Apple's Siri (digital assistant) has been around for several years, but it still struggles to respond to basic commands. Earlier this month, it 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, United Kingdom, 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 on the home button, and asked for help from the digital assistant Siri.
You can listen to the audio from Roman's action below.
Roman contacted the local emergency services (the UK emergency number is 999). The system was set in motion, and soon (within 13 minutes of receiving the call, with the location) a team of paramedics were able to give the mother life-saving first aid and take her and Roman to hospital for further tests.
Although it was mostly little Roman's presence that saved his mother's life, the above story highlights one of the important aspects of voice assistants: accessibility.
It is unclear whether the child could have called 911 on his own, but he was very lucky to have found a way to call for help.
Digital assistants are on the rise, most recently with Amazon's Alexa, and it's 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 connected devices.
Features like these will take a lot of work to work out of the box around the world, as each country uses different emergency systems and services. Hopefully, Roman's story will inspire many companies to produce very simplified yet functional products that can be used by everyone.
PS: The title was corrected after the intervention of our friend on Facebook.
