Announced at last year’s Google I/O conference, Google Now is now bringing the personal assistant service and predictive search to iOS users. It has arrived as an update to the Google Search app for iOS and is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Google Now’s response via voice recognition is much quicker, compared to Siri. And iOS users will get predictive “cards”, whether you asked for it or not, for stuff such as weather, traffic, navigation and sports scores (you can choose what comes on), and this service depends on the way you use Google services. So it’s like getting an answer before you know you want one.

Unlike the Google Now on Android (4.1 and later), the iOS version requires you to log into your Google account for using Now. It also won’t run in the background, and there will be no notifications. This might not be a perfect version, but it certainly gives iDevice owners a taste of what Google Now has to offer.

To get your hands on Google Now for iOS, head over to the App Store.

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In its current form, Siri can certainly be quite useful as a digital assistant, but what if you want something even more amazing out of Apple’s assistant, like the ability to control your smart house? That’s exactly what Youtube user “Elvis Impersonator” set out to do using his iPhone and a SiriProxy-loaded Raspberry Pi.

The results are that he can now control the thermostat at his home, shut off and dim lights, open/close the garage and even change TV channels, all from Siri.

Here’s a quote from the man behind this project:

I have been following the development of SiriProxy since its initial appearance in November 2011 and even got it installed and working on an Marvell SheevaPlug ARM based plug computer. I spent countless nights dreaming of the day I could use voice commands to control my home, but I was still under a long term contract on my existing iPhone. I already had been experimenting with IP2IR control in various forms, but the controller I use in the video seemed to offer the most features which the manufacturer added a REST API in March 2012.

Wishing you could do something like this yourself? You can. All of this user’s SiriProxy plugins are open sourced and available via his GitHub page. Pretty cool stuff, wouldn’t you say?

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We’ve heard all sorts of rumors about the supposed specs on the next Xbox, but that’s on the hardware side of things. On the software side of things, it seems that Microsoft wants to make an even bigger push for the “Xbox 720″ to be the focal point of your living room. It’s not just about games. It’s a full-on multimedia and web-connected hub, getting you to watch Netflix and Hulu, search for information on Bing, and yes play multimedia games via Kinect.

Word on the street is that the Xbox 720 can be in sleep mode and you turn it back on with a simple “Xbox on” voice command. You can use the natural language processing to check on what your friends are currently playing or continue watching a movie that you paused yesterday. The Kinect sensor can also detect when there are multiple people in the room, suggesting fun multiplayer games for those situations and more solo games when it only detects one person in the room.

I’ve seen voice-based user interfaces on certain smart televisions these last couple of years and they all make me reach for the traditional remote instead. I’m not sure how different Microsoft can be on that front–I never use the voice commands on my Kinect–but perhaps this “Siri-like” experience will finally be what we wanted it to be in the beginning. In either case, the new Xbox is expected to make its debut at GDC or E3 with a launch in time for the 2013 holiday shopping season. Now we just have to see what Sony has up its home console sleeve.

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Today SIRI is known as one of the most impressive features found on Apple hardware, yet did you know that before Apple bought the technology, SIRI was preparing for a very different path: a home on Verizon’s Droid range.

That’s right, in late 2009, Siri’s founders signed a deal with Big Red to bring Siri to Android devices as part of their Droid line-up. The news originally comes from Huffington Post, which reports that Verizon even began filming early commercials that showed off SIRI technology on its Android phones such as the original Droid.

How different things would be if that deal had went down. Instead, Apple acquired SIRI and the technology re-emerged in October of 2011 as an exclusive feature of the iPhone 4S.

While it doesn’t change the way things are today, it does make you think about how just a few small changes in the history of mobile tech could have really had massive affects on the way things played out.

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When it comes to Siri, you get an excellent voice assistant. That said, it isn’t perfect. One of its flaws could arguably be that it uses Apple Maps. What if you really want to use Google Maps instead? Don’t worry, easy enough without a jailbreak.

The Jailbreak Nation video below shows us exactly how to get it done. Basically, all you are doing is talking to Siri differently. Instead of saying “take me to Target”, you say, “take me to Target using transit.”

