Siri

Yahoo may be working on its own voice-based personal assistant to rival Apple’s Siri and Google Now. A video has recently surfaced that shows the unreleased app running on an Android smartphone. The origins of the clip are unclear, though it may have been developed for internal purposes. In the video, we see the Android Continue Reading →

I can’t wait to see Her. Opening in limited release next week (and already getting rave reviews and year-end awards), Spike Jonze’s newest movie is set in the “near future” and stars Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely man who falls in love with a Siri-like A.I. system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. She’s specifically designed to Continue Reading →

85 per cent of iPhone owners who’ve updated their phones have never used Siri, according to new research — and those that have are divided on whether Siri lives up to Apple’s promises. That number is based on a survey of 2,330 Apple-owning folk in the US who have upgraded to iOS 7, the latest Continue Reading →

Personal assistant app Cue has been acquired, we’ve confirmed with a person who should know. The app has sold for between $40 million to $60 million, we’re hearing from two sources, including TechCrunch tips, who posit that Apple has picked up the company for over a $35 million price tag. While we’re hearing that the Continue Reading →

For the past two years, she’s been a pocket and purse accessory to millions of Americans. She’s starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel. She’s provided weather forecasts and restaurant tips, been mocked as useless and answered absurd questions about what she’s wearing. She is Siri, Apple’s voice-activated virtual “assistant” introduced to the masses Continue Reading →

In iOS 7, Siri can change a number of settings on the iPhone, including toggling Bluetooth on and off or changing the screen brightness. As one MacRumors reader noticed, Siri can also activate Airplane Mode, even if a passcode lock is set, allowing a thief to effectively disable Find My iPhone on a stolen device. Continue Reading →

The Turing test is one of the oldest ideas for imagining machine intelligence. Dreamed-up by computing legend Alan Turing, the idea is genius in its simplicity — if the average person can’t distinguish a particular machine from a real person through conversation, then that machine is said to possess thought. Each year, chat bots are Continue Reading →

When it comes to aiding someone who is emotionally driven to kill him or herself, the right response can literally be a matter of life and death. In order to help those in crisis, Apple has updated Siri’s search response system to field suicide-related requests with an approach designed to drive users to seek help Continue Reading →

It’s getting dangerous just to walk and text at the same time much less do so behind the wheel of a car. But with Siri being just slightly less helpful than HAL, how are you supposed to surf the web and simultaneously travel safely? All you have to do is ask. Become a Dictator: With Continue Reading →

Apple has updated an earlier lawsuit filed against Samsung with claims that the Galaxy S4 and its Google Now feature violate two Apple patents covering functions of its own virtual personal assistant, Siri. Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents relayed news of the updated complaint on Wednesday, and he noted that two of the patents — Continue Reading →