It looks like the Google’s latest voice search technology is giving Siri a run for its money. Google’s search technology built into Android as part of Jelly Bean has now arrived on iOS’ soil. The Version 2.5 of Google Search App answers queries far more effectively than its predecessors. The integration with Google’s Knowledge Graph, the company’s gauge to assess meanings and associated facts, gave this app a big push. This new feature was released before the end of October and has added support for iPhone 5. This app is only compatible to iOS 4.2 and above.

Early in the game, Google’s app completely puts Siri to complete shame in a battle to provide users with information on the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. The former provided links that showed the destruction around different states, whereas, iPhone 4s’ secret sauce provided a scoreboard of hockey teams. Well, big data wins convincingly here.

I tried it myself, but I used simpler and more recognizable questions. I first asked about the nearest restaurant that serves French cuisine. Siri gave me more attractive answers, but Google Search app was far more responsive and detailed. This was the same observation I got from succeeding tests. Knowing these big names, this is just a beginning to what could be the battle to the lordship of virtual assistants. The news of Watson going into the pocket-sized industry will add more spice to the competition. It’s exciting to witness another episode of clash of the titans, the mobility-way: IBM vs Apple vs Google.

More On Google’S Self-Driving Cars

I have been fond of covering developments about Google’s research and experiments on self-driving cars. For one, I imagined this one coming to life one day when I was a little kid. I am also amazed how Eric Schmidt and company did not let go of this fantasy, even in yesteryears, almost the entire industry thought this was a stupid idea. And look now, car companies are already claiming that they have the same technology and are just waiting for right timing and advertising tools for market release.  But, Google made it clear that it does not have any intention breaking into car manufacturing business. Instead, they want to extend this self-driving technology to suppliers of automobile makers.

While companies like Volkswagen claimed that they have also ventured into beefing up their automobiles with self-driving system, what could separate Google is their immense experience in creating software. This has been their bread and butter, aside from search of course.

“We like lidar because it is actually the most rich sensor you can put on a car,” Mr. Levandowski of Google said. “It helps you separate out people from bushes behind them, people from each other, people from crosswalks, and it helps you make a 3-D model of the world.”

Still, the key to a car being able to truly drive itself lies in the software. “The piece that’s missing is not better radars or cameras or lasers or whatever we’re using,” he said. “It’s really the intelligence behind them.”

The search engine giant also has a dedicated laboratory for this project alone. It is estimated that additional sensors and radars they used cost around $70,000—something that should come down to be marketable. This does not include the software expenses.

Is AI Heading the Wrong Direction?

We see the likes of Siri, Google’s driverless automobiles and human-like robots as great examples of advancements within the artificial intelligence field. Truly, they are breakthroughs that can define a generation. However, great thinkers and pioneers of AI studies think otherwise. The researches and focuses are heading in the wrong direction, according to Naom Chomsky, a well-known linguist and cognitive scientist.

Chomsky argued, “One of the points he made was that AI and robotics got to the point where you could actually do things that were useful, so it turned to the practical applications and somewhat, maybe not abandoned, but put to the side, the more fundamental scientific questions, just caught up in the success of the technology and achieving specific goals.”

This statement clearly sees that AI study tilted more into engineering than neurosciences. Aside from that, the growing interest of associating behaviors to responses in humans and animals tend to build-up more into psychology, than again neurosciences or understanding how the brain works.

“However, it could be — and it has been argued in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don’t like it — that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track,” Chomsky concluded.

For hardcore technology enthusiast and scientists, these arguments could spark long debates. Well, as for spectators like me, I would like to see more artificial intelligence progression on levels that humans can easily decipher and make good use of. After all, we create these robots and human-like thinking machines to improve the quality of our lives. Having said this, I would love to see Siri gets it right the next time it will be asked about a hurricane damage. A little wake up call for the high and might Apple.