Why Siri + Yelp = Useless Google Maps On The iPhone 4S

It sounds great. Speak into Siri about some local need, get nice results from Yelp’s reviews. In reality, it’s pretty easy instead to end up stuck with only a phone number and directions from Google Maps.
From Siri To Yelp To Google Maps

Consider this example, which illustrates the situation I’ve repeatedly found to be true with Siri:

I asked Siri for “Places to eat.” It pretty awesomely interpreted that to mean nearby restaurants, a natural language query that Google Voice Actions, as I’m tested them, disappoints on.

Selecting a restaurant from the nice list, which comes from Yelp and includes star ratings, leads not to the actual listing as Yelp but rather into Google Maps. Once there, you can’t even get to a Google Maps place page with more details about the restaurant. Instead, you end up with only the phone number and address of the restaurant.
And No Going Back

That’s pretty unhelpful. What I think most people would want are more details about the restaurant itself. And after reading those, they may want to go back to the original list, to check-out another restaurant. But you can’t do that, either. Siri has no back button. Instead, you have to speak your search all over again.
The Full Yelp Experience

Now consider this:

That’s a search using the Yelp app on the iPhone. I wasn’t able to speak to the iPhone 4S and have the first screen of restaurants appear, so there’s no “wow” factor. Instead, I opened Yelp and picked restaurants the old fashioned way.

After doing that, I selected a restaurant and got what you’d think Siri should do, a page with more details about the restaurant, with the ability to drill down even further as shown on the third screen — and always the ability to go back.
Google Doesn’t Do Natural Language Well

As I said, Google does pretty badly with the natural language queries that Siri is designed to handle. Here’s an example of when I spoke “Places To Eat” on my Droid Charge:

There’s no nice list, not even any localization going on, plus you get an ad shoved in a the top, among the disappointments.
But Bests Siri On Standard Search Experience

However, speak your search not as a natural language query but as people might typically type — “Restaurants” — and Google does better. Consider first Siri:

It’s the same disappointing system I described at the start — a nice list, but without the detailed follow through that you’d expect. Now that same search spoken into the Droid Charge (and which you could do on any iPhone, if you have the Google Search App that allows speech recognition:

I have to scroll on the results that appear to get to the nice list — Google could improve there by making those higher up. But once I do, it’s easy to drill in and get more details about any restaurant, and then go back to the original list.
More Testing To Come

It’s probably fairly easy for Apple to fix things in Siri so that the results lead further into Yelp’s listings. I’m surprised they aren’t this way already. Hopefully, it’ll happen.

Also, expect more reviews of Siri from us shortly. We’ve only just gotten our collective hands on the iPhone 4S through retail channels, so this weekend will be a lot of testing time.

Uganda minister aims to present oil bills this year

(Reuters) - Uganda's energy minister said she expects to send three petroleum bills to parliament by the end of the year as the government moves quickly to put laws in place to regulate the country's nascent oil sector before the start of production.

Earlier in the week, President Yoweri Museveni said he would discuss a parliamentary vote to delay UK exploration company Tullow Oil's planned sale of stakes in local oil fields, pledging to defend the country's interests in the case.

Earlier this week, Uganda's parliament passed a resolution urging the government to withhold consent for Tallow's proposed deal with France's Total and China's COCOON until laws were in place to regulate the industry.

"We're working very hard, and we expect that by the end of this year we'll have brought the three bills -- Resource Management Bill, Revenue Management Bill and Value Addition Management Bill -- to parliament," Energy Minister Irene Muloni told a news conference on Saturday.

"The problem is that I can't control the process thereafter. So how fast the bills will be debated and passed into law will depend on parliament, but at least on my side we're moving very quickly."

Last year, Tullow agreed to sell stakes in its Ugandan assets to Chinese group CNOOC and French oil company Total for $2.9 billion.

In March, Tullow said Uganda had assessed taxes of $472 million on its earnings from the sale, and it was disputing that figure. It has since begun an arbitration process before a tax appeals tribunal in Kampala.

The company, meanwhile, has been awaiting final government approval for the partnership, which would allow it to move ahead with a project to develop oil reserves.

Endorsement of the deal is expected to kick start a $10 billion investment to develop the country's oil fields and start production.

Muloni said government officials expected to extract more favorable terms from companies in future oil deals because the discovery of oil has diminished the exploration risk for oil firms.

"Before the discovery we didn't know what we had. We didn't know whether we had oil or not, and for an oil company to bring in a big investment they needed stabilization clause," she said.

"Now we're operating with certainty, we have the oil. So when we're negotiating new deals, we'll put up tough positions on the table."

Hydrocarbon deposits were discovered along Uganda's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006.

Gilad Shalit bound for Israel 'within days' after prisoner swap deal

Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive in the Gaza Strip since 2006, could be returned to his family within days after the Israeli cabinet approved a deal to free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his release.

Cabinet ministers were in an emergency session until the early hours to vote on the proposal, which would lead to the release of 1,026 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including militants involved in some of Israel's bloodiest terror attacks.

Twenty-six ministers voted in favor of the agreement, which was signed by Hamas and Israeli officials in a hotel room in Cairo on Tuesday; three, including the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, voted against.

