Siri Personal Assistant
Encyclopedia
Siri (ˈsɪri) is an intelligent software assistant
and knowledge navigator
functioning as a personal assistant
application for iOS. The application uses a natural language user interface
to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of web services. Siri claims that the software adapts to the user's individual preferences over time and personalizes results, as well as accomplishing tasks such as making dinner reservations and reserving a cab.
Siri was originally introduced as an iOS
application available in the App Store. Siri was acquired by Apple Inc. on April 28, 2010. Siri had announced that their software would be available for BlackBerry and for Android-powered phones, but all development efforts for non-Apple platforms were cancelled after Apple's purchase.
Siri is now an integrated part of iOS 5, and available only on the iPhone 4S
, launched on October 4th 2011, the day before Steve Jobs
died. Despite this, hackers were able to adapt Siri in previous iPhones. On November 8, 2011, Apple publicly announced that it had no plans to support Siri on any of its older devices.
Independent developers claim that they ported Siri to iPhone 4
. However, some news sites consider that the videos they posted for proof only show the user interface
of the application, excluding any voice commands, to conclude that they did not prove anything. However, new sources suggests that the independent developers are able to port Siri to the iPhone 4
, iPod Touch
, and iPad
.
's venture group. On October 13, 2008, Siri announced it had raised an $8.5 million Series A financing round, led by Menlo Ventures
and Morgenthaler Ventures. In November 2009, Siri raised a $15.5 million Series B financing round from the same investors as in their previous round, but led by Hong-Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. Dag Kittlaus left his position as CEO of Siri at Apple after the launch of the iPhone 4S.
’s Artificial Intelligence Center
through the Personalized Assistant that Learns Program and Cognitive Agent that Learns and Organizes Program CALO
.
This includes the combined work from research teams from Carnegie Mellon University
, the University of Massachusetts
, the University of Rochester
, the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Oregon State University
, the University of Southern California
, and Stanford University
. This technology has come a long way with dialog and natural language understanding
, machine learning
, evidential and probabilistic reasoning, ontology and knowledge representation, planning, reasoning and service delegation.
. The new version of Siri is integrated into iOS, and offers conversational interaction with many applications, including reminders, weather, stocks, messaging, email, calendar, contacts, notes, music, clocks, web browser, Wolfram Alpha
, and maps. Currently, Siri only supports English (US, UK, Australian), German and French, and has limited functionality outside the US.
After announcing that Siri is included with the iPhone 4S, Apple removed the existing Siri app (which ran on all iPhone models) from the App Store. Some users have been able to port Siri back to a jailbroken iPhone 4, bypassing a filter on Apple's servers intended to prevent earlier models from using Siri.
Artificial Intelligence Center, and is an offshoot of the DARPA-funded CALO
project. It is described as perhaps the largest artificial-intelligence project ever launched.
Siri's primary technical areas focus on a Conversational Interface, Personal Context Awareness, and Service Delegation.
Siri's speech recognition
engine is thought to be provided by Nuance Communications
, a speech technology company, although this has not been officially acknowledged by either Apple or Nuance.
Siri personal assistant for the United Kingdom is called "Daniel" who is voiced by Jon Briggs
, a former technology journalist who recorded “Daniel” for Scansoft, who merged with Nuance Communications
, a company that works on Siri with Apple.
Siri's actions and answers rely upon a growing ecosystem of partners, including:
’s executive chairman and former chief, Eric Schmidt, has conceded that Siri could pose a "competitive threat" to the company’s core search business. Google generates a large portion of its revenue from clickable ad links returned in the context of searches. The threat comes from the fact that Siri is a non-visual medium, therefore not affording users with the opportunity to be exposed to the clickable ad links.
Intelligent software assistant
Intelligent software assistant is a software agent that is also an intelligent agent which performs a task with minimum specific directions from users. It evolves from the concept of "virtual personal assistant", a cognitive assistant that learns and organizes...
and knowledge navigator
Knowledge Navigator
The Knowledge Navigator is a concept described by former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley in his 1987 book, Odyssey. It describes a device that can access a large networked database of hypertext information, and use software agents to assist searching for information.Apple produced several concept...
functioning as a personal assistant
Personal assistant
A personal assistant or personal aide is someone who assists in daily business or personal tasks. It is common in design to have a PDA, or personal design assistant....
application for iOS. The application uses a natural language user interface
Natural language user interface
Natural Language User Interfaces are a type of computer human interface where linguistic phenomena such as verbs, phrases and clauses act as UI controls for creating, selecting and modifying data in software applications....
to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of web services. Siri claims that the software adapts to the user's individual preferences over time and personalizes results, as well as accomplishing tasks such as making dinner reservations and reserving a cab.
