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More accurate: Siri or a Magic 8 Ball?
hint: This is not good news for Apple, or HighTech in general.
http://www.hlntv.com/article/2012/07...ball?hpt=hp_c2
In news sure to send John Malkovich crying into his "linguica," a study has found that Siri botches roughly one out of every three searches.
Sample botch: When Siri was asked "Where is Elvis buried?" it failed to come up with an answer because it couldn't locate anyone named Elvis Buried. Which would actually be kind of funny... if you didn't just plunk down $199 for an iPhone 4S.
Gene Munster, a senior analyst with investment firm Piper Jaffray, asked Siri 800 questions while on a noisy street and 800 questions in a quiet room. Siri provided accurate answers 62% of the time on the street and 68% of the time in the quiet room. By comparison, the analyst found a standard Google text search gave accurate answers 86% of the time.
In a note to clients, Munster wrote, "You're playing the lottery when you're using Siri." Wow. Is using Zooey Deschanel's favorite rainy day robot really that much of a crapshoot?
Well, we don't have a whole lottery handy to find out, but we do have a Magic 8 Ball. It's not as fancy, pretty or talkative as Siri -- but is it more accurate?
Only one way to find out.
So we asked Siri and our Magic 8 Ball the same ten 'yes or no' questions. Here's what happened:
...
Sample botch: When Siri was asked "Where is Elvis buried?" it failed to come up with an answer because it couldn't locate anyone named Elvis Buried. Which would actually be kind of funny... if you didn't just plunk down $199 for an iPhone 4S.
Gene Munster, a senior analyst with investment firm Piper Jaffray, asked Siri 800 questions while on a noisy street and 800 questions in a quiet room. Siri provided accurate answers 62% of the time on the street and 68% of the time in the quiet room. By comparison, the analyst found a standard Google text search gave accurate answers 86% of the time.
In a note to clients, Munster wrote, "You're playing the lottery when you're using Siri." Wow. Is using Zooey Deschanel's favorite rainy day robot really that much of a crapshoot?
Well, we don't have a whole lottery handy to find out, but we do have a Magic 8 Ball. It's not as fancy, pretty or talkative as Siri -- but is it more accurate?
Only one way to find out.
So we asked Siri and our Magic 8 Ball the same ten 'yes or no' questions. Here's what happened:
...