{"id":92120,"date":"2019-04-17T21:03:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T21:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/19\/04\/17\/facebook-confirms-plans-for-voice-assistant-to-match-siri-alexa-google-assistant"},"modified":"2019-04-17T21:03:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-17T21:03:04","slug":"facebook-confirms-plans-for-voice-assistant-to-match-siri-alexa-google-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/04\/17\/facebook-confirms-plans-for-voice-assistant-to-match-siri-alexa-google-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook confirms plans for voice assistant to match Siri, Alexa &amp; Google Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- font size selector, BEGIN --> <span class=\"cfix\">&nbsp;<\/span> <\/p>\n<p class=\"gray small byline\"> By <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#186a7e71767f796b587f75797174367b7775\">Roger Fingas<\/a> <br \/><span class=\"gray\">Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 02:03 pm PT (05:03 pm ET)<\/span> <\/p>\n<p> <span><span class=\"article-leader\">Facebook on Wednesday confirmed that it&#8217;s working on its own voice assistant, carving out a space among competitors like Apple&#8217;s Siri and Amazon Alexa.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<div class=\"article-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/facebook-confirms-plans-for-voice-assistant-to-match-siri-alexa-google-assistant.jpg\" alt=\"Facebook Portal\" height=\"436\" class=\"lazy\" data-original=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/facebook-confirms-plans-for-voice-assistant-to-match-siri-alexa-google-assistant-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/facebook-confirms-plans-for-voice-assistant-to-match-siri-alexa-google-assistant-1.jpg\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"minor2 small gray\"><\/span><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;We are working to develop voice and AI assistant technologies that may work across our family of AR\/VR products including Portal, Oculus and future products,&#8221; a spokesperson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-facebook-virtual-assistant\/facebook-working-on-voice-assistant-to-rival-amazons-alexa-idUSKCN1RT2AS\">told<\/a> <em>Reuters<\/em>. Voice commands can be especially important for AR and VR headsets, since they&#8217;re typically not used in combination with a keyboard, mouse, or touchscreen.<\/p>\n<p>Portal is actually the company&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/18\/10\/08\/facebook-portal-sets-up-video-chat-hardware-fight-with-amazon-google\">video call hardware<\/a>. Adding a voice assistant would naturally turn it into a video-capable smartspeaker akin to the Google Home Hub or Amazon Echo Show.<\/p>\n<p>The assistant was first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/04\/17\/facebook-building-voice-assistant-to-rival-amazon-alexa-and-apple-siri.html\">exposed<\/a> earlier today by <em>CNBC<\/em>, which said that it&#8217;s being crafted by a Redmond, Wash., team typically assigned to long-term projects. Development began in early 2018, and Facebook has allegedly been contacting vendors in the smartspeaker supply chain, perhaps pointing to a dedicated product.<\/p>\n<p>Any Facebook-branded smartspeaker would face an uphill battle. Amazon and Google are by far the dominant players in the market \u2014 Apple&#8217;s HomePod, backed by billions of dollars, is estimated to have claimed <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/19\/02\/19\/homepod-sales-up-in-fourth-quarter-amazon-and-google-extending-lead\">just 1.6% of the market<\/a> in the December quarter. Facebook has also been <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/19\/04\/16\/leaked-docs-show-facebook-weaponized-user-data-against-competitors-with-little-regard-for-privacy\">wracked by scandals<\/a>, which may only add to suspicions about the <a href=\"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/19\/04\/10\/thousands-of-amazon-workers-are-listening-to-echo-conversations-report-says\">privacy of smartspeakers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; By Roger Fingas Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 02:03 pm PT (05:03 pm ET) Facebook on Wednesday confirmed that it&#8217;s working on its own voice assistant, carving out a space among competitors like Apple&#8217;s Siri and Amazon Alexa. &#8220;We are working to develop voice and AI assistant technologies that may work across our family of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-insider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}