As you probably know, Apple Maps doesn’t do transit and so this will open up a display of transit apps. Pick Google Maps and you can go from there.

Granted this isn’t a true Siri/Google Maps integration, its more of a simple trick that makes things a bit easier. That said, not everyone has problems with Apple Maps. In some cities it works quite well for basic use.

In the Australian outback? You might want a different solution though. What do you think of the new iOS version of Google Maps? Conversely, do you still use Apple Maps instead?

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During Apple’s iOS6 keynote at WWDC a few months ago, Apple told us that they were working with car manufacturers to bring Siri to the wheel. More specifically, Apple announced they were working with:

• Toyota
• GM
• Mercedes
• BMW
• Audi
• Honda
• Land Rover
• Jaguar

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The OS X 10.9 version of Siri should be much like the version that you’ve already seen on your iOS devices, letting you do the voice assistant thing to search for stuff on the web or add events to your calendar. Remember that Mountain Lion already has Dictation, which is using the same kind of hardware resources and infrastructure as Siri already. It wouldn’t take much to take that leap.

As far as Apple Maps go, they’re also reportedly getting integrated in OS X 10.9, allowing developers to embed a map into the apps they list through the Mac App Store. They’ll use the same MapKit framework as developing for iOS, but it’s also possible that a full-blown Maps app could make its way to Mac OS X too.

If we assume that Apple will follow a similar release schedule as it did with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, then early previews should appear in February with the formal launch coming around July.

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I should be clear, though, that this isn’t really Google Now in the way that you get with Android Jelly Bean. You don’t get those “cards” for the weather and directions for the drive home. Instead, what NowNow does is bring Google Voice Search to the forefront. All you have to do is hold the home button and up will pop the Google Voice Search. That part of the interface really does look like the Android equivalent.

It should be noted that Google Voice Search doesn’t communicate with other iOS apps, so you won’t be able to set appointments or that kind of thing, but you might find the Google searches to be more accurate than what Siri is giving you. You can find NowNow in the BigBoss repository in Cydia and it’s a free download.

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It looks like the problems with the new Apple Maps aren’t the only ones plaguing the iPhone 5. It turns out that the autocorrect feature is adding “random” accents to anything you type in Italian. There have been multiple reports of this issue in Italy, so it’s not just affecting a small handful of users.

I can’t speak or read Italian, but I do understand that accents can have a dramatic effect on words, completely changing their meaning. Present tense becomes past tense and the word for “and” can become the word of “he is,” for example. This comes about when you use the autocorrect feature with iOS6 and, well, everyone uses autocorrect on their smartphones these days.

While the autocorrect seems to “learn” its mistakes when the user manually selects the correct replacement, this process can take up to seven iterations for that single mistake. Considering how many words in Italian have (and don’t have) accents, you can see how this problem would affect nearly every possible piece of text you could type up on the iPhone.

So, what is the only current solution to “Accent-gate” on Italian-language iPhones? Turn off autocorrect…. or, if it makes any sense for you, switch to another language until Tim Cook and the team at Apple fix this issue.

The post Mamma Mia! “Accent-gate” Hits Apple iPhone in Italy appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Siri has now made its way over to the new iPod Touch, and of course its on the 4S and iPhone 5. What about your Mac though? It seems that Apple may eventually bring SIRI abilities over to their desktop and laptop offerings as well.

Okay, so Apple hasn’t actually said anything official about it, but let’s connect the dots. Here’s some information from a recent patent discovery that might suggest Mac is getting SIRI in the near future:

The electronic device may process voice commands locally or voice commands processing may be performed remotely. For example, the electronic device may transmit one or more recorded voice commands and associated contextual information to computing equipment such as a desktop computer.

The wording could also simply suggest that SIRI on iOS can communicate with Macs to execute commands. Adding SIRI on Mac would make sense, though. Windows already has some voice control elements, and this would be a great way to one-up Windows. Imagine using SIRI for programs like iTunes. SIRI could suggest new songs and would maybe even bring voice functionality into videos and more.

What do you think? Would you be interested in getting SIRI functionality baked into OSX in the future?

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