Putting free digital assistants to the test
Friend and Helper
© Lead Image © iofoto, 123RF.com
Researchers from the University of Michigan have built an intelligent personal assistant akin to Siri and Cortana from free components. Although the Sirius Project focuses on the server load created by digital assistant software, we are interested in the usability of Sirius and its successor Lucida.
What does the chief engineer of a spaceship in the 23rd century do to operate a computer from the 20th century? He picks up the mouse and says, "Hello, computer" (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Paramount Pictures, 1986). During his journey through time, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott nonetheless had to hit the keys eventually.
Owners of modern smartphones, on the other hand, can go a long way with OK, Google, Hey, Siri, or Hey, Cortana; the speech assistants understand many questions or instructions formulated in everyday language. You can only guess how many algorithms are behind the proprietary marvels.
Things are quite different with the open source intelligent personal assistant Sirius [1], which was developed in 2015 by the research group Clarity Lab at the University of Michigan [2]. The software, published under the BSD license, bundles together the free speech recognition systems CMU Sphinx [3] (PocketSphinx and Sphinx4), Kaldi [4], image recognition based on OpenCV [5], the question-answering system OpenEphyra [6], and UC Berkley's deep learning framework Caffe [7]. A Wikipedia dump forms the basis for OpenEphyra's data corpus. With aid from all of these components, Sirius is in a position to answer typed or spoken questions and to recognize objects in images (Figure 1).
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Hannah Montana Linux Is Back!
Developer Noah Cagle decided the world needed the once obscure but beloved Linux distribution and gave it a decidedly pink refresh.
-
System76 Refreshes the Lemur Laptop
If you're looking for a laptop with tons of power and battery, look no further than the latest iteration of the System76 Lemur Pro.
-
More than 43 Million Lines of Code in Linux Kernel 7.2
Using the cloc utility, Michael Larabel of Phoronix discovered that Linux kernel 7.2 has over 43 million lines of code.
-
Kubuntu Focus Goes Ultra
The Kubuntu Focus team has upped the performance ante of its M2 and Zr laptops with the latest, greatest CPUs from Intel.
-
Linux Gamers May Soon See Less Mouse Lag in KDE Plasma
Gamers using KDE’s Plasma desktop have been suffering from a slight input delay in mouse movement that could lead to getting fragged.
-
Three Lines of Code Improve Linux Storage Performance
A developer changed three lines of code, giving Linux storage performance a 5% bump.
-
AUR Hit Again with Malicious Packages
Once again the Arch User Repository is plagued by a high volume of malicious packages.
-
Alpine Linux 3.24 Features Fresh Desktops and a Newer Kernel
If you're a fan of Alpine Linux, it's time to upgrade because the latest version has been released with KDE Plasma 6.6, Gnome 50, and Linux kernel 6.18 LTS.
-
EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
Comprehensive measures adopted by the European Commission aim to reduce dependency on non-EU countries.
-
Linux Foundation Report Indicates AI Driving Tech Hiring
Within growing security and skills gaps, AI has been found to be a positive driving force behind tech hiring trends in Europe.