Although it has been there for several years, Apple's Siri (digital assistant) is still experiencing failures, many times failing to properly respond to basic commands. Earlier this month, he reportedly stood at the height of circumstances when a four-year-old boy was forced to seek help in an emergency.
The young Roman, resident of the Kenley area of Croydon, United Kingdom, found his mother on the floor on March 7. He tried to wake her up but failed. She then found her iPhone, pressed her thumb on the home button, and asked Siri's digital assistant for help.
You can hear the sound of Roman's energy below.
Roman contacted the local emergency services (the number in the UK is 999). Thus the mechanism was set in motion, and soon (within 13 minutes of λήψη of the call, with the location) a team of nurses was able to give the mother life-saving first aid and take her and Roman to the hospital for further tests.
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 unclear whether the child could have called her number on his own serviceemergency, but he was very 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 their users through a difficult time, regardless of their age or whether their voices are recognized by the connected devices.
Features like these will need a lot work to work out of the box around the world, as each country uses different systems and emergency services. Hopefully, Roman's story will motivate many companies to produce very simplified yet functional products so that they can be used by everyone.
ΥΓ. : The title was corrected after a friend's Facebook intervention.
