Apple Buys Startup, Presumably to Fight Google on Voice Recognition
The next move in the Clash of the Tech Titans has been made. Apple just bought a startup company named Siri, which is the developer behind the mobile assistant app of the same name. Although the price hasn't been disclosed, it can be assumed that Apple wants Siri so it can use its expertise in voice recognition software to combat that of Google's own voice-recognizing search app.
Basically, Siri is an app that can find things like restaurants, movie times, or other Saturday-night-activity details, all through voice recognition software. It brings a number of other apps' functions together (such as OpenTable, MovieTickets, StubHub, CitySearch and TaxiMagic) to search for the information you are looking for. Google's app isn't quite the same, in that it searches the internet using Google's search algorithm for whatever you say into the microphone.
It's hard not to see Apple as rather behind in voice recognition software for its mobile devices though, since Google Voice Search has been around for a while. And with Google, if there hasn't been any news for a while, it's safe to assume they are cooking up something to improve or replace what they already have.
Source: Gizmodo
