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Switched On: A road trip with Siri
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. When considering the great technology advances of the past few decades, GPS tends to get short shrift compared to such culture-rocking innovations as the internet and cellular networks. But it is a marvel nonetheless. Just a few generations ago, the idea of hopping in a car with no clue how to get to a particular destination was foolishness (or at least fodder for gender-stereotyping comedians). Today, with an inexpensive device or smartphone software, we can do so with near certainty of finding our way. Developers of navigation apps and hardware must place great care in creating an experience that doesn't unnecessarily distract the driver. For example, quite a few involve "lane assist" features that starkly indicate the options when coming to a fork in the road so that the driver avoids having to stare at the screen too long to figure out the right path. In addition, spoken instructions have long been a defining commodity. While Telenav, for example, offers a free version of its navigation app, it doesn't include such audio. And Nokia recently followed suit with its distribution strategy around Nokia Drive, leaving the version with spoken turn-by-turn directions exclusive to its Windows Phones.
iPhone 4S cleared for use in China, sino-Siri coming soon
While Apple fans around the globe have had the iPhone 4S for awhile now, many of our friends in the Far East haven't gotten to enjoy the fruits of their countrymen's labor due to a lack of governmental approval. You see, before a handset makes it onto Chinese networks, it's got to be approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). The good news is, the 4S has finally been blessed by Beijing and will be brought to the masses by Chinese Unicom sometime soon. That means that China's home-grown superphone, the Meizu MX, is going to have some Siri-ous competition for Chinese hearts and yuan in 2012.
Scribblenauts Remix gets Siri support on iPhone 4S
Are the commands you're barking at your constant iPhone 4S companion Siri not humiliating enough? Great news: Scribblenauts Remix was recently updated to add Siri voice recognition support to the title, letting you create (imaginary) objects with your mouth-words.
Scribblenauts Remix update uses iPhone 4S and Siri to summon items
Scribblenauts Remix has been updated with a new holiday-themed playground and support for 180-degree device rotation. As an iPhone 4S exclusive, the game also now advertises that it has full Siri dictation support, so you can use your voice to create virtually any object within the game. Although the makers of Scribblenauts say this is a new feature, I remember using Siri in the game via its dedicated keyboard button in a previous version, so Siri support isn't necessarily new. I've also noticed that Siri's accuracy when taking dictation seems to be precipitously lower than its accuracy in the "Q & A" interface, so while it might be cool to be able to craft a war between a giant Cthulhu and a laser-rifle-toting Santa Claus using the power of your voice, you may find it's easier to stick with the keyboard until Siri's accuracy improves. Scribblenauts Remix is a great game, and if you haven't picked it up yet I highly recommend it.
Apple recruiting engineers for Siri team
Apple is hiring more engineers for the Siri team, with at least two postings open for iOS software engineers dedicated to the project. "You will primarily be responsible for implementing the content that appears within the conversational view. This is a broad-ranging task -- we take every application that Siri interacts with, distill it down to fundamentals, and implement that application's UI in a theme fitting with Siri," one posting notes. "Consider it an entire miniature OS within the OS, and you get a good idea of the scope!" These positions have been open since early November, but they were brought into the spotlight recently when Siri UI manager Dan Keen posted them on Twitter. AppleInsider subsequently pointed out that three postings also exist for Language Technologies Engineers dedicated to bringing Siri support to languages beyond those it currently supports. Siri's functionality is already quite impressive -- despite a few wildly overpublicized hiccups -- but it's clear that Apple isn't content to let the service stay as it is for too long.
Switched On: Keeping the 'app' out of Apple's TV
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Rumors continue to heat up that Apple will enter the television market next year, stepping up its Apple TV "hobby" into a greater revenue-generating vocation. The company would clearly like to repeat the kind of rousing success it has seen in smartphones. There, it entered a market at least as crowded and competitive as that for televisions whereas most of its Windows rivals have barely been able to eke out a few models with nominal share.Indeed, the challenge is not as much about competition as commoditization. At first glance, this would be a curious time for Apple to enter the TV space. The HD and flat-panel transitions on which premium manufacturer brands and retailers once feasted has long passed. "Flat-panel TV" and "HDTV" are now just "TV." And prices for smaller sets are settling into a range familiar to those who remember what they cost back in the heyday of CRTs.