"If all goes as planned, Gilad will be back in Israel in the next few days with his family and his people," the Israeli prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, said.

A first wave of 450 Palestinian prisoners will be released before Shalit is freed. Among these are 280 who are serving life sentences. The remaining 577 will then follow.

Israel's Channel 2 reports that Shalit will be released across the border from Gaza into Egypt and then flown to Germany before returning to Israel.

The dramatic development is the result of a week of talks in Cairo between David Median, the Israeli official leading the Shalit negotiations, and representatives of Hamas's military wing. The negotiations, which Netanyahu said had been "long and exhausting", were mediated by officials from the Egyptian government and a German diplomat.

Under the terms finally agreed in the prisoner swap, 200 of the 1,026 Palestinians – including 15 high-security inmates - will be barred from returning to the West Bank and will sent to Turkey or Europe instead.

Among the prisoners who will be freed are 45 east Jerusalemites and five Arab Israelis, whose release Israeli negotiators have opposed in previous negotiations.

In Gaza city, news of the deal was met with spontaneous celebrations. The main Hamas leader, Khalid Mashal, claimed the exchange as a victory for Palestinians. "Our heroes in Israeli prisons in exchange for one fighter," he said – "One hundred kidnapped and arrested for no reason while fighting the occupation.

"I say this, to the Palestinians and freedom lovers in the world: we managed to destroy the shackles of the occupier."

In a televised addressed, Mashal said the negotiations had been "very, very difficult", and called the deal "a national accomplishment".

But he also issued a veiled threat to Israel, saying that a government that would release 1,000 prisoners would be prepared to release 8,000. And the Palestinians, he warned, would do whatever it took to make this happen.

Contradicting earlier reports from Palestinian officials, Israel has insisted that Mar-wan Barghouti, the head of Fatah's militant branch, who is serving five life sentences for planning and funding terrorist attacks, will not be among those freed.

High-profile militants rumoured to be due for release are Abdullah Barghouti, sentenced to 67 life sentences in 2004 for providing the explosives used in terror attacks in several Jerusalem cafes and the Hebrew University, and Abbas Sayed, imprisoned for his role in planning a double suicide bombing at the Park hotel in Netanya in 2002, in which 30 people were killed and 140 injured.

News of Shallot's release was met with emotional scenes in Jerusalem, where the soldier's family have put a protest tent where they have campaigned for his release.

Shalit's parents, Noam and Aviva, were greeted with loud cheering as they visited the tent on Tuesday night.

"The joy is indescribable, but until [Gilad returns to us] we are restrained," said Aviva.

Shalit's return will undoubtedly boost Netanyahu's popularity at home, which suffered a blow during a summer of nationwide protests.

The prime minister told Israeli television he had invited Noam Shalit to his home, to break the news of his son's release, and had spoken to the soldier's grandfather, Tzvi, on the phone. Netanyahu said: "I told them that I am keeping my promise and I'm bringing their son and grandson home. I told them: 'I'm bringing your boy back.'"

The government's right-wing camp, a crucial pillar of political support to the prime minister, is likely to respond more critically to the release of highly skilled and influential Palestinian militants.

Rabbi Brigadier General Avichai Ronsky, a former leader of the Israeli Defence Forces, described the swap as "crazy".

"We know who the people being released are," he said. "They are artists at these kinds of things. A second after their release, they will be untraceable."

Netanyahu made reference to this conflict of interest in his statement. "I do not wish to hide the truth from you – it is a very difficult decision," he said.

"I feel for the families of victims of terror. I appreciate their suffering and distress. I am one of them. But leadership must be examined at moments such as this – being able to make difficult, but right, decisions."

For the past two and a half years, Hamas has denied the International Red Cross access to Shalit, who was captured when he was 19. The only contact with the solider during this time has consisted of three letters, an audiotape and a video, received in exchange for the release of 20 female Palestinian prisoners two years ago.

Texas Exes to honor Fort Worth oilman Brumley

Veteran Fort Worth oilman I. Jon Brumley has received considerable recognition during a long, successful career and busy civic life, such as when he and his son, Johnny, were named Entrepreneurs of the Year by Forbes magazine in 2005.

But the latest honor bestowed on the University of Texas grad appears to rank among the most pleasing to him. He'll be conferred a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Texas Exes alumni association in a ceremony Friday in Austin.

"I am so excited, it's just a thrill," Brumley, in a voice brimming with sincerity and gratitude, told staff writer Jack Z. Smith last week.

It was a half-century ago, in 1961, that Brumley received his bachelor's degree in business administration from UT. He would go on to earn an MBA from the highly regarded Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He began his energy career as a risk analyst at Southland Royalty Co. in Fort Worth and would become its president before its takeover by Burlington Resources. In 1986, Brumley was a co-founder of Cross Timbers Oil Co., which would be renamed XTO Energy and become one of the most successful U.S. independent natural gas and oil producers before being bought by Irving-based Exxon Mobil for $36 billion in 2010. Brumley had left XTO well before that, forming oil producer Encore Acquisition along with son Johnny. Encore would be acquired by Plano-based Den bury Resources in 2010 for $4.5 billion.