Siri was originally introduced as an iOS
IOS
iOS is an operating system for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, and Apple TV.IOS may also refer to:-Companies and organisations:* Illinois Ornithological Society, American state-based bird club...
application available in the App Store. Siri was acquired by Apple Inc. on April 28, 2010. Siri had announced that their software would be available for BlackBerry and for Android-powered phones, but all development efforts for non-Apple platforms were cancelled after Apple's purchase.
Siri is now an integrated part of iOS 5, and available only on the iPhone 4S
IPhone 4S
The iPhone 4S is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, a device that combines a widescreen iPod with a touchscreen, mobile phone, and internet communicator. It retains the exterior design of its predecessor, iPhone 4, but is host to a range...
, launched on October 4th 2011, the day before Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
died. Despite this, hackers were able to adapt Siri in previous iPhones. On November 8, 2011, Apple publicly announced that it had no plans to support Siri on any of its older devices.
Independent developers claim that they ported Siri to iPhone 4
IPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation iPhone, and successor to the iPhone 3GS. It is particularly marketed for video calling , consumption of media such as books and periodicals, movies, music, and games, and for general web and e-mail...
. However, some news sites consider that the videos they posted for proof only show the user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
of the application, excluding any voice commands, to conclude that they did not prove anything. However, new sources suggests that the independent developers are able to port Siri to the iPhone 4
IPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation iPhone, and successor to the iPhone 3GS. It is particularly marketed for video calling , consumption of media such as books and periodicals, movies, music, and games, and for general web and e-mail...
, iPod Touch
IPod Touch
The iPod Touch is a portable media player, personal digital assistant, handheld game console, and Wi-Fi mobile device designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The iPod Touch adds the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line...
, and iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
.
Founding
Siri was founded in 2007 by Dag Kittlaus (CEO), Adam Cheyer (VP Engineering), and Tom Gruber (CTO/VP Design), together with Norman Winarsky from SRI InternationalSRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
's venture group. On October 13, 2008, Siri announced it had raised an $8.5 million Series A financing round, led by Menlo Ventures
Menlo Ventures
Menlo Ventures is a venture capital firm located at 3000 Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California.The firm was founded as one of the earliest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley in 1976 and provides provides technology venture capital funding for seed, early stage and growth companies...
and Morgenthaler Ventures. In November 2009, Siri raised a $15.5 million Series B financing round from the same investors as in their previous round, but led by Hong-Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. Dag Kittlaus left his position as CEO of Siri at Apple after the launch of the iPhone 4S.
DARPA involvement
With Siri, Apple is using the results of over 40 years of research funded by DARPA via SRI InternationalSRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
’s Artificial Intelligence Center
Artificial Intelligence Center
The Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International was founded in 1966 by Charles Rosen and studies artificial intelligence. One of their early projects was Shakey the Robot, the first general-purpose mobile robot. More recently, the center funded early development of CALO and Siri....
through the Personalized Assistant that Learns Program and Cognitive Agent that Learns and Organizes Program CALO
CALO
CALO was an artificial intelligence project that attempted to integrate numerous AI technologies into a cognitive assistant. CALO is an acronym for "Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes". The name was inspired by the Latin word "calonis," which means "soldier’s servant"...
.
This includes the combined work from research teams from Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
, the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
, the University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
, the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Oregon State University
Oregon State University
Oregon State University is a coeducational, public research university located in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees and a multitude of research opportunities. There are more than 200 academic degree programs offered through the...
, the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, and Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. This technology has come a long way with dialog and natural language understanding
Natural language understanding
Natural language understanding is a subtopic of natural language processing in artificial intelligence that deals with machine reading comprehension....
, machine learning
Machine learning
Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...
