CSE-3509

Technical Writing and Presentation

Intelligent personal assistant

Submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the award of the degree of
Bachelor of Science
in
Computer Science and Engineering

Submitted by

Roll No

C-093503
C-123005
C-141092

Names of Students

Ratan Sunder Parai

Maruf Hassan
MD. Shafkat Islam

Under the guidance of

Tanveer Ahsan

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

International Islamic University Chittagong
Chittagong
Spring Semester 2015

Abstract
We are living in a busy world. Everyone is trying to catchup with almost
everything he can. As a result we all need our own persona assistant to
help us out everyday. But not everyone can afford it. Intelligent Personal
Assistant is the answer for them. Artificial Intelligent is improving fast. And
taking advantage of it in our everyday life can make our life much easier. It
can mimic basic things like a human companion. In this paper we compared
between currently popular Intelligent Personal Assistants. What they can
do and what they can not yet. Though they provide state of art features
but there is still many field to make improvement, like improved natural
language processing so that we dont have to use some predefined keyword
to get answer.

Contents
1 Introduction

2 Google Now
2.1 Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2
3

3 Siri
3.1 Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4
4

4 Cortana
4.1 Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6
6
6

5 Amazon Echo
9
5.1 Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6 Conclusion

11

References

12

List of Figures
2.1
2.2
2.3

Google Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Google Now showing Trafic information . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Latest information using Google Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2
3
3

3.1
3.2

Siri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hey Siri, what song is this? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4
5

4.1

Cortana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5.1
5.2

Amazone Echo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Echo companion application for Android . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

ii

Chapter 1
Introduction
With the breakthrough of speech recognition, natural language processing,
semantic web and machine learning we can safely say that the age of Intelligent Personal Assistant(IPA) is upon us. A software agent that can do
various task or service for a person is called Intelligent Personal Assistant.
It depend on user input, location information and various online sources for
information about weather, traffic conditions, news etc. Currently there are
many of such agent is available for everyday use such as Google Now by
Google, Siri by Apple, Amazon Echo, Microsoft Cortana and Facebooks M.
The first fully functional IPA is Denise developed by NextOS formerly
known as Guile3D. The company was founded by Guile Lindroth in 2001.
They changed their name to NextOS on Jan 29, 2014. Denise is a premium
IPA service where you have to pay to use their service. Once installed on
computer it can recognize voice query to answer your questions.
The age of mobile IPA start with the acquisition of Siri[1] by Apple for
a reported $200 million in April 28, 2010. After a year and a half of their
acquisition, Apple release Siri integrated with iOS 5 on October 4, 2011. To
use Siri on your phone you need to have a iPhone 4S or later.
Later on July 9, 2012 Google comes up with its own IPA solution for
Android devices named as Google Now[2].Microsoft is late in the game. They
released Cortana[3] on April 2, 2014 at the Microsoft BUILD[4] developer
conference. Cortana is currently available on Android, Widows 10 and have
a road plan for iOS too.

Chapter 2
Google Now
Google now is the answer of Google for Intelligent Personal Assistant. It
is available on Android, iOS and Google Chrome web browser. In July 9,
2012 it makes its first appearance on Android 4.1 Powered Galaxy Nexus
smartphone. Later on April 29, 2013 Google Now start supporting iOS with
limited functionality. And lastly it was released on Google Chrome on March
24, 2014.
Google now track various information and notify or show them in their
dedicated application before you may need them. It does this by tracking
users use pattern and Searched information as well as frequenty visited websites.

Figure 2.1: Google Now

You need to have a Google account and must logged in to use the service.
2

2.1

Functionality

Google now can provide most of the information you need anytime. This
include reminder to walkout summary.
In the morning when we have to go for our work, Google now can track
and notify you when you should start for work considering trafic info.

Figure 2.2: Google Now showing Trafic information

Google now keep track of your browsing history and show relative information when new content is being added to the site.

Figure 2.3: Latest information using Google Now

3

Chapter 3
Siri
At first Siri was released as an iOS application by Siri Inc. It was integrated
with service such as Google Maps, OpenTable, MovieTickets and TaxiMagic.
They announced to release Siri on Android and Blackberry too. But after the
acquisition by Apple on April 28, 2010 it becomes Apples iOS only service.
And development process of other platforms was canceled.

Figure 3.1: Siri

3.1

Functionality

Siri works like a real personal assistant. It has its own personality and we
can carry on a short conversation with it. We can ask siri to show picture
4

Figure 3.2: Hey Siri, what song is this?

that weve taken and available on our device only by just asking. You can
ask to to show you picture or videos by name of the events you took pictures.
If you have home automation setup then you can tell siri Movie night
to trigger light dimming and set scenes with HomeKit. If you are movie
lover and want a movie to watch a new movie just ask Siri, What movies are
playing today?
Siri can play songs for you, tell sports updates, weather information and
answer your question about almost anything by using its knowledge base.
The more you use siri the more it know you and your voice recognition get
better.
In the early stage of release it failed to recognize some English speakers with distinctive accents. But Apple said that it will improve its voice
recognition success rate as we use more and more by learning.