The Texas Exes, in announcing that Brumley and five other alumni would be granted a Distinguished Alumnus Award this year, took note of his civic deeds, including his service to public education and focus on improving programs for minority and disadvantaged students.

Brumley and his wife, Rebecca, have given more than 300,000children's books to needy families and funded numerous scholarships for students planning to become public school teachers in Texas. Brumley also played a major role in the merger of Cook's and Fort Worth Children's hospitals in 1985, the alumni group said.

A native of the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa who spent most of his childhood in Austin, Brumley, 72, is back on familiar business turf as chairman and CEO of his latest new company, Bounty Investments L.P., based in downtown Fort Worth. He said it is a limited partnership formed to buy royalty and working interests in oil and gas production. The company is also investing in the stock market, primarily in master limited partnerships and royalty trusts that reflect his energy background.

Substance-screening firm comes to town

Conspire, a Colorado Springs, Colo., drug and alcohol screening firm founded in 2003, has set up shop in Fort Worth with what it says is the first of at least five planned Metroplex offices and 80 in Texas.

Two weeks ago, franchisee Dave Thomas opened an office at 3533 NW Loop 820 near Tarrant County College Northwest Campus, aiming to capture business from Blue Mound Road to the Alliance Corridor, and south to Interstate 30. The territory takes in about half of Fort Worth, Thomas said.

There are plenty of other competitors, including Quest and LabCorp, but Thomas says there's more room in the market. Some industries are untapped, and schools are increasingly requiring drug testing of student athletes, he noted.

Thomas expects to bid for contracts with employers and to attempt to sign on as "third-party collectors" for organizations that already have primary contractors but need others to handle extra volume, he said.

Thomas, who grew up in Odessa, was a lead driver for a beverage company in Florida and looking for an opportunity to go into business for himself. He moved his family to Fort Worth a year and a half ago, and, sifting through franchise opportunities on a website, found Conspire.

Conspire's franchise fee is $30,000, and it takes about $100,000 to open an office, said Thomas, 36. If he opens a second office, he gets an $8,000 discount on the franchise fee.

Financing? "My father helped me," he said. He and his wife, who have three young children, are running the office together, but Thomas says he may hire someone to help market the business.

Perot chosen for magazine's honor

Ross Perot Jr., chairman of Hillwood Properties and developer of Alliance Texas in north Fort Worth, has been selected by Real Estate Forum magazine as one of 65 "Industry Legends and Icons."

The list, published in the magazine's 65th anniversary issue, recognizes figures and events that have had a significant impact on commercial real estate in the past 65 years. Industry icons Trammell Crow, David Rockefeller, John Cushman III and Roger Staubach are on the list.

Perot was selected for his leadership in establishing Fort Worth Alliance Airport and the Alliance Global Logistics Hub, one of the nation's first and largest inland ports. The airport and the logistics hub are key components of Hillwood's 17,000-acre Alliance Texas master-planned community that Perot launched more than 20 years ago.

To date, Alliance has had a cumulative economic impact of nearly $40 billion on the North Texas economy, creating more than 30,000 jobs. And it's just 40 percent developed.

Hillwood Properties has also been named one of two 2011 winners of the Greater Tarrant Business Ethics Award, which recognizes companies that uphold high standards of business ethics.

The award is presented by the Fort Worth Chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals, in conjunction with the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University and the Financial Planning Association.

Also winning a 2011 award was Integral Realty Resources. Finalists for the award were American Airlines, Calloway's Nurseries, F1 Information Technologies and Williams Trew.

Foodie fundraiser

Sweet Tomatoes, which is opening in the West 7th development, will host an all-you-care-to-eat fundraiser Friday and Saturday.

Guests can dine for $5 with proceeds benefiting the Ronald McDonald House of Fort Worth. The restaurant, at 2901 W. Seventh St., opens Monday, Oct. 17. It is the fourth Dallas-Fort Worth location.

The preview is from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Friday, and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday.

Sweet Tomatoes features a 45-foot salad bar full of fresh, seasonal vegetables and tossed salads, made-from-scratch soups and hand-crafted muffins, focaccia, breads and desserts. Sweet Tomatoes has a rotating menu of more than 100 original, daily fresh recipes featuring signature salads, soups, bakery goods and hot pasta sauces.

Niagara Conservation an EPA award winner

Fort Worth-based Niagara Conservation Corp., a provider of products and services to conserve water and energy, has been named a 2011 WaterSense Excellence Award winner in the manufacturer category by the Environmental Protection Agency

"This is an incredibly proud moment for us," CEO William Cutler said in a statement. "At Niagara, we've always done our best to engineer, manufacture, promote and sell products that conserve water without sacrificing performance."

The company, founded in 1977, makes such things as ultrahigh-efficiency toilets, low-flow showerheads and aerators, lawn and garden products. Niagara Conservation has offices in New Jersey, California, and in Saudi Arabia and Chile, and owns a factory in China.

Niagara Conservation is a WaterSense program partner. Products with the WaterSense label are 20 percent more water-efficient than average products in their category, while performing as well or better than their less efficient counterparts.