Apple's new patent describes how Siri will work in noisy environments

 Apple has been granted a new patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) that appears to hint at one of the upcoming features of the company's voice-assistant Siri. The patent explains how the Apple's AI-powered voice assistant that runs across different platforms including tvOS, macOS, watchOS and iOS may be able to hear and respond to users in noisy environments.

Spotted by Patently Apple, the new patent says that users can talk to Siri via messages in situations where they are in an extremely quiet place like a Library or somewhere where it is not possible for the AI to listen to your voice, like a construction site. Some of the images found in the patent also shows how one can sue the feature to transfer money.

The abstract from the patent details the aforementioned functionality in a more technical language. "Systems and processes for operating an intelligent automated assistant in a messaging environment are provided. In one example process, a graphical user interface (GUI) having a plurality of previous messages between a user of the electronic device and the digital assistant can be displayed on a display. 

 

The plurality of previous messages can be presented in a conversational view. User input can be received and in response to receiving the user input, the user input can be displayed as a first message in the GUI. A contextual state of the electronic device corresponding to the displayed user input can be stored. 

The process can cause an action to be performed in accordance with a user intent derived from the user input. A response based on the action can be displayed as a second message in the GUI," says the abstract of the patent.  

It may also be possible for users to talk to Siri in a regular thread-like conversation. More than one user may be able to participate in the chat with Siri, something similar to a similar capability present in Google Allo.The patent comes just days before Apple's annual developers event WWDC. This year's WWDC is scheduled to start on June 5.