Yahoo May Bring Out an Independent Siri-Like Personal Assistant App Soon
During a conference call a few day back, CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer spoke about a special new product the team has been working on. The new service will go against the likes of Apple’s Siri, Google Now or Microsoft’s Cortana. She stated that Yahoo is developing an interest in search in the mobile sector and will focus on “what happens when you involve context and personal information like email.”
According to Business Insider, the new service has been code-named ‘Index’ and it will come in the form of a smartphone app. Yahoo hopes to release a beta version of the same by the second quarter of this year.
Mayer explains the new app would search information somewhat like Google Now, and probing for information in the user’s inbox may help people give better results. Quoting an example to help understand the working of the app, she explained that if a user had booked a flight from John F. Kennedy Airport, then Index would find information related to the airport or flight, by using the information in the inbox – instead of fishing out information about President Kennedy.
The voice assistant idea may seem unoriginal from the user point of view, but Yahoo is willing to place a bet on this ambitious project.
