Siri Got A New Male Voice
Two New Addition of Vocals Has Been Integrated with The English Voice Commands of Apple’s Siri
The virtual assistant by Microsoft, Cortana, which has initially designed to compete against the Google voice Assistant and Apple’s Siri, is expected to retire on all mobile devices. Instead of working as a voice assistant, Cortana will focus its productivity on Windows 10, Microsoft Teams, and Outlook. Currently, the hashtag #RIPCortana is trending on Twitter as people around the world are reminiscing, or in some cases, pointing out their unforgettable experiences with Microsoft’s voice assistant over the past years.
End of Microsoft’s Cortana
Meanwhile, Siri by Apple would no longer have female voice support as default in the English language. The usage of a female voice in a voice assistant has been a long and controversial issue for a gender-typing cooperative, cybernetic companion
Microsoft’s Cortana was launched in the year 2014 as a virtual companion for smartphones launched with Windows operating system. The name Cortana was based on the advanced artificial intelligence guide in the best-selling video game series of that time by Microsoft Halo.
After three years after Cortana’s launch, the operating system of smartphones by Microsoft was abandoned by the tech firm, although the voice assistant Cortana was still available for public consumption in all Android or iPhone devices.
The end of an era for Cortana has been announced in the summer of last year, and in January this year, Microsoft has ended the support for their voice assistant integration in the Harman Kardon Invoke speakers. They had been offering the owners of these speakers who used Cortana in their daily lives a Microsoft gift card worth $50.
The chief analyst at CSS Insight research firm Ben Wood stated that there had been a certain inevitability to the abandonment of Microsoft for Cortana of its consumer-centric variant. Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa have recently become the voice assistants of choice and are easily available in mass-market throughout the world, leaving less amount of space for other rival voice assistants like Apple’s Siri.
Even a high-tech firm brand like Apple has also faced several struggles in the voice assistant department with Siri, despite making several massive investments in an attempt to further drive their platform in the forward direction.
The decision taken by Microsoft to double down on their voice assistant Cortana has been a very sensible decision as it would provide aid in productivity. As time goes on, Cortana would be really integrated into some of the specified platforms offered by Microsoft.
Female vocal commands
The rival firm Apple has unveiled two new voices for Siri while eliminating the previously made default vocal female sound in their newly launched version of 14.5 iOS.
In the year 2019, a report was given by the UNESCO stated that the usage of female vocal sounds as default in the voice assistants offered in the market, including Siri, gives the impression that women are generally docile, obliging along with willing and eager in an attempt to please helpers that are instantly available with a blunt voice command or a slight touch of a button.
According to Apple, the decision taken by them to put the onus on the consumers through which they would be able to choose the vocal speech of their liking on the voice assistant Siri. This shows the continuation of the tech giant Apple’s commitment to diversify and inclusion, along with their products and offered services which are designed for better reflection of the diversity found in the world we are currently living in.
Meanwhile, there are several languages and countries in which Siri already has the default voice of a male.
The beta version of Siri’s voice commands new vocals are live now, and users can participate in the program. This is a positive step taken by Apple regarding Siri, as it allows their users to choose the voice of their preference without the biased default voice being used. These new voices also bring variety in the English voice commands of Siri, as Siri is now able to provide diversity in the sound patterns and speech towards its users who are picking the voice they like.
The two new vocals offered by Apple in Siri uses source talent recordings which are later run through the Neural text to speech engine by Apple, that allows the voices to flow smoothly throughout the phrases which are being generated.
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