This week will be the famous week in the annals of mobile handsets, as the new iPhone 6S will be released. Excited fans are sure to start building up queues soon at the doors of the Apple Stores worldwide, as the day approaches for the opening of the doors to the world of 3D Touch and ever-alive Siri to help you.
From next week on, or the lucky ones already this weekend, one can expect to hear Siri on the streets assisting more and more people in their daily routines and struggles. As Farhad Manjoo writes for the New York Times, the new Siri is a “Omen of the future” (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/technology/personaltech/iphone-6s-hands-free-siri-is-an-omen-of-the-future.html?_r=0). Is that S next to the 6 in the brand name all about Siri?
It is all known that the increasing use of the voice recognition capabilities are used in the consumer mobile devices. And surely that brings a lot of fun to be able to talk all the good things, rather than to try to “type the pathnames with fingers” (as it was sung in the famous parody song at Apple fair many-many years ago. At that time they wanted to make fun of the Windows pathnames, the curse of the world, and finally the moment is approaching when at least in the mobile devices, the keyboard fit to the small screen might soon be obsolete altogether.
However for the voice operated applications, one should consider their cultural and social implications. For example some customer service hotlines are already employing voice-walls. The world of spoken language is still vast and full of variations, and implementing the services based on the language specific voice recognition services, could potentially have huge unintended consequences to the way we consider languages, identify ourselves and see the social spheres to be.
However let all the speculation be gone for now, head on to meet your new Siri as the day comes, and take the all fun out of the world full of the options and potential. One cannot wait what all Apple has invented to do with the new touch sensing technology! Happy touching, and let the world start fingering in the new sense of the word.