Remote Dictation Smackdown: Which app does the best sending Siri text to a Mac? (Updated)
Update: At the end of the original post, Erica mused about a single-purpose iPhone 4S dictation app; turns out, of course, that there already is one. The $0.99 Remote Dictate, from the makers of Mobile Mouse Pro, works with the same Mac-side server and offers only dictation with no remote mouse/keyboard. We'll grab it and test it out shortly. –Ed. Recently, TUAW posted about how Mobile Mouse could be used with Siri for iPhone-to-Mac remote dictation. While trying it out, I grew annoyed by transposition errors at the start of my text. So I decided to put several similar solutions to the test. What Mobile Mouse Pro ($1.99), RowMote Pro ($4.99), Edovia's TouchPad ($4.99), and Splashtop Touchpad (Free, normally $4.99) have in common is that each app provides a way to send mouse events and key strokes to your Mac. For this post, we decided not to test full screen sharing apps like iTeleport and LogMeIn due to the more extensive set-up involved. (iTeleport offers a similar $0.99 Touchpad Elite app, but we were unable to get a copy in time for this write-up.) To test them, I dictated the same text sample into TextEdit, courtesy of the iTunes Terms and Conditions. To do this, I connected each app to my Mac, opened a standard keyboard, and used the Siri dictation mic to speak this sentence: "You agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes Store from outside of the available territory." I ran each app three times, and categorized the errors each app made. How did they stack up? Here are the results. Mobile Mouse Pro Setup: Very easy. Install and run the Mobile Mouse Server app, run Mobile Mouse from your iPhone 4S. App detects and announces active app. Dictate at will. Performance: Transcription transposition errors, no default uppercase entry at the start of each sentence. you agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. oyu agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. oyu agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. TouchPad by Edovia Setup: Easy. Enable screen sharing on your Mac. Launch app, and set up VNC-style. Tap pad button, then tap keyboard button, and start dictating. Performance: No default uppercase entry at the start of each sentence. Other than that, it showed no errors with transposition through these tests. you agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. you agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. you agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. Touchpad by Splashtop Setup: Overly difficult. First I had to google my way to find about the Splashtop Streaming app for Mac. That information should have been in the iTunes marketing text. Then I had to authenticate to install what should have been a simple tweak. After that, once I ran the app, I had to enter a security code of at least 8 characters including one letter and one number. Then it kept asking me to give it my Google credentials. C'mon. This isn't supposed to be that hard. Once I made it past that initial setup, I then had to have my iPhone find the service on my local LAN. Despite scanning and scanning, I never got that far. Finally, Mike Rose walked me through entering my system IP address by hand. After a few mismatches with the security code, I finally connected. This took about 20 minutes to get this far. Performance: No default uppercase entry at the start of each sentence. Worst sync performance of all apps tested -- see the first of the three trials in particular. ou agree not to usye or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. oyu agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. oyu agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory. RowMote Pro Setup: Had to authenticate to install server app for the Mac, which runs by itself on login, without an easy to find control panel and uninstallation option. (The uninstall instructions once I found them here at the website were straightforward.) Nicely unintrusive pairing security -- you're shown a short pairing number, and type it in. Overly complex app selection menu on the iOS-side. Performance: Spaces at the start of some sentences, transposition, inappropriate capitalizations. you agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the availabLe territory. You AGREE NOT TO usE OR ATTEMPT TO use the iTunes store from outSIDE OF THE AVAIlable territory. oyu agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes store from outside of the available territory Discussion Keep in mind that none of these apps were designed for use with Siri Dictation. It's hard to ding any of them for not perfectly supporting a feature not in their original brief. That said, only Splashtop Touchpad gave us pause. All in all, Edovia's TouchPad performed best and is our current choice for Siri-to-Mac dictation. Although its initial setup took a little longer than some of the other products, native VNC transmission provided smooth uninterrupted text without transposition errors. Once set up, it was quick to re-establish connections on later use. None of these apps were designed specifically for dictation. Instead, their job is to transmit UI events like key presses and mouse movements. That's why none of them responded to the start of the sentence being capitalized. There's an opportunity here for anyone who wants to add "Siri dictation mode" to their existing apps or create a single-purpose app just for that reason. In that mode, you could imagine the app would provide more textfield-entry-style results, allowing toggles for such items as "Cap start of sentence," "Cap each word," and "Auto add end punctuation." I look forward to seeing that kind of functionality moving forward.
