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Apple acquires virtual assistant search app maker Siri
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.
DARPA-based Siri virtual assistant hits the App Store, smartphone sentience can't be far behind (video)
It's been well over six months since we first got wind of Siri, the DARPA-inspired smartphone app that pledged to take all the hassle out of... well... life. It's a virtual assistant that can take care of menial tasks, things like finding restaurants, hearing reviews, and even booking tables -- all with your voice. Siri asks simple questions and reacts to your answers, and while it sadly seems to have lost some of its military feel since its DARPA days (bummer), it's a lovely companion to your happening lifestyle. Plus it's free, and free is good! Check out a demonstration video after the break, and hit up the App Store to make with the download. Meanwhile, if you're on some other smartphone platform you'll have to wait. We fully expect Siri will break free of its current monotasking abode sometime in the future, but we don't know when. We just don't know when. %Gallery-84723%
DARPA's CALO project, the militaristic Clippy, set to invade iPhones this year
Microsoft's little Clippy, the uppity paperclip who just wanted to help, never got a lick of respect in the ten years he graced the Office suite. He's long-since gone, but his legacy lives on through a DARPA project called CALO: the Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes. It's intended for use to streamline tedious activities by military personnel, like scheduling meetings and prioritizing e-mails, but there are a few non-com spin-offs intended as well, like an iPhone app called Siri due to hit the App Store sometime this year. Siri will have more of a consumer angle, helping to find product reviews and make reservations, but we're hoping a taste of its military upbringing shines through. [Via Slashdot]
