Hey, I don’t want to anthropomorphize all smartphone technology but if companies like Nuance keep giving their products artificial intelligence AND people names, well, what can I do? Siri works kind of okay for tasks like texting, checking weather, and getting directions but it doesn’t really work inside of applications themselves. It’s more of an overlay on the iOS operating system.
Now, Nuance, the company that developed Siri, has introduced Nina, a version that’s designed to be used within apps. Nuance is releasing a software developer’s kit (SDK) today.
Demos being reported today seem to focus on banking apps and practical things although presumably this could work on all manner of entertainment apps and games. Noisy games. With which to bother people.
From All Things D:

But here’s a key feature you might not expect. Nina can also use your voice to authenticate you. As part of our demo we handed the phone around the room and tried to sign in to the demonstration banking app, and only one of us could. If nothing else adding a voice-based biometric option to banking apps would seem to improve the security of a mobile banking app, if only because sufficiently complicated passwords are hard to remember.An early customer is USAA, a financial services company whose primary customers are US military service members and veterans. Nuance has plans to offer the technology for use in travel, insurance, retail and government apps as well.

The first Nina-enabled apps should hit phones this fall.