Stephen Colbert exposes Siri biases
Stephen Colbert, America's indispensable authority on absolutely everything, decided to put Siri to the test on the Colbert Report to see if he could find an abortion clinic in Manhattan. Not only does he claim he can't find one, but he says it can't understand foreigners either. Well, Stephen, just to prove you wrong, Siri understands my Scouser husband just fine, thank you very much. You'll find the segment below from Colbert Nation, which highlights just how ridiculous the situation has gotten. The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Conservative Siri www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive
iPhone 4S reportedly launching in Russia on December 16
The nation that launched the first satellite in 1957 and the first cosmonaut in 1961 will now see the launch of the iPhone 4S on December 16. Pre-orders have begun in Russia (Google Translation) for the latest iPhone at White Wind DIGITAL. Although Siri (or shall we call it Yuri?) doesn't speak Russian yet, Russians who are fluent in English, German or French have the ability to use Apple's intelligent assistant on their smartphones. Apple has noted that the languages supported by Siri will expand in the future, so there's no doubt that Russians will soon be asking their favorite phone "Где ближайший Apple Store?" (Where's the nearest Apple Store?).
Why Siri is like skeuomorphic UIs: the magic is just skin deep
By now you've probably heard of the widely reported case of Siri's alleged pro-life stance. Walking the dogs this morning, I thought through what I hoped would be an interesting blog post about what I feel this means about Apple and our relationship to technology. I see an interesting link here between Siri and the heavy-on-the-texture UIs of Apple apps like iCal and Find My Friends. Even before the response from Apple was published, it seemed more likely to me that this wasn't so much a case of Apple pushing a political agenda as it was a limitation of Siri making it look that way. Indeed, if anything Apple seems to have a a liberal, rather than conservative, political agenda -- for example, it donated $100,000 to the campaign to keep gay marriage legal in California in 2010. But, really, all this is incidental to what I was thinking of writing. Then Adam Engst wrote a great post at TidBITS that stole my thunder by pre-empting most of what I had to say! The gist of his argument is as follows: that the problem with Siri is that, although it looks very much like sorcery at first glance (and although Apple carefully presents it that way in its advertising), it really isn't. It's just another computer program like all the rest -- and like all the rest it comes with limitations and drawbacks and bugs and issues. It doesn't help that the chattery nature of Siri -- the jokey responses, the easter eggs, the sly film references -- create a substantial facade that it really is a facsimile of a real person. But that's all it is: a facade. Sometimes that facade cracks. For example, we've seen problems because of cloud failures -- or, indeed, if you have no data signal on your phone to communicate with the Siri data centre then it simply stops working. In the case of the searches for abortion-related matters, the problem appears to simply be a lack of information in the backing databases that Siri draws upon, like Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. I'm sure that this is only one of many such gaps in Siri's knowledge, albeit a highly politically charged one. For example, Siri's address lookups are resolutely US only, despite it being supported in many other countries (such as my native UK) and Yelp having a perfectly reasonable database for it to use. Where I'd like to go further than Engst does is by drawing comparisons between Siri and Apple's recent trend towards so-called "skeuomorphic" UIs. This is the extensive use of real-world textures and imagery to underpin an app's functionality. Think of iCal on Lion, Calendar on the iPad, Game Center on iOS, or Find My Friends on the iPhone -- with leather bits, and little torn edges, and faux piles of poker chips, and stacks of pages in the corner of the screen. I have a vehement aesthetic objection to the look-and-feel of most of these apps; I find them pointless, distracting and, frankly, a bit twee. This is merely my own tastes, though. Thinking more objectively I also have a practical objection. I believe that skeuomorphic UIs create false models of interaction. For example, in iBooks there is a stack of pages on the corner of the screen; a swipe across that stack turns the page. Seems logical enough, right? But the same stack of pages in Calendar for iPad on iOS 4 was not swipeable. It looked the same -- and clearly a real-world stack of pages can be turned -- but Apple seemingly just missed this feature out. You might think that it's no big deal for Apple to implement that, and indeed the feature turned up in iOS 5 -- but I would humbly suggest that this is a hole with no bottom. The same stack-of-pages decoration still isn't swipeable in Contacts, for example. Look at iCal for Lion -- look at those little torn edges across the top of the page, where the virtual remains of last months page are seemingly left behind. Why can't I tear them off with my mouse and clean them up? That's exactly what I'd do with a real calendar that looked like that. And even if Apple somehow made a UI that has almost every interaction a reasonable human being might expect of it -- a tall order, but let's suppose -- it's still only going to feel like a sheet of glass. As Bret Victor's fantastic essay on interaction design brillianty demonstrates, "pictures under glass" are never going to be anything more. If you can't smell the leather, or feel the grain, why make it look like leather in the first place? Getting back to my original point, I see a link here. Skeuomorphic UIs resemble physical objects, but they cannot hope to emulate the myriad ways we have to emulate physical objects -- so they are always doomed to disappoint on some level if we let ourselves be fooled. Siri presents itself as a real person, a sort of "auditory skeuomorphism" if you will. But short of passing a Turing test one day that, too, is doomed to always disappoint. Sure, it looks like magic -- but so did the Wizard of Oz until Toto pulled back the curtain. Never forget that there's wires and gears back there making it work, or you'll be surprised when the abstractions leak. Footnote: let's look again at Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris's statement to the New York Times. She said "[t]hese