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NEWS ABOUT: Siri

Tim Cook: Apple Will 'Double Down' on Secrecy

CEO hopes to bring some manufacturing to US

(Newser) - If you thought Apple was secretive under Steve Jobs, brace yourself: Tim Cook says his company is going to "double down" on its strategy of keeping mum. "I feel strongly that being secretive on the product side of our business is so important," the CEO said at... More »

Apple Finally Realizes Siri's Best Use: Getting Laughs

New commercials stop trying to paint it as a serious game-changer: Essay

(Newser) - Apple seems to be finally waving the white flag in its quest to push Siri as some kind of hyper-efficient personal assistant of the digital variety, writes Rebecca Greenfield at AtlanticWire . Witness the new commercial with John Malkovich: He's goofing around with Siri, "using it as a form... More »

IBM Thinks Siri Is Spying, Bans It

Or at least, it might if it was allowed on company's network

(Newser) - IBM has banned employees from using Siri on its network, because it doesn't trust the iPhone digital assistant. On Monday, IBM's CIO told the MIT Technology Review that though employees are free to use their personal iPhone at work, it was having problems with apps posing security risks.... More »

Google Revamping Search System

Coming changes designed to better understand questions, fine-tune answers

(Newser) - Google is in the middle of one of the biggest overhauls to its search engine in years, trying to fight off growing competition from Microsoft's Bing, Apple's Siri, Facebook, and others by incorporating more real-life language concepts, reports the Wall Street Journal . The changes will be implemented over... More »

Siri Sucks, Lawsuit Alleges

iPhone assistant 'at best a work-in-progress'

(Newser) - A disgruntled iPhone 4S user is suing Apple for its "misleading and deceptive" advertising of Siri. In real life, the plaintiff alleges, Siri will not help you learn to play guitar, find you a restaurant, or make an appointment with nearly the aplomb depicted in Apple's commercials. More... More »

Siri Is Great ... Unless You're Scottish

iPhone 4S virtual assistant has some trouble with Scottish brogue

(Newser) - Apple's Siri can help you order take-out, give you directions, or just make you laugh —but not if she can't understand you. Scottish iPhone 4S owners are finding that the voice-controlled digital assistant has a hard time deciphering their signature brogue, the Los Angeles Times reports. In... More »

How Siri Could Hurt Everyone's Cell Service

She's a giant 'bandwidth guzzler': Paul Farhi

(Newser) - Siri is knowledgeable, convenient, even funny—but she has a dark side. "Siri’s dirty little secret is that she’s a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1," writes Paul Farhi in the Washington Post . Indeed, the iPhone 4S, which brought us Siri,... More »

iPhone's Siri Learning Chinese

4s to be launched in China, 21 other countries

(Newser) - Apple is about to get more than a billion new potential customers for the iPhone 4s—but many of them may find it tricky communicating with Siri just yet. The smartphone will be launched in China and 21 other countries next week, and while its voice-activated virtual assistant currently only... More »

Apple's Siri Tells Boy to 'Shut the F*** Up'

iPhone voice system insults 12-year-old shopper

(Newser) - An eager 12-year-old experienced the techno-shock of a lifetime when Apple's Siri voice system told him to "shut the f*** up" the other day. His question: "How many people are there in the world?" The boy, Charlie Le Quesne, had grabbed a demo iPhone while shopping with... More »

Google's Own 'Siri' Named for Star Trek

Software to be called 'Majel' after Enterprise voice: reports

(Newser) - Siri's got competition. Google is reportedly working on its own version of the voice-activated smartphone assistant, and rumor has it the software's name honors Star Trek. Google is apparently calling the system "Majel," after Majel Barrett, who did the voice for Star Trek's talking computer,... More »

Could Google's Alfred Rival Siri?

After criticizing Siri, Android looks to follow

(Newser) - Less than two months after Google's mobile chief panned Siri and said Google had no interest in adding a Siri-like assistant to Android , the company yesterday announced that it has bought the tech company that makes Alfred, a personal assistant smartphone app. In a look at the move, Reuters... More »

Apple Looking for Help With Siri

Pair of job listings go up for engineers

(Newser) - Hey iPhone 4S users, is Siri all you hoped and dreamed it would be? No? Well don't worry, Apple plans to fix it—just as soon as it hires someone up for the job. 9to5 Mac spotted a pair of new job postings on Apple's site, seeking new... More »

Apple: Siri's Abortion Blind Spot Not Intentional

Company reiterates product is officially in beta

(Newser) - Apple says Siri isn’t trying to hide abortion clinics or places to buy birth control from users, characterizing its apparent inability to find reproductive health services as a glitch, and noting that the voice-activated search software is still technically in beta testing. “While it can find a lot,... More »

iPhone's Siri 'Can't Find' Abortion Clinics

But it will point users toward escorts, marijuana, and body dumps

(Newser) - Siri, the iPhone 4S' virtual assistant, can tell you how much wood a woodchuck could chuck or where to hide a dead body, but it draws a blank when asked for the location of abortion clinics or emergency contraception services. In Washington, DC, users are directed to anti-abortion pregnancy centers... More »

Amazon Secretly Buys Voice Company

Could acquisition of Yap herald Siri competitor?

(Newser) - Is Amazon trying to dig deeper into gadget land? The company appears to have clandestinely purchased Yap, a company specializing in voice recognition technology. In a never-announced deal on Sept. 8, Yap was acquired by a company called Yarmuth Dion Inc. The merged company was then immediately renamed Yap. But... More »

Hey, Siri, Are You a Data Hog? Not Really

Ars Technica figures 4MB to 28MB a month for most users

(Newser) - The new iPhone's Siri feature has won mostly raves, but users should be aware that all those requests of the "personal assistant" are eating up data. How much? Ars Technica put Siri through its paces, and it looks like most users won't come anywhere near busting their... More »

Android Chief: Siri, Schmiri. Phone Is Not an Assistant

Andy Rubin not interested in Siri-like functionality

(Newser) - Android users, don’t hold out hope for your phone to get a Siri -like function anytime in the near future. “I don’t believe that your phone should be an assistant,” Android chief Andy Rubin tells All Things D . “Your phone is a tool for communicating.... More »

The Weirdest Things Siri Says

iPhone Q&A tool may know meaning of life

(Newser) - The new iPhones are out today, and one tester has already explored the blog-worthy bizarreness of its question-and-answer function . Ask Siri a question and it'll tell you the answer, whether you want to know the location of the nearest Starbucks or the meaning of life, This is my next... More »

iPhone 4S: Siri Is Great, but Is It a Game-Changer?

Walt Mossberg says no, others are more wowed

(Newser) - The iPhone 4S looks exactly like its best-selling predecessor, but it has had a major internal revamp. The big news is that the fifth-generation smartphone "thinks different," thanks to its voice-controlled artificial-intelligence system called Siri. Writing for the Wall Street Journal , Walt Mossberg decides Siri is impressive but... More »

New iPhone's Siri Shows Real Promise

Bloggers seem to like the voice-recognition feature

(Newser) - Much of the buzz around the iPhone 4S centers on its Siri voice-recognition system that Apple says makes the phone a virtual personal assistant. Some takes today:
  • This could work: What's promising about Siri is that it addresses the long-running problems associated with voice recognition, writes Paul Miller at
... More »

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