Pioneer Zypr promises free, cross-platform Siri alternative
updated 05:15 pm EST, Mon November 7, 2011
Pioneer tries universal voice commands with Zypr
Pioneer in an unusual break from hardware unveiled what could be a universal equivalent to Apple's Siri for natural-language voice. Zypr provides a web-based but native-friendly programming interface that lets apps take commands that usually apply to specific services, such as social networking from Facebook or Twitter, INRIX traffic, AccuWeather, Slacker Radio, and Yelp place ratings. The method allows combining services and lets data port over from service to service.
The only baseline requirement is support for secure HTTP (HTTPS). As such, it should work on HTML5 and Java as well as Android, iOS, and other platforms. A sample Java navigation app is available to give an example of how Zypr works.
Developers can start working with Zypr today. Customers weren't explicitly mentioned, although near2there has been using the technology early on.
Zypr isn't an immediate replacement for Siri as it would require that an OS developer take and adapt it to OS-level functions, not just the environment of an app or to specific services. It would nonetheless give third-party apps at least basic parallels to Siri in their apps.
