Siri Commercialization
● After DARPA project, SRI looked to commercialize the
product
● Identified as a way to improve mobile data usage
– Act as an interface for a user to make use of the dataintensive
services of the emerging mobile devices
● Several points contributed to success
– Improved capabilities of mobile devices
● Processing Power
● GPS and Wi-Fi for location
● 3G network speeds
– Improvements in natural-language processing
● In 2010, Apple purchased Siri
Gimbal SDK
● Context-Aware SDK developed by Qualcomm
● Provides context-aware development
framework for mobile platform
– Measurement of user activity and application
usage
– Location and movement tracking
– Push notification to specific users
– Privacy framework
Google Now
● Automatically maintained connection to other
services
– Zillow: automatic query for property listing based on
location
– Fandango: Reminder to leave for theater given that
user purchased a ticket
● Display relevant news articles
● Receive public alerts
Sherpa
● Android App
● Attempts to predict what information a user will need
next
● Anticipates important events based on context
– Location
– Communication history
– Calendar
● Cool Feature
– When close to a favorite coffee shop, will ask if you want
the regular and place the order
Context Not Utilized Yet
● Exact location within buildings
– Likely due to mapping constraints
● User physical gestures and non-verbal cues
– More than half of all communication is non-verbal
– User emotional reaction would be key to user
preferences
● Conversation context
Determine context of a user's conversation
● Display information relevant to the
conversation
● Next step is making decisions based on
conversational context
● Potential downsides are privacy concerns and
technology that is intrusive
