Flights at Gatwick Airport in ‘Deliberate Act’ of Disruption ★

BBC News:

Tens of thousands of passengers have been disrupted by drones flying over one of the UK’s busiest airports. Gatwick’s runway has been shut since Wednesday night, as devices have been repeatedly flying over the airfield.

Sussex Police said it was not terror-related but a “deliberate act” of disruption, using “industrial specification” drones. About 110,000 passengers on 760 flights were due to fly on Thursday. Disruption could last “several days”.

Drones are super cool, and it’s amazing what footage talented drone operators can capture. But I keep wondering how long they can remain legal. This massive travel disruption at Gatwick is bad enough — I can only imagine how furious the passengers are whose flights have been grounded by this stunt.

But how long until someone like this uses a drone to commit violence?

Update: I had forgotten about this story from August: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro survived an assassination attempt by drones rigged with explosives.