After announcing partnership with Nuance during CES 2012, Intel announced at the ongoing CES 2014 that the next-gen Dragon Assistant is now available. The digital personal assistant is specifically programmed to make most of Intel's RealSense technology that mimics how humans see and hear.
The new Dragon Assistant is now available on certain devices manufactured by Acer, Lenovo, Dell, and HP. It is expected to be installed on Toshiba and Asus devices this 2014. Lenovo will also roll out a tablet that will feature the personable virtual assistant this year, a first for the Dragon Assistant.
"The new Dragon Assistant is an entirely new conversational personal assistant that works with popular websites and applications. It comes with selectable personalities, and allows for an ongoing dialogue with Intel-powered devices. People can simply tell it to play music, get answers, connect with friends and find content - all by using natural language. Dragon Assistant is also capable of calendar checks, getting maps and directions, finding flights or booking a dinner reservation. Available offline, people can control their device, dictate notes and more without an Internet connection," described Intel in a press statement.
Users can choose between a British Butler or an American Female as the personality of their virtual assistant. It combines the computing power of Intel's lines of processors and the intelligent system of Nuance to answer questions of users accurately. For example, one can ask "Who created Star Wars?" and the digital assistant will answer George Lucas. Then it will also perfectly understand if one asks follow-up questions such as "Who are the main characters in the movie?"
"Intel has worked closely with Nuance at the system level for Intel-based devices; to create a leading voice solution that understands how humans speak, and searches like humans search, rather than forcing us to learn new commands to communicate with our devices," said senior vice president of Intel's Perceptual Computing Mooly Eden. "Our vision with Intel RealSense technology is to make computing more immersive and enable human-like natural interaction."
Just like how Apple wants Siri to work and how Google wants Google Now to function, the new Dragon Assistant does not only present users with a list of search results but rather work seamlessly with applications that can help users complete certain tasks. Users of the intuitive software can ask it to post on social media platforms or even access their email inbox. Of course, Dragon Assistant is now the best hope of computer users looking for a digital assistant since this is not the platform Siri and Google Now rule.
"This latest version of Dragon Assistant is transformative. People can have an interactive dialogue that is natural and intuitive, with a voice assistant that listens and understands the context of conversation - just as you would expect from a personal assistant powered by Nuance and Intel," said general manager of Nuance Mobile Michael Thompson.