are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks." I think it is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, I'm rather cynical about Siri's "beta" nature; I agree with Macworld senior contributor Glenn Fleishman, who wrote, "If you're advertising Siri as a feature, it's not beta." On iPhone 4S launch day, I spent ten minutes in an Apple Store enduring a low impact sales pitch from a Genius and he didn't mention the "beta" word once. Nor does it appear in Apple's TV spot. But then again, Gmail was in beta for six years; I'm not even sure I know what beta is supposed to mean any more, and I write software for a living. Still, though, it seems to be that Apple are suggesting that as long as Siri has "places where we can do better" it'll be in beta. Well, hmmm. As I mentioned above, I'm not sure how -- short of some sort of Skynet-level breakthrough in AI tech -- Siri will ever be finished. With a field as complex as natural language processing, there's simply too much that can go wrong -- too many ways for humans to innocently throw a spanner in the works with their rich and wonderful languages. I do wonder if perhaps that statement to the Times was just a teensy bit rushed so Apple could nip the story in the bud. Not that I'd blame it for that, but it struck me as an interesting point nevertheless.
Debunked: Ridiculous claims of 'pro-life' bias in Siri (Update: Apple responds)
Update: The New York Times has a response. Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, told them: "These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks." Think Progress, Slate, and a whole lot of other outlets are piling it on thick and claiming that Siri's search parameters have a "pro-life" bias because the service has difficulty locating abortion clinics or birth control services in many areas. "Siri's unhelpful and sometimes misleading answers to pressing health questions stand in stark contrast to her prompt and accurate responses to inquiries about nearby escort services," says Think Progress, while Slate goes even farther off the deep end and says, "many around the Web [are] wondering if Siri is pro-life and whether Apple is attempting to impose its morals upon the rest of us." This is a textbook example of sensationalistic media making something from absolutely nothing. If Siri's search parameters function the same way as other services (and I'm almost certain they do), it's likely that in addition to the business name itself, a business will have a cluster of tagged metadata associated with it. Siri's association with Yelp in the U.S. makes this sort of tagging extremely easy for restaurants and other retail services -- searching for something as simple as "hamburgers" or "Target" will return dozens of results in major cities. For other services -- birth control and abortion clinics being two examples -- Siri apparently relies on a much less extensive database than Yelp, with far less comprehensive tagging. All that Think Progress and Slate's "research" shows is that Apple isn't relying upon Google's database for such searches, either; a Google Maps search for "abortion clinic in Washington, D.C." turns up 10 results in the Maps app, while Siri returns only two (apparently invalid) results. If you're the type to leap to your keyboard and pound out a linkbaiting headline before warming up your logic circuits first, then sure, this might look like Apple once again being the "evil Big Brother" that the media's been trying to paint it as for years, this time passive-aggressively shoving a pro-life stance on people searching for women's health services. If you instead insert a couple minutes of logical thought between your fingers and the keyboard, it looks more like Apple's tagging services for Siri are incomplete when it has to source its searches from sources other than Yelp -- which is exactly what you'd expect from a BETA service that's been in widespread public use for less than two months as of this writing. At any rate, the central premise of this handwringing claim that Siri is "pro-life" is easy enough to debunk. Searches for "abortion clinic" or "birth control clinic" return few if any results in most areas, but I found results for "abortion clinic" in Denver, Milwaukee, New York City, and several other cities across the US. A Siri search for "Planned Parenthood" almost always returns results no matter where you search in the States -- because that search is powered by Yelp rather than whatever comparatively limited database Siri is using for more specific searches like "abortion clinic" or "birth control." If Siri is really supposed to be "pro-life" and "imposing morals" on its users, then searches for the politically charged Planned Parenthood clinics would also turn up no results, wouldn't they? Why searches for "abortion clinic" or "birth control" aren't also Yelp-powered is easy enough to discern; searching for "abortion clinic" in Washington, D.C. on yelp.com returns an array of ridiculous results such as "New York New York Salon" (the top result), McDonald's (not kidding), Ebenezers Coffeehouse, and Georgetown University Law Center. That's the downside of a crowdsourced search service. "Why not just source results from Google Maps?" you might ask. That's easy enough to answer: it's probably because Siri is designed to lessen Apple's dependence on its biggest competitor for search services. Does that do users any sort of disservice, especially to the extent that Think Progress and Slate claim? Not particularly, since either the Google-powered Maps app or a Google search within Safari are at most one or two taps away. Going by the hilariously flawed logic in Think Progress and Slate's reporting, I could just as easily say that Apple has a jingoistic pro-American bias because Siri's business and navigational searches only work in the U.S. "OH NOES, Siri can't find places in New Zealand, that must mean Apple hates Kiwis! Quickly Robin, to the Boycottmobile!" About an hour or so after I finished writing the above diatribe against the massive overreaction to this non-event, Apple confirmed to the New York Times that Siri's responses to queries for abortion clinics were a glitch. "These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone," an Apple spokesperson confirmed to the Times. "It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks." Critical thinking, ladies and gentlemen. It's not difficult. Note: Due to the inevitable storm in a teacup that results anytime anyone mentions the A-word, comments on this post will be heavily moderated. We will not approve comments from either side of the endless debate.