Chapter 4
Cortana
Cortana is a voice controlled intelligent personal assistant created by Microsoft. Windows Phone 8.1 update includes Cortana for the first time. Microsoft is also confirming that its bringing Cortana to iOS and Android. The
virtual assistant, Cortana, is named after a gaming character in Microsofts
Halo video game. It is only available on phones with Windows Phone 8.1, PC
with Windows 10 and in some countries/regions. Cortana, obviously enough,
is Microsofts answer to Apple Siri and Google Google Now.

4.1

Technology

Cortana has natural language processing capabilities which are derived from
a telephone-based applications company named Tellme Networks which is
bought by Microsoft in 2007. The natural language processing capabilities
are joined with a Semantic search database called Satoru. Cortana uses the
Bing search engine and data stored on the users smartphone and computer
by to make personalized recommendations.

4.2

Features

Cortana is a personal assistant where a female virtual assistant will give

suggestion for tasks the user might need to perform based on user location
and past behavior. Users can instruct Cortana to find information, find
things on PC, schedule appointments, manage calendar, set notifications or
reminders, chat with the users, tell a jokes to the user and use features of
applications installed on the device. User will get the best experience and
best performance from Cortana when the more they use it. Cortana give
answers and suggestions which are getting better as it will be more familiar
6

with the user. Some of the Cortanas features include being able to set

Figure 4.1: Cortana

reminders, set alarm for a flight delay. It can recognize natural voice so the
user dont have to give input a predefined set of commands. Users can query
information from Cortana and it gives answers by collecting information from
Bing search engine. It can give several types of information the user may need
like current weather update, to see how the weather looks like on the other
side of the world, current traffic conditions, sports scores and biographies
etc. Cortana can help take care of everyday stuff on a user phone. Making
a call to someone, texting to someone is very easy using Cortana. Cortana
has also includes a music identification service. It uses a smartphone or
computers built-in microphone to gather a sample sound and then compares
the sound against a central database for match. If a match is found, it sends
information about the music back to the user. Cortana creates a virtual
Notebook about a user which stores personal information and anything
about a user thats permitted Cortana to see and use. It can be considered
as Contanas view of a person and everything that Cortana knows about a
user. Here, the most important thing is that a user has complete control over
what Cortana knows about him/her. If the user dont want to share his/her
information, then he/she can snatch it from Cortana. Also, Cortana will ask
the user before it stores any information in the Notebook. So the user dont
have to worry about privacy issue. By analyzing a user habits and interests
7

continuously, Cortana is placed as a personal digital assistant that helps the

user organize and manage their day-to-day activities.
Microsoft has seen what Apple and Google have done. It wraps some of
the best ideas from Siri and Google Now and including many new features
into one attractive, easy-to-use interface but now, the real trick will be
to improve Xbox, Windows, and Microsofts other products to get Cortana
everywhere.

Chapter 5
Amazon Echo
Amozon Echo [5] is a voice command device that is also known as Alexa.
Amazon Echo is always on hardware device. With seven microphones and
beam-forming technology, Echo can hear and response accordingly from across
the room,even while music is playing.

Figure 5.1: Amazone Echo

Echo connects to a cloud-based voice service, Alexa to provide information, questions answer, news, sports scores, weather or play music. The
default wake word is Alexa and we can change it anything we want. As
soon as Amazon Echo detect the wake word, it starts listening for commands.
Because Echo is based on a cloud based server, No update is necessary
for the hardware interface and it is always up-to-date with the latest enhancement to the service. Amazon is constantly adding new things to Echo
9

making it more advanced IPA solution for day-to-day life.

5.1

Functionality

With the help of its companion application, which is available in most of the
mobile platform setting up Echo for the first time is quite easy.
Echo can play audio books Audible. If you couldt finish the book you
were listening, Echo has a build in Whispersync that will play from where
you left off. It can also check your calender events, commute time and the
fastest route to your destination including traffic information, sports news
and updates. Moreover many general task like reminder, question and answer, alarm, To-do list and music streaming is also supported.
Its 9.25 in tall and 3.27 in wide hardware is easy to place anywhere in the
room. And because it can listen and recognize voice from across the room
and control other smart devices accordingly, it is getting more popular.

Figure 5.2: Echo companion application for Android

10

Chapter 6
Conclusion

11

References
[1] Siri, Sep. 2015, page Version ID: 680260931. [Online]. Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Siri&oldid=680260931
[2] Google Now, Sep. 2015, page Version ID: 680147620. [Online].
Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google Now&
oldid=680147620
[3] Cortana (software), Sep. 2015, page Version ID: 679817831.
[Online]. Available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=
Cortana (software)&oldid=679817831
[4] Microsoft Build Developer Conference. [Online]. Available:
//www.buildwindows.com

http:

[5] Amazon Echo, Sep. 2015, page Version ID: 679713544. [Online].
Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amazon Echo&
oldid=679713544

12