Apple acquires virtual assistant search app maker Siri
By Laura June 
posted April 28th 2010 7:07PM
posted April 28th 2010 7:07PM
Apple has acquired Siri, a company that makes a virtual assistant app. Siri was inspired by DARPA's CALO -- the Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes -- project. Originally designed to help streamline military personnel's activities, the consumer app focuses on helping you find things like restaurants, making use of speech recognition to boot. Essentially a smart search, there's plenty of speculation of course as to what this means about the direction that Apple might be taking... and that direction seems to lead towards Google-y territory. Now we don't want to speculate too much, but we'll be watching to see how this plays out over the next few weeks. The terms of the acquisition aren't known, meaning we have no idea how much Apple paid for the small startup, but Business Insider guesses the deal could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 to $200 million.
Put this in iPhone os 4.0 Steve!!!!
... please?
@SolidSnake
all these acquisitions going on want me to go and buy something myself!
too bad it'd probably just be an apple. the kind you eat.
bad example... doh!
@SolidSnake
you can already have it... Go to the App store.
@SolidSnake They could simply use it for their voice recognition system when you call Apple Support. But I do hope they implement it into iPhone OS somehow, especially since this purchase is so much in the public eye (Engadget). It does seem like another purchase to distance itself from Google, similar to Apple's chip purchases is distancing themselves from chipmakers. Is Apple happy with Intel? Or does anyone foresee these ARMS growing into desktop and laptop processors?
@SolidSnake Smart searching Bing competitor?
@Damaga
oh hell ya you could do so much with a search built into the os(android)
but i think apple is really doing this to expand there servers.
think about it....... how do you keep up with like ummm 30 million iphones and also ipod touches
all these companies have lots of servers
in my opinion apple is doing this to expand there servers
@SolidSnake
i got it already... doesnt work for canadians... :( why does everyone hate canadians?
@SolidSnake -
The app is already avilable for free!
http://appstore.appadvice.com/linkappbase/351778157
Use it all the time and its bad azz...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpjpVAB06O4
@SolidSnake
These acquisitions of small startups makes me want to startup something small myself. Maybe I can "invent" something and patent it like a troll, make it kewl, then sell it to some unsuspecting corporation for millions because I convinced them it was the "it" thing! Perhaps maybe I can invent a more efficient parallel fart app using multiple cores. That would be KEWL!
@SolidSnake Forget Siri... Let me stream LALA!!!
Great success!
@WillSmith
Unlike Hancock.
Zing!
@WillSmith
Im sure you know a thing or two about success Will.
BTW, when's your next movie coming out? Its been awhile..
@abedinthehouse Guys, that's not the real Will Smith.
@Narutogrey Yes it is
@Narutogrey
Oh shit I didn't realize that!
/s
@abedinthehouse Footpenis should be out around the holiday season
@WillSmith If you're the real Will Smith, what is your mother's maiden name?
Also, please bring back fresh prince!!!
@WillSmith
I shall Siri this new "footpenis" movie at once and see what I get!
Anything short of Will Smith's next movie will mean fail for Apple and this company.
@WillSmith Cannot. Stop. Laughing. XD
@WillSmith: great success indeed. Apparently a search app is worth between about 10 and 20% of Palm.
@WillSmith
lmfao
damn my comments on engadget are a bigger hit with you kids than my nice clean rap :)
Yay.
@Yoda
Since when does Yoda say "yay"?
You are loosing your ways old man.
General abedinthehouse, I thought you were aware that this was an impostor. The real master yoda died some time ago. Meaning we have succeeded in eliminating the Jedi. Free webOS devices for all!
This impostor is a sheer look-a-like, he shall be easier to destroy than the original.
....I see my rank keeps fluctuating Big V.
@abedinthehouse
nobody looses their way. they lose their way.
sorry to be a grammar nazi, but that's one of my biggest pet peeves.
Thank you Moff warningabc. You see Admiral abedinthehouse, you are foolish to underestimate the power of the grammar side.
-I would like to add that i am not giving away web os devices, that was a cruel trick on my slaves to give them some value in their lives, so you can stop sending those Bothan Spies rebel alliace
@Lord Vader
I find you to be an impostor too, the real vader would have been "Darth" Vader, yet you call your self lord vader... I am sorry but you are just a big of an impostor than the rest of us
Only the force can reveal the chosen one.
(force chokes Darth Vadar) Apology accepted, Captain Vadar
@Lord Vader Ah, but you fell down. Far. I'm also assuming that you were either burned and died, went splat and died, or were killed in the vacuum of space.
@Lord Vader
I live... and I have exposed your secret... You have no more authority....
@jakethepianist. It seems you are unfamiliar with the truth. It was all a rouse, i was pretending to die. I had constructed a teleportation device which zapped me away when luke wasn't looking and i replaced my dead body sitting on my ship with a dummy i made earlier. Thus he cremated the dummy instead. As i teleported back to tatooine i realised i had a few bugs with my device. Bringing me thousands of years ahead of my time, to this present time. Where i am rebuilding my empire.
@Lord Vader
The truth has been revealed!
Where is George Lucas, a new movie is in the works!
@abedinthehouse Love these mini drama thx iPhone
It's an awesome app, you can ask it damn near anything and it's infinitely scalable without actually updating the physical app itself, it recently learned math, I asked random simple math 12x12 etc, it's great
@MattsZ
I remeber when I asked it to "go find hookers" and it looked for escorts in my area. It was hilarious.
When a company's name has become the verb for online searches, it's going to be VERY difficult to cut them out.
Good luck on alienating every other company out there, Apple.
@Wiizer
According to people like you, nobody should try to compete with Google and when someone actually does its called alienation. We are thankful for the likes of Bing and Google being around.
@Dr Kwame Nkrumah
You are actually thankful for Bing? BING? Seriously?
@Dr Kwame Nkrumah
LOL BING!
Thanks for that, you're right. I shouldn't even be worried about this posing a challenge to Google.
@zeroinfinity2
Why shouldn't we be, they are providing competition.
@Wiizer
BING is better than most people give it credit for. There is a reason Universities go not like students to "GOOGLE" topics, that's because of the way Google prioritizes your search results. Anyway, BING is a new contender, and Google has been around now for years, Google has become the go-to search engine only because it was the best in its field for a long time and people have grown attached to it. When something new and better comes along (not saying BING is in fact better) it takes awhile for people to catch on. And until they do, it is ridiculed to oblivion.
(I use both Google and Bing and think they both have their strong points)
PS. My homepage is not Google or Bing, its Engadget lols
@abedinthehouse Google search sucks. I have to dig through a bunch of crap to get to what I need.
@Dr Kwame Nkrumah
I actually meant Bing and Yahoo.
If you need a virtual assistant to do your searching, you blew it.
Nowadays a $200 Million company is considered a "small startup"?
@shishi
Check FORBES list of top 100 Small Businesses and you'll be surprised at how much they are worth.