Apple wins technical Emmy award for Apple TV Siri integration

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on Tuesday handed Emmy awards out to a number of technology companies for achievements in media-related fields, with Apple taking one home for its work on Siri for Apple TV.

Apple is among four companies to be honored with a 2017 Technical / Engineering Achievement Award for "Contextual Voice Navigation for Discovering and Interacting with TV Content," with Comcast, Universal Electronics (UEI) and Nuance Dragon TV also receiving wins in the category.

Siri made its way to Apple TV in 2015 when Apple launched a fourth-generation set-top streaming device with a dedicated Siri Remote for interacting with the virtual assistant. Going beyond basic voice command functionality, Siri on Apple TV leverages artificial intelligence to drive user interactions.

At launch, for example, Apple promoted "What did he just say," an automatic rewind feature that plays back a portion of a movie with closed captioning switched on.

Related to the Emmy win, Siri is able to parse through thousands of movie, TV and other streaming video titles via natural language interactions. With a vast catalog of iTunes content, and Universal Search hooks into third-party apps like Netflix, Hulu and more, Apple TV is capable of highly granular queries. For example, users can ask Siri to surface James Bond films starring Sean Connery, or action movies made in the 1990s starring Wesley Snipes.

Apple is no stranger to the Emmys, having previously won awards for both commercial content and technical work related to mobile streaming technology.

The Emmy win comes on the heels of a lawsuit claiming certain Apple TV voice controls, including the "What did he say" feature, infringe on patents owned by a largely inactive software company.

Apple and its fellow Emmy winners will be honored at the 69th annual Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards, which is set to take place at the NAB Show on April 8th, 2018.

11 Comments

anantksundaram 18 Years · 20391 comments

About 7 years ago

(I can't believe I am about to say this...) Comcast's voice recognition is simpler and more basic, but vastly better-implemented. Also does 'universal' search.

jbdragon 10 Years · 2312 comments

anantksundaram said:

(I can't believe I am about to say this...) Comcast's voice recognition is simpler and more basic, but vastly better-implemented. Also does 'universal' search.

I can't believe you said it. Comcast, Video, I remember Comcast TV on my Motorola cable Box. I cut the cord years ago. So I wouldn't know. Siri on AppleTV works quite well. I don't use it as much as maybe I should.

slurpy 15 Years · 5390 comments

I just wish Siri had an option for voice feedback on the Apple TV like all other iOS devices.

tallest skil 14 Years · 43086 comments

slurpy said:

I just wish Siri had an option for voice feedback on the Apple TV like all other iOS devices.

That’d run down the battery like nobody’s business, though. However, if Apple put a second microphone in the Apple TV to be “always listening”, that could be the activation point for the remote microphone.

fallenjt 13 Years · 4056 comments

slurpy said:

I just wish Siri had an option for voice feedback on the Apple TV like all other iOS devices.

What is the point of doing that? You WATCH TV. That means your eyes are staring at the screen. Adding the voice doesnt bring any benefit for normal users except the blinds...yeah, the blinds watch TV.