Dual Microphones, Smart Assistants, and More: Microsoft and Intel Team Together to Improve PCs

Microsoft and Intel organized a hardware conference, known as the Windows Hardware Engineering Community (WinHEC), to energize and organize PC OEMs around the next initiatives needed to succeed in the tough PC market. During the conference, Microsoft and Intel announced project EVO, a platform for 2017 that will bring new capabilities to PCs. In addition to discussing a set of virtual reality (VR) specifications designed to enable mere mortals to tap into VR, Intel is recommending dual microphone implementations for “far-field voice activation”, similar to systems enabled in Amazon Echo. 

These features will enable watchword wake-up (Hey Cortana), listening from across the room, and overall improved voice control. (Note: that Intel is exclusively partnering with Microsoft; at AWS re:Invent in early December 2016, Intel also announced it will be participating in Amazon’s Alexa on its smart home platform reference design).

Voice-to-text continued to grow since the launch of Siri in iOS 5, in October 2011. For some time, voice-to-text was confined to our phones; however, now it is starting a slow migration back to our PCs (Siri and Cortana). Smart home automation devices with voice came on the market with Amazon Echo’s deployment in June 2015. It is just beginning to enter the mainstream world, with marketing buzz forming around the availability of new skills (or apps) and the thrill of discovery. 

As with the application store marketplaces, every OEM is carefully determining its openness to developers, and how it will handle device compatibility. While Amazon is open to third party hardware developers, most of the ecosystems are working hard to attract as many software/application developers as possible. 

Amazon’s Alexa, resident in Amazon and third party devices include:

• Amazon Echo, Echo Dot (compact), and Tap (portable)
• Amazon Fire HD tablets and Fire TV Stick
• Support for Raspberry Pi to enable the developer ecosystem
• Omate Yumi robots and smart watches
• Pebble watches

Other major manufacturers include:

• Google Assistant, resident in Google Home, Google’s Allo Chat App, and Pixel phones
• Siri, the assistant that started it all, is in iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices
• Cortana lives inside Windows 10 PCs, the handful of Windows phones that remain out there, apps in Google Play Store, and the Apple App Store for loyalists
• Another new entrant, Sony Agent, is due to launch on Sony Xperia Ear in mid-December 2016, taking it to a new form factor, the hearable.

All of these new devices beg the question—how will this change our homes? 

We’re adapting to talking to our phones when it is more convenient, and when background noise and privacy allow it. Early voice programs in TV appliances (XBOX Kinect, Samsung 2014 model year voice commands, etc.) met with poor results and fell out of consumer use, even as current generation programs (Comcast X1 Voice Remotes and Amazon Fire TV with Voice) see customers gradually adopting steady, regular usage. This round of voice activated smart home assistants some loyal adherents, often using a limited subset of applications (music, shopping, weather, and smart home automation). Experimentation around new applications (ordering pizza, playing games, etc.) is sure to occur.

Voice is a great—and rapidly improving—interface method, with voice detection accuracy rising to the upper 90% range. Voice response can be good for simple queries, but is difficult for more in-depth queries (such as comparing many options). Voice coupled with displays can provide longer, deeper responses, and allows hands-free or across the room operation on some tasks while allowing detail (i.e. scanning a recipe or reviewing multiple options) on displays.

Amazon recently doubled down on its semiconductor system on chip (SoC) strategy, as well. In addition to the Intel smart home platform, Amazon and Conexant also have a dual-microphone reference design targeted at very low-cost IoT devices.

Intel and Microsoft entering this world will allow PCs and tablets to connect seamlessly to voice activation. For those with PCs in the kitchen (for example), this will enable many of the benefits of smart home appliances to be achieved without a new device. This could allow Microsoft and Intel OEMs to develop new smart home appliances built around a concept of wall-mounted tablets, an idea that has not caught on beyond home security control panels.

For a full analysis of the smart home language markets, view the Voice Integration and Control in the Smart Home report.