Apple 'in talks with TV firms over voice-controlled flatscreens'

iPhone link: The voice-controlled Siri 'personal assistant' is
designed so you can talk to it like a normal person - the ideal
way to change channel and adjust the volume on Apple's new TV?

Senior Apple executives have met with TV chiefs over the development of Siri-powered flatscreens, according to reports.

Apple TV will use iPhone's Siri 'personal assistant' as its main control method - and will use touch control as a back up.

Now Apple senior vice-president Eddy Cue has been pitching the concept to media bosses, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Leaks from Apple's manufacturing chain say that Apple has been working on prototype sets since September - according to a design blueprint laid down by late CEO Steve Jobs.

His 'eureka' moment was realising that Siri's voice control could be used to 'talk' to the set.

The quote 'I finally cracked it,' in the recent biography by Walter Isaacson was misquoted in recent reports, reports the New York Times.

Jobs was referring to the realisation that the television should be voice-controlled - using the natural-language algorithms of Siri so that people talk to the set as they would to someone sitting next to them on the sofa.

Apple TV debuts at Macworld in San Francisco: Reports say that Apple is working on a large, voice-controlled touchscreen with the service built in - but it won't arrive till the price for large touchscreens drops a little

Mr Jobs, who died in October, told author Walter Isaacson: 'It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine.'

Apple executive Jeff Robbin, who was behind the iPod and iTunes Store, is reportedly 'now guiding Apple's internal development of the new TV effort'.

It's not the first attempt to bring more 'natural' controls to televisions - companies such as One For All already make gesture-controlled remotes which you simply 'wag' at the screen, and Microsoft's Xbox Kinect camera can be controlled by voice.

But the highly sophisticated Siri software could represent a huge leap forward for the technology.

A third party analysis suggests the device will hit shelves by late next year or 2013, based on research of Apple's patent portfolio, its investments in manufacturing facilities and 'securing supplies of LCD screens'.

Posted in: Gadgets,Technology