Why on earth haven't MS hired the guy who programmed Ask Ziggy?

[Pronk]

One dev has basically made an app that's 90% of the way to being Siri on the iPhone 4S, yet it runs on *all* Windows Phones and is much better/has more functionality than Tell Me.

Why the heck hasn't this guy been hired yet? Because I would be staggered if Apple/Google weren't keeping a close eye on him.

 

[Reflexx]

As far as I understand, the app uses TellMe. It's not like he created some voice recognition software on his own.

The app just takes what you say and looks for key words or phrases. It then uses those phrases to search certain databases or websites and then it pops up an answer. Then uses the voice tools in WP to read out the text that it found on the website.

To simplify... it's like taking what you say, punching it into a search engine, and then reading one of the results out loud.

In the meantime, MS is already working on something Siri-like with TellMe.

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR74_TT8lN8[/YT]

 

[TheWeeBear]

And just incase anyone hasn't seen the WPCentral article on the forthcoming new improved Ask Ziggy....

http://www.windowscentral.com/ask-z...d-major-overhaul-horizon-exclusive-first-pics

Tada!

 

[bear_lx]

have you used it? i feel like it is kinda lame? it says the same thing eveytime. and you have to click a button to get web search results, which is all its doing. there is no difference in this than going to bing and using its voice button for a web search...

however wiztiles is an app worth mentioning

 

[anon(5335877)]

I thought it used Nuance's voice recognition?

 

[willied]

I thought it used Nuance's voice recognition?

Correct.

 

[Reflexx]

I thought it used Nuance's voice recognition?

My bad.

The point is, he didn't create some voice recognition software on his own.

Not to take anything away from what he has accomplished by himself. It's not like creating voice recognition software is exactly something even a team of people could do without a lot of hard hard hard work.

BTW... has he given any reason why he didn't use TellMe? I thought the API was released.

UPDATE: Never mind. I see that the TellMe API for Windows Phone hasn't been released yet. I'm not sure how it works. I know that most of TellMe isn't actually on the phone, but on MS servers. So I guess there would have to be access given for that.

 

[jimski]

Ziggy had a pretty good answer for, "what is the meaning of life".

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[Dormage]

Its pointless to talk about development not being a developer.
The app it self is pretty easy to do!
All the answers are from sites like ask.com. 99% of the answers are Bing searches.
It is a cool app but its defenetly not worth a job at Microsoft

And i just got an idea for an app...
-opens Visual studio-

 

[will_solo]

As far as I understand, the app uses TellMe. It's not like he created some voice recognition software on his own.

The app just takes what you say and looks for key words or phrases. It then uses those phrases to search certain databases or websites and then it pops up an answer. Then uses the voice tools in WP to read out the text that it found on the website.

To simplify... it's like taking what you say, punching it into a search engine, and then reading one of the results out loud.

In the meantime, MS is already working on something Siri-like with TellMe.

Click to view quoted video

If it really ends up working like anything on that YouTube video, I will never go to another OS again. Siriously!

 

[mkr10001]

Probably because it's useless.

I ask it the time and it tells me the time in some random country and says the device I'm using should have a clock.

I also asked it why it was so rubbish and it started telling me about N*SYNC and backstreet boys.

Try it...."why are you so rubbish?"

 

[Retro_uk]

Bit of a bump here. Wondered if there was any further news on how MS are doing with improving TellMe as that video above is a fair few months old now. I do hope that it doesn't become something unique to WP8 in the hope of it being a nice bullet point.

Anyway, on to Ask Ziggy. I downloaded it last night (think it is on 2.8 now?) and have had some fun with it. Sure it can be flaky, but I do like some simple new additions like being able to dictate an alarm setting, or quick reminders.

It is a shame it doesn't have calendar integration as I need to add a ton of birthdays to my phone and the thought of typing them in fills me with dread

But compared to videos I have seen on youtube of AskZiggy from the beginning of the year, it seems to have improved a fair bit. Of course it helps if you speak with "no accent" or a hint of a U.S one, especially where names are concerned.

 

[Daniel Rubino]

The dev from Ask Ziggy has hired other devs to help him and he's getting much assistance (read that as you will) from Microsoft.

You will see more of it for WP8.

 

[HeyCori]

Grats to the developers but I fear Ask Ziggy may become just another "me-too" app amongst a flood of voice recognition software.

Ask Ziggy speaks to investors, walks away with a cool $5m to expand its service | wpcentral | Windows Phone News, Forums, and Reviews