Siri App Turns iPhone into Digital Assistant from the Future

Friday, February 5, 2010

A new personal assistant app is now available in the iTunes store in the US only, called Siri. This app is being touted as a “do engine” instead of a search engine. Reminders of Star Trek and 2001 A Space Odyssey abound as this app is able to use voice commands to search up information you are seeking and then, in some cases, perform actions with that information. “Computer! Earl Grey Tea, hot!” No it is not quite there yet but it seems like a great start. You can ask it to find a romantic Italian restaurant in your current location and it will generate a list of options using several sources such as Google Maps, restaurant reviews and the like. You can then even ask Siri to make you a reservation at the restaurant of your choice at the time you request using Open Table. Pretty slick.

Reviews are coming in from users putting it to the test and it ranges from “scary good” to “buggy but I want to see the next version” so apparently it is working well for American iPhone 3Gs users. Alot of partners are going to have to get on board to make this available worldwide, which will will hopefully happen soon, but don’t hold your breath. According to an interview written up on Mashable CEO and co-founder of Siri, Dag Kittlaus:

Siri was born from SRI’s CALO Project. The CALO Project (or Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes) is the largest Artificial Intelligence project in U.S. History. DARPA invested $150 million into CALO over the course of five years. What was learned from CALO has been implemented into Siri.

Whether that information can be extrapolated to use around the world is still unknown. Siri has engaged the services or domains the likes of OpenTable, MovieTickets, StubHub, CitySearch and TaxiMagic. This list is to be expanded and once it is, our lives may be made much easier without having to jump through the hoops the internet currently demands of us. While some detractors are saying this app will essentially dumb down the population by allowing machines to do our work, I say there are many tasks machines can do for us to help us free up time for more important things like spending time with our families and working for volunteer agencies to improve our communities. Making dinner reservations, ordering tickets, finding movie schedules all are on my pet peeve list. This app has incredible potential and the more mundane tasks it can take on the better!

This is a cool app article by The Apps Machine.