Thiagarajan said that one of the biggest hurdles for any software or adoption of technology is not limitation of features of functionalities, but the resistance shown by people to use it.With almost all smartphones in the industry today sporting voice assistants (be it Apple, Google, Samsung or Xiaomi), we are slowly moving from a touch-based interface to complex voice commands.So even if India may not be completely ready for voice assistants and voice-based home automation in their homes at this point, we are soon witnessing a speedy change in the lifestyle of its common man.Magic box or Pandora’s box? From a 4-year-old to 70-year-old, voice assistants are everyone’s pet. ‘It’s common to see people struggle when they are trying to adopt a new technology, whether it’s a new car or smartphone or voice assistants, any new method of telling a machine to do something has a learning curve, ’ he said.Billions of Yahoo user’s account details were once compromised, WannaCry ransomware held lakhs of PCs to pay ransom in bitcoins, but look around, you’ll still see people scrolling on Facebook, checking email and using PC while dismissing notifications that urge to update the OS with security patches. We are vulnerable in the hands of any piece of technology, that doesn’t mean we should abstain from it. While language is not only a big criteria, security and privacy of the user is also a huge concern. It’s justified from a layman’s perspective to be alarmed, but voice assistants are no different than any other consumer facing technology. The ‘email icon’ is an envelope, the ‘trash can icon’ is a dustbin; these are among the most recognizable skeuomorphic objects.From burger joints to AI-powered voice assistants; India is the hottest market in the world right now. These chatty little boxes are full of charm; they have something for everyone including nursery rhymes, recipes, devotional chants, health facts, cricket scores, stock indices and so on. In other words, Star Plus alone won’t do, we need Sun TV as well!Amazon Echo Plus and Echo dot, powered by China kitchen mats factory Alexa.
The onus of keeping user privacy intact is the primary responsibility of the service provider, and as consumers, we must err on the cautious side.Value vs. With technology getting cheaper, we could soon see ourselves walking into our homes and giving commands to everything around us. In a physical world, we continue to read news about debit cards being skimmed while using ATMs. With Voice, the challenges are not just in designing software but in getting the entire product market fit right; and cracking a strategy for a diverse country such as India is like nailing jelly on a wall. The real issue is how ready are people to adopt Voice, a whole new way of how we interact with machines. Agrahyah Technologies is building a suite of software and content from ground up in Indian vernacular languages, which is aimed at empowering the non-English internet users.The days aren’t too far when you could would be simply stepping up to your door and saying ‘OK Google, I’m home.Here are some pointers by Thiagarajan to critically examine if we are ready to enter the voice first world.India has a large population, and with people speaking multiple languages, dialect, accent and vocabulary, the voice assistant could end up confused or ineffective in most cases. This design philosophy is practiced by developers to friction when people adopt a new technology. Amazon was one of the first to adopt the Alexa voice assistant into a home appliance with their Echo speakers.Voice assistants are all the rage, the comparison between Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa won’t end until cows come home. The devices operate without the need of a smartphone and can now be catering homes with simple to complex tasks from answering simple questions to controlling almost all electronics in a house with just a voice command.Apple HomePod, powered by Siri
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