singlish is it?

(Use of English: pt 1 multiple-choice)

Singapore's SingTel has developed an application to 1. opposecompeterivalfight the voice-activated Siri on the iPhone 4S that is sure to go 2. ondownupalong well in the island state -- because it can understand "Singlish". When Apple unveiled its latest handset earlier this month most of the talk was about Siri, 3. andwhothatwhich can give directions or even advice to users simply by asking a question into the speaker. read on
However, 4. whensinceduringbecause the new phone went on sale there have been numerous 5. viewscommentslettersreports of Siri either responding with a completely irrelevant answer or simply saying it does not understand. YouTube videos of Siri misinterpreting the heavily accented words of iPhone 4S users in Japan -- the first Asian country to get the device on October 14 -- have been 6. widelyhugelyextremelycompletely circulated on the Internet.

But Singapore Telecom (SingTel) says its new app, DeF!ND, will help Singaporeans who use "Singlish" - a localised form of English with words borrowed from Asian languages - 7. denyavoiddeferdivert such problems. SingTel said DeF!ND is a localised Siri-like application that is able to decipher uniquely Singaporean accents, names and locations.
It made its public 8. appealannouncementdebutarrival at the stroke of midnight Thursday, when SingTel Singapore chief executive Allen Lew 9. toldorderedmadegave it an instruction in a decidedly local accent as he launched the iPhone 4S in the city-state. "We have a voice application capability in DeF!ND that is unique because it understands the local language... which the voice recognition engine within an international device 10. aslikebutsuch Apple doesn't quite have," Lew said after the launch.

"When we tried to test different voice recognition systems including... Siri, we found that the Singaporean accent is pretty unique and the common international voice recognition systems don't quite 11. make uppick upcome uplook up the nuance of how we speak," Lew added. "And of course our street names and our food names are very local so we developed and trained this new system to 12. approvemakeletallow it to recognise it better."

DeF!ND will be available for free on the Android platform and Apple's iTunes "soon," a Singtel spokesman told AFP answers
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