, evidential and probabilistic reasoning, ontology and knowledge representation, planning, reasoning and service delegation.
iOS integration
It was announced on October 4, 2011 that Siri is included with the iPhone 4SIPhone 4S
The iPhone 4S is a touchscreen slate smartphone developed by Apple Inc. It is the fifth generation of the iPhone, a device that combines a widescreen iPod with a touchscreen, mobile phone, and internet communicator. It retains the exterior design of its predecessor, iPhone 4, but is host to a range...
. The new version of Siri is integrated into iOS, and offers conversational interaction with many applications, including reminders, weather, stocks, messaging, email, calendar, contacts, notes, music, clocks, web browser, Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might...
, and maps. Currently, Siri only supports English (US, UK, Australian), German and French, and has limited functionality outside the US.
After announcing that Siri is included with the iPhone 4S, Apple removed the existing Siri app (which ran on all iPhone models) from the App Store. Some users have been able to port Siri back to a jailbroken iPhone 4, bypassing a filter on Apple's servers intended to prevent earlier models from using Siri.
Research and development
Siri is a spin-out from the SRI InternationalSRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
Artificial Intelligence Center, and is an offshoot of the DARPA-funded CALO
CALO
CALO was an artificial intelligence project that attempted to integrate numerous AI technologies into a cognitive assistant. CALO is an acronym for "Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes". The name was inspired by the Latin word "calonis," which means "soldier’s servant"...
project. It is described as perhaps the largest artificial-intelligence project ever launched.
Siri's primary technical areas focus on a Conversational Interface, Personal Context Awareness, and Service Delegation.
Siri's speech recognition
Speech recognition
Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...
engine is thought to be provided by Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...
, a speech technology company, although this has not been officially acknowledged by either Apple or Nuance.
Siri personal assistant for the United Kingdom is called "Daniel" who is voiced by Jon Briggs
Jon Briggs
Jon Briggs was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford. His work spans Radio, TV, Voice-Over, Training and Conferences. He started in radio in 1981 as tea boy and progressed to the breakfast show with BBC Radio Oxford aged 19....
, a former technology journalist who recorded “Daniel” for Scansoft, who merged with Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...
, a company that works on Siri with Apple.
Siri's actions and answers rely upon a growing ecosystem of partners, including:
- OpenTableOpenTableOpenTable is an online real-time restaurant reservation service founded by Chuck Templeton in San Francisco, CA in 1998. Reservations are free to end users; the company charges restaurants monthly and per-reservation fees for their use of the system. In 1999, the website began operations...
, Gayot, CitySearchCitysearchCitysearch is an online city guide that provides information about businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to each of Citysearch's local city guides will find contact information, maps, driving...
, BooRah, Yelp, Yahoo Local, ReserveTravel, LocalezeLocalezeLocaleze, a service of Neustar, is a content manager for local search engines. The company provides businesses with tools to verify and manage the identity of their local listings across the Web...
for restaurant and business questions and actions; - EventfulEventfulEventful is a web service which aims to help users search for, track, and share information about events. Eventful is a service of Eventful, Inc. from San Diego, California...
, StubHubStubhubStubHub is an online marketplace owned by eBay, which provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events....
, and LiveKick for events and concert information; - MovieTickets, RottenTomatoes and the New York Times for movie information and reviews;
- Bing Answers, and Wolfram AlphaWolfram AlphaWolfram Alpha is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might...
for factual question answeringQuestion answeringIn information retrieval and natural language processing , question answering is the task of automatically answering a question posed in natural language...
; - BingBingBing is a web search engine from Microsoft.Bing may also refer to:* An onomatopœia of a bell sound* Bing cherry, a variety of cherry* Bing , Chinese flatbread* Bing , a German company that manufactured toys and kitchen utensils...
, Yahoo and GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
for web search.
Reception
Siri was met with a very positive reaction for its ease of use and practicality, as well as its sassy "personality". GoogleGoogle
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
’s executive chairman and former chief, Eric Schmidt, has conceded that Siri could pose a "competitive threat" to the company’s core search business. Google generates a large portion of its revenue from clickable ad links returned in the context of searches. The threat comes from the fact that Siri is a non-visual medium, therefore not affording users with the opportunity to be exposed to the clickable ad links.