Apple Siri vs Amazon Alexa vs Google Assistant: Tests reveal which is smartest

Voice assistants from Amazon, Apple, and Google all improve on smartphones but Google Assistant is still a top dog.

Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant are all getting better at understanding and answering questions, thanks in part to every tech giant using humans to help improve their AI.

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Given that voice is meant to be the next frontier of computer interfaces, investor analysts like Loup Ventures are keen to understand which company has the best interface for voice input.

Last December, the company tested Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana against 800 questions to find out which was superior. 

Google answered 88% of questions correctly, while Apple scored 75%, Alexa scored 72.5%, and Cortana came in with 63%. However, the test was on smart speakers and not smartphones.     

So Loup Ventures recently ran a similar 'IQ' test but this time focused solely on assistant capabilities on the phone and dropped Cortana because Microsoft last year decided it was no longer a competitor with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. 

Cortana's removal and the isolation of assistants to smartphone usage haven't changed the order of the rankings. 

Google Assistant is still at the top, but now with a score of 92.9% for answering questions correctly. Siri correctly answers 83.1% of questions, while Alexa gets 79.8% correct. 

The questions are typical ones an adult might think to ask a phone, such as, "Where is the nearest coffee shop?". The questions are designed to test each system's ability to provide accurate information about local things, businesses, navigation, and information, as well as execute commands.

While the smartphone IQ test rankings are the same as the smart speaker-test, Loup Ventures analysts Gene Munster and Will Thompson, forgive Alexa's overall performance, which was negatively influenced by commands because it's an app rather than fully integrated into the device and operating system. Apple Siri performed best on commands.

"Google Assistant was the top performer in four of the five categories but fell short of Siri in the Command category again. Siri continues to prove more useful with phone-related functions like calling, texting, emailing, calendar, and music," Loup Ventures writes. 

"Both Siri and Google Assistant, which are baked into the OS of the phone, far outperformed Alexa in the Command section. Alexa lives in a third-party app, which, despite being able to send voice messages and call other Alexa devices, cannot send text messages, emails, or initiate a phone call."

Loup Ventures argues that assistants on smartphones should be treated differently from smart speakers because they're used differently and have different interfaces. For example, speakers don't have screens.    

Google Assistant fares best overall but falls short of Siri in the Command category.

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What's Home Assistant and why should home automation enthusiasts consider it?

Get all of your digital smart things talking to each other and doing more meaningful things!

Did you ever wish that Alexa or Google Assistant was able to let you have a smart home instead of just a bunch of smart things? It would be awesome to wake up to fresh coffee, have the news playing on a TV or radio, the toaster pre-heated and the temperature adjusted correctly and all the other things we can use smart gadgets to do, but have it do them automatically based on the time you set your alarm clock. How about dimming the room lights, turning on any backlighting on a monitor or display, and making everything cozy when you start playing a movie?

These are relatively simple tasks that should be able to be strung together and just work instead of us having to open 10 different apps and make 10 different adjustments individually. Isn't that what we all imagined when we decided to start having an automated home?

You can, and you can even do a lot more with a good automation hub. And a good automation hub doesn't have to be expensive because you can use the Home Assistant platform on something as cheap as a Raspberry Pi and bring your home setup into the 21st century for about $50.

What is an Automation Hub?

It's a smart appliance that can hook into other smart devices and issue commands that you've setup under the circumstances you've setup.We have a basic example of an inexpensive hub with Samsung's SmartThings. With the SmartThings software you can set up schedules or commands driven by an event (event as in it's cold outside, not event as in a concert or movie premiere) and individual smart devices can work together and be smart like they are supposed to be.

An Automation Hub is probably what you expected from your Echo or Google Home and didn't really get.

The Home Assistant platform works the same way. You let it find all the smart things on your local Wi-Fi network, connect with the ones it can control, and gives you a simple interface to make them act as a group based on when and how you want the single command to trigger. What makes Home Assistant great is that it isn't trying to focus on a single brand of smart products. Most of the gadgets you already have will work, and connecting to network services like IFTTT is straightforward and simple.

It installs on any always-connected operating system that can support Python 3 apps and it's very small and lightweight. This makes it great if you want to use a Rasberry Pi as a small and inexpensive Automation hub.

Why do I want this?

Maybe you don't. It's important to remember that Home Assistant can't control anything itself. It only acts as a master device that can tell other services like Philips Hue or Nest to do something. If you don't have any existing smart devices you won't see Home Assistant do anything. But if you have already invested in one or more smart devices, it's a really great way to extend the features and functionality that won't cost a lot of money.

Alexa Got Hacked | SQL Injection of Voice

Based on your previous coverage of similar topics, we thought you may be interested in this recently discovered voice activation device hack, and a new technique we call Voice-Command SQL Injection. 

Here are the highlights:

1. Hacker uses a voice-command SQL injection methodology to extract unauthorized data from the application database- including the admin account.
2. This is done on an Alexa device but could be performed on any voice-activated digital assistant.
3. This could mean that users of virtual assistant skills/applications could be exposed to new attacks.
4. The outcome: The tried and true SQL injection attack has is now voice-enabled.

Write-up:

Picture this, your bank account was hacked. While not new news, what if it was hacked using simply voice and Alexa? Pretty scary, right?

We all know that not all web applications are created equal, as each one has different levels of security measures in place to protect the information or data, as well as application access. Unfortunately, the average user of the application has very little knowledge as to the security of each application, whether it be their financial, retail, utility, fitness applications, etc.

Luckily, there are regulatory requirements surrounding security measures for applications in certain industries like FinServe (FINRA), Healthcare (HIPAA), and Retail (PCI-DSS), but what about other industries not impacted by regulatory compliance? Or even within those, how have security protocols evolved to protect the applications and skills when applied to new channels, like Alexa, Google Assist, Cortana, Siri, etc.  

In fact, now it is easier than ever for hackers to perform such hacks into a variety of applications, just using their voice. Leveraging voice-command SQL injection techniques, hackers can give simple commands utilizing voice text translations to gain access to applications and breach sensitive account information. 

To illustrate the vulnerability and create greater awareness, Protego’s Head of Security and Ethical Hacker, Tal Melamed illustrates how a simple SQL Injection can be executed through a verbal command in order to gain unauthorized access to sensitive account data. This demo will show how, in this instance, Alexa, can be exploited in an unprotected application or skill, by translating words and numbers.

Tal will illustrate how easy it is to gain unauthorized access through Alexa to unsecured applications, by verbally providing simple account numbers and text. Since Tal is an ethical hacker, he will be using an application and SQL database he built himself, but in reality, it could be any application that requires an account number or text as a unique identifier.