Tag: mobile technology

Users of iPhones may or may not be comforted by the fact that their smartphones may know the sound of their voices.

Apple users have become very used to the sound of the vocal command feature of their devices, and now the Siri voice recognition technology is actually allowing the device to recognize the sound of its own owner.

This allows Siri to compare the voice of the owner of the smartphone to that of other people.

This new feature has been added to the Siri set up process in the latest iOS 9.1 GM. As there is an M9 motion processor built into the latest iPhone devices, this makes it possible for Siri voice recognition to remain functional 24/7. The reason, said the Tech Times, was because the co-processor of the device is always on. Furthermore, due to the latest set up process, these smartphone owners can actually train the recognition feature of Siri by using the built-in device microphone and speaking a few words.

This gives the Siri voice recognition the ability to become accustomed to the voice of a device’s specific user.

When a phrase has not been stated in a way that is clear, Siri will continue to request that the user repeat it until the entire line has been completely understood. In order to take advantage of the individual voice recognition from Siri, there are five steps that a user must complete. For most people, this should be relatively straight-forward.

That said, there has yet to be official confirmation as to whether or not the outcome of requests will be any different depending on whether or not it is the user’s voice that is detected during a query. Moreover, it isn’t entirely clear whether or not iPhone owners who use their devices bilingually will need to repeat the training in their two different languages. That said, Siri can speak 25 different languages, so it is likely a good idea for an owner to choose his or her primary language for the training for Siri’s recognition of his or her voice.

Before the latest update to iOS, the Siri voice recognition feature required users to take a few exercises. Only after that point could the “Hey, Siri” feature be used because the digital assistant would be able to tell who was talking.

According to a new report, the large financial institutions are falling behind with the latest tech.

Despite the fact that mobile banking and payments are right at our doorstep and are being used at an increasing rate, in Canada, almost half of all banking execs don’t believe that they have the IT systems, infrastructure, and processes in place to be able to meet present – let alone future – customer needs and expectations over their smartphones.

The report was entitled “Banks: Customers Expect That You’re Always On and Available, Are You Ready?”

The report was made by CenturyLink and it pointed out that even some of the central services still require better IT. It pointed out that when it come to mobile banking and technology, about 40 percent of C-level financial execs who were surveyed didn’t feel that the IT infrastructure was in place for meeting the basic banking service needs to the level of customer expectations. CenturyLink’s managing director of financial services, Roji Oommen, said that “To stay competitive in a technology-driven marketplace, Canadian banks must be both financial institutions and mobile technology innovators.”

While mobile banking may not yet be keeping up with technology, it’s not that the resources aren’t out there.

The hope that CenturyLink certainly has from the insight in this report is that the banks will see that it and companies like it area already offering the types of services that will help those financial institutions to get themselves on the right path. These strategic technology partners do actually have the potential to spot the mobile tech solutions that are needed and to help in their integration – if not implement them on behalf of those Canadian banks.

The report also determined that 78 percent of banking execs in the country felt that customer demand for improved mobile banking and technology based services would cause them to be required to do more outsourcing. It stated that when those execs were asked about what parts of their IT are currently being outsourced, 86 percent said that they did so for IT infrastructure requirements, while another 72 percent said that they were outsourcing for their IT security.