Although Siri (digital assistant) of Apple still experiences failures as it often fails to respond correctly to basic commands. But earlier this month he reportedly rose to the occasion when a four-year-old boy was forced to call for help in an emergency.
Little Roman, a resident of the Kenley area of Croydon, UK, found his mother motionless on the floor on March 7. He tried to "wake her up" but failed. Then he found her iPhone, pressed his thumb to it button home, and asked for help from the digital assistant Siri.
You can hear the sound of Roman's energy below.
Roman contacted the local emergency services (UK number is 999). So the machinery was set in motion, and soon (within 13 minutes of receiving the call, with the location) a team of nurses were able to give the mother life-saving first aid and take her and Roman to hospital for further examinations.
Although for the most part the presence of Roman was the one that saved his mother's life, this story highlights one of the important aspects of voice assistants: accessibility.
It is not clear if the child could have called the emergency number alone, but he was lucky to find a way to call for help.
Let's say that digital assistants are increasing with the last one Alexa of Amazon, and it seems great to see companies doing more to help them users them in a difficult time, regardless of their age or whether their voices are recognized by connected devices.
Features such as these will need a lot of work to operate out of the box around the world, as each country uses different emergency systems and services. Let's hope the Roman story will motivate many companies to produce very simplified but also functional products so they can be used by everyone.
ΥΓ. : The title was corrected after a friend's Facebook intervention.