Google is reportedly working on a rival to Apple’s virtual assistant Siri, codenamed Majel, and will likely launch the service next year.

Majel is called after actress Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, and when you have geek cred you could additionally recognize that she was once the voice of the Federation computer (and Nurse Chapel) on “famous person Trek.” the secret project is scheduled for launch past due subsequent yr, consistent with Android and Me.

Majel is an evolution of Google’s Voice Actions that is currently available on most Android phones with the addition of natural language processing. Where Voice Actions required you to issue specific commands like “send text to…” or “navigate to…”, Majel will allow you to perform actions in your natural language similar to how Siri functions.

Just an afternoon after the Android and Me file, Google acquired CleverSense, a search consumer with a “personal robot” that recommends eating place, bars, cafes and so forth in accordance with person personal tastes, area and different elements, PCMag reported, suggesting that Google will contain the carrier into its virtual assistant.

While we don’t know if Majel will be the real name or if the secret virtual assistant developed at Google X will ever see the light of day, it makes sense for Android phones to have something similar to Apple’s Siri. Now that Google has seen the mistakes Apple made with Siri, we hope that it can improve upon its version and create something truly excellent.