Apple wins technical Emmy award for Apple TV Siri integration

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in General Discussion edited August 2017
The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on Tuesday handed Emmy awards out to a number of technology companies for achievements in media-related fields, with Apple taking one home for its work on Siri for Apple TV.




Apple is among four companies to be honored with a 2017 Technical / Engineering Achievement Award for "Contextual Voice Navigation for Discovering and Interacting with TV Content," with Comcast, Universal Electronics (UEI) and Nuance Dragon TV also receiving wins in the category.

Siri made its way to Apple TV in 2015 when Apple launched a fourth-generation set-top streaming device with a dedicated Siri Remote for interacting with the virtual assistant. Going beyond basic voice command functionality, Siri on Apple TV leverages artificial intelligence to drive user interactions.

At launch, for example, Apple promoted "What did he just say," an automatic rewind feature that plays back a portion of a movie with closed captioning switched on.

Related to the Emmy win, Siri is able to parse through thousands of movie, TV and other streaming video titles via natural language interactions. With a vast catalog of iTunes content, and Universal Search hooks into third-party apps like Netflix, Hulu and more, Apple TV is capable of highly granular queries. For example, users can ask Siri to surface James Bond films starring Sean Connery, or action movies made in the 1990s starring Wesley Snipes.

Apple is no stranger to the Emmys, having previously won awards for both commercial content and technical work related to mobile streaming technology.

The Emmy win comes on the heels of a lawsuit claiming certain Apple TV voice controls, including the "What did he say" feature, infringe on patents owned by a largely inactive software company.

Apple and its fellow Emmy winners will be honored at the 69th annual Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards, which is set to take place at the NAB Show on April 8th, 2018.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,404member
    (I can't believe I am about to say this...) Comcast's voice recognition is simpler and more basic, but vastly better-implemented. Also does 'universal' search. 
  • Reply 2 of 11
    jbdragonjbdragon Posts: 2,311member
    anantksundaram said:
    (I can't believe I am about to say this...) Comcast's voice recognition is simpler and more basic, but vastly better-implemented. Also does 'universal' search. 
    I can't believe you said it. Comcast, Video, I remember Comcast TV on my Motorola cable Box. I cut the cord years ago. So I wouldn't know. Siri on AppleTV works quite well. I don't use it as much as maybe I should.
    Muntzwatto_cobraanton zuykov
  • Reply 3 of 11
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,384member
    I just wish Siri had an option for voice feedback on the Apple TV like all other iOS devices. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 11
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    slurpy said:
    I just wish Siri had an option for voice feedback on the Apple TV like all other iOS devices. 
    That’d run down the battery like nobody’s business, though. However, if Apple put a second microphone in the Apple TV to be “always listening”, that could be the activation point for the remote microphone.
  • Reply 5 of 11
    fallenjtfallenjt Posts: 4,054member
    slurpy said:
    I just wish Siri had an option for voice feedback on the Apple TV like all other iOS devices. 
    What is the point of doing that? You WATCH TV. That means your eyes are staring at the screen. Adding the voice doesnt bring any benefit for normal users except the blinds...yeah, the blinds watch TV.

    edited August 2017 anton zuykov
  • Reply 6 of 11
    kkqd1337kkqd1337 Posts: 424member
    Getting an Apple TV would make sense for me - I wouldn’t mind being able to screen mirror to it and would be useful as a hub for HomeKit to avoid having to leave my iPad at home.

    But i’m not prepared to pay what Apple ask for it and it is really obstructive of them to restrict mirroring to only Apple TV. 

    If if they released a cheap dongle version which I think they need to, I might get one just for that. But otherwise in the UK it makes much more sense to get an Amazon or Roku box.
  • Reply 7 of 11
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Apple gets an award for technical excellence and the reaction here is... complaints, criticism, and declarations that competing products are superior. Wow, just wow.
    Rayz2016pscooter63StrangeDaysjony0
  • Reply 8 of 11
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    Got Siri on my phone seldom use it except for basic stuff "call Sam"...  I have a generation 4 Apple TV, almost never use Siri, never get the results I ask for.
    Siri may sound more natural but it is still dumb after all these years.  
  • Reply 9 of 11
    anton zuykovanton zuykov Posts: 1,056member
    anantksundaram said:
    (I can't believe I am about to say this...) Comcast's voice recognition is simpler and more basic, but vastly better-implemented. Also does 'universal' search. 
    Can it be due to Comcast scanning, classifying and storing your search queries and doing data mining on them, like google?
    There is always a trade-off somewhere. Better "implemented" require support of AI-like algorithm going through your data and extracting and storing some/all parts of that data, in order to do something for you.
    And even If you pretend to not see it, it is still there, you know..
  • Reply 10 of 11
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,337member
    spice-boy said:
    Got Siri on my phone seldom use it except for basic stuff "call Sam"...  I have a generation 4 Apple TV, almost never use Siri, never get the results I ask for.
    Siri may sound more natural but it is still dumb after all these years.  
    I have found just enunciating a bit more has made Siri much more accurate for me. Night and day difference. I don't realize how laxed we are when speaking normally. Siri seems to pick up on what a word sounds like, and not necessarily the word itself. Just my observation after using the 4th gen over the last 2 years. 
  • Reply 11 of 11
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,404member
    lkrupp said:
    Apple gets an award for technical excellence and the reaction here is... complaints, criticism, and declarations that competing products are superior. Wow, just wow.
    Apple shared the award with Comcast, genius. Apparently, I (we) am (were) not the only ones to think so.
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