Wednesday, 19 August 2015

Siri vs Google - The Jicama Wars

I interrupt your daily reverie to report that today, when I asked “Siri, define jicama”, Siri searched the web for "G" instead. After some light cursing, I launched the Google app for iOS and asked to “define jicama”. The correct results came flooding in.

It means:
ji·ca·ma
hikəmə,ˈhē-/
noun
the crisp, white-fleshed, edible tuber of a Central American climbing plant of the pea family ( Pachyrhizus erosus, family Leguminosae ), cultivated since pre-Columbian times and used especially in Mexican cooking.
Let the truth be told, Siri lost not because it didn’t know what jicama was but because I’d pronounced it wrong in the first place. It’s “hic-ca-ma” and not “g-ca-ma”. Google won because it actually knew that “g-ca-ma” was the wrong pronunciation of jicama and yet gave me the right results.

Well, there has to be a reason why Google is where it is today, right? :)

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