Too lazy to grab your TV remote? Use Siri instead
Siri hasn't been caught cooking dinner yet, but hackers worldwide have boldly taken Apple's personal assistant to a whole new level by incorporating its functionality with a plethora of different devices. We've seen Siri use custom commands, change the temperature in your house, and even allow select car owners to utilize their automobile's Bluetooth integration. Nifty, no doubt, but this assistant's evolution towards greater heights isn't over yet. Vimeo user toddtreece has whipped up a slick demo of the iPhone 4S' right hand gal (or guy) taking command of his television set. From changing channels to turning off devices, with the help of a proxy and a few parts, you can get your own home setup running on voice activation. Feeling a bit guilty for your sudden interest in slothfulness? Fret not -- Siri's apparently quite good at calling you out. Have a look just after the break. [Thanks, Jesse]
Siri lends a hand via your Bluetooth-enabled car stereo, reminds you to buy milk (video)
Sure, we've seen Siri used to do a host of things, including controlling the temperature in a hacker's home. But the folks over at Autoblog were curious to know just how well the virtual assistant would work with Bluetooth-enabled car stereos. Once your iPhone 4S is properly tethered, holding down the handset's home button will activate Siri. Treating her as an incoming call, your Notorious B.I.G. playlist will pause before the ready-for-command chime sounds. The in-car assistant was tested on two Mercedes-Benz automobiles, a Chrysler 300, a Dodge Charger and a Nissan Maxima, with the Maxima showcasing the best results. It comes as no surprise that mic placement on each stereo and in-cabin background noise provided a noticeable difference in Siri's listening abilities during the test. For a glimpse of the action before trying it out yourself, hit the video just past the break.
Jailbroken iOS 5 devices get Siri0us, tap into Nuance's dictation servers (video) (update)
Sure, it's leaps and bounds away from all the parlor tricks that Siri is able to perform, but now, jailbroken iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch devices -- that have been upgraded to iOS 5 -- may access the dictation portion of Siri's prowess. Thanks to Siri0us, the free app available through Cydia, users will gain the option to speak messages and search queries rather than type them, which could be a huge time saver -- unless there's a series of mistakes, anyway. Rather than accessing Apple's own system, the app works by tapping into Nuance's Dragon Go servers for speech recognition. Rather subversive, don't you think? If you'd like to get in on the fun (before Nuance breaks up the party), just check the video following the break. Update: Well, who didn't see this one coming? Nuance has pulled the rug out from under Siri0us, and the app has been yanked from Cydia while the developer searches for another speech recognition server. Happy hunting, dude.
Did you experience a Siri outage?
We've seen a few minor outages for Siri since its debut, but those were minor blips compared to what appears to have been a more widespread, longer lasting outage that took place earlier today in the US, Europe and South Korea (according to Electric Pig -- we can attest to seeing an error message with the service in the US, and BGR noted it as well). We asked our Twitter followers and some reported brief outages last night, but others said it's been unavailable for hours and is still down. Of course, when Siri was announced, Apple noted it was "in beta" but I took this to mean (and Apple seemed to suggest) the "beta" meant they were adding more languages later (like Scottish?). Just like, for example, that "beta" at the top of the TUAW page, meaning "we'll keep adding features." The problem with a Siri outage, as opposed to an iCloud one, is that Siri is designed to be used at any time, hands-free, to perform multi-step tasks. When the service is offline, you can certainly do those tasks, but you can't do them by speaking into your iPhone. You're not going to see this illustrated in the Siri ads, that's for sure. I don't intend to write up every Siri outage here on TUAW. Like MobileMe status posts (oh, did I mention iCloud IMAP also seems to be down as I write this? Apple still can't seem to grok simple email, but I digress), it will become a futile task as we chase down the percentages and Apple improves the service. Still, I think it is notable that when a competitor like BlackBerry suffers a global messaging failure (one of their "core strengths," remember?) we laugh, but when Siri goes missing we tend to shrug it off. Yes, the service is in beta, but here's hoping Apple can beef it up once more of us become addicted to telling our phones what to do with our minds.
Daily Update for November 28, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
A Siri hack to start your car
Today's edition of "1,001 amazing things you can do with Siri" comes courtesy of our sister blog TechCrunch. In a post this morning, TechCruncher Chris Velazco tells the story of hacker Brandon Fiquett, who has figured out a way to use Siri to control a Viper SmartStart system and start up his Acura TL. Remember the story about "@plamoni's" Siri proxy server that allowed him to control a thermostat with Siri? Brandon used the same proxy server, then whipped up a delicious plugin to interact with a PHP script running on his own web server. The script can send commands to any registered car with a Viper SmartStart system. The nice thing? You can leave the clunky blue Viper control dongle at home. Not only can Brandon start his Acura, but he has the system set to lock and unlock doors, pop the trunk, and enable or disable the security system. If you have a Viper SmartStart system or have plans on buying one this Cyber Monday, Brandon has made his Siri proxy plugin and the PHP script available on GitHub. Check out the video below to see the system in action, or visit Brandon's site to see more cool demos.
Siri / Wolfram Alpha trick lets you know what is flying overhead
I'm a bit of an airliner freak, so I love looking up at the contrails of jets flying overhead and wondering where a plane might be going. I recently found out that Wolfram Alpha has the ability to tell you what airplanes are cruising around above you based on your position and its knowledge of where various airline and charter flights are located at any point in time. Since Siri has the built-in ability to work with Wolfram Alpha, I thought I'd see if I could just ask Siri to tell me about those flights overhead. It took a few tries and some thought about what to ask Siri, but I finally got it to work. Telling Siri to "Ask Wolfram what flights are overhead" produces the correct results. That query displays a Wolfram Alpha printout showing the flight or aircraft registration number of flights that are currently visible from where you're standing, their altitude, and the angle above the horizon. You also get information on what type of aircraft each is, how far away it is, and what direction to look, as well as a sky map showing where the planes are. %Gallery-140324% I then made an attempt to coax details out of Siri about individual flights. I thought I'd need to use the brains of Wolfram Alpha again, but found that by simply saying "Tell me about [name of airline] Flight [flight number]" prompted Siri to display a web page showing the departure airport and time of the flight along with the expected arrival airport, time and gate. The search isn't perfect. I often had flights between the West coast and Asia showing up on the search despite the fact that there was no way that the flights were going to be flying over Colorado. But as with many of the tricks we've demonstrated here at TUAW, this shows the surprising depth of knowledge that you have access to by asking Siri. TUAW editor Steve Sande is the co-author and publisher of "Talking to Siri: Learning the Language of Apple's Intelligent Assistant," found on the iBookstore and Amazon Kindle Bookstore.
Microsoft Doesn't Get It, Episode 65,536: TellMe versus Siri
As with all new technologies developed by or associated with Apple, competitors are stumbling over one another to dismiss Siri. Google has already played the "yawn" card, and now Microsoft's Craig Mundie has joined the fray during an interview with Forbes. Here are Mundie's remarks when asked about Siri, proving for the 65,536th time that Microsoft Doesn't Get It:
SiriProxy enables voice control of third-party apps (video)
If you'll rewind your mind in time to earlier this week, you might remember a clever proxy server from @plamoni that enabled Siri's control of a thermostat through spoken commands. Now, the same bit of engineering has been exploited to enable voice control of third-party applications. In this example, FastPdfKit Reader is manipulated by various commands with SiriProxy acting in the middle. A plugin is used to add new commands to the ones recognized by Siri, and finally, the proxy then sends the final commands to the app. Those hoping to get hacking will find a complete list of instructions from the source link below. For everyone else, you'll find the true magic after the break.
