Siri

She's always seemed like a caring, friendly woman to me -- one with a little steel, to be sure, but who doesn't like that? Yet it seems that the bosses at IBM think Siri just can't be trusted.

Indeed, Wired reports that Apple's digital butlerette has been banned from IBM's firmament.

Surely, this must be some exaggeration, you might think. Surely there's no way of preventing an IBMer from whispering to his digital factotum in the restroom.

Well, Wired is relying on the words of Big Blue's CIO, Jeanette Horan. For she told MIT's Technology Review … Read more

If you find yourself with Siri envy but don't want to pony up the $600 for a phone, you may be able to get that same level of convenience and computerized companionship in your car.

Nuance's technology powers Apple's voice-recognition system, and the company is making its natural language command platform available to automotive manufacturers with Dragon Drive. Vehicles equipped with Dragon Drive will enable drivers to use spoken commands to get the system to perform a range of tasks, including open-ended conversational text messaging, getting directions to restaurants, or finding traffic information.

The benefit of Dragon … Read more

There has been a disturbance of late in the Appledome.

For Siri has been accused of believing that the Nokia Lumia 900 is better than the iPhone 4S in which she resides.

Even though she changed her mind -- some might say mysteriously -- the stain on her character would not go away.

Well, now the vast and objective brains at Wolfram Alpha have churned their cogs in order to put a stop to this nonsense.

I am grateful to Search Engine Land for having the patience and fortitude to listen to Wolfram Alpha's deep and complex analysis.

However, … Read more

Apple has been smacked with a host of Siri lawsuits charging the company with overstating the abilities of its virtual personal assistant. And now, in a recent court filing, it has fired back.

In a motion filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple asked the court to dismiss the consolidation class-action complaint against its Siri offering, saying that the plaintiffs used "only general descriptions of Apple's advertisements, incomplete summaries of Apple's Web site materials, and vague descriptions of their alleged -- and highly individualized -- disappointment with Siri."

"… Read more

I am going to whisper this very quietly, but there are some people who are sick of Zooey Deschanel's "self-consciously cute ways."

I use the quotation marks because I don't want the person who said it to have his house broken into by rabid men ages 18 to 34.

It would be men in that age range because, according to YouGov's indispensable and highly objective Brand Index, these men love the fact that Deschanel is starring in Apple's Siri ads.

Indeed, the very minute Apple launched its ads (which also featured the rather bossy … Read more

Is Apple purposely tweaking Siri to stack the deck in favor of the iPhone? Nokia certainly thinks so.

Siri stirred up some controversy late last week in voicing its view on smartphones. When asked its recommendation of the best smartphone, Apple's voice assistant named Nokia's Lumia 900 the top dog.

However, it didn't take long for Siri to change its mind. As of yesterday, the voice assistant is firmly back in Apple's camp. When asked the same question, Siri now responds: "The one you're holding," or "You're kidding, right?"

Apple … Read more

It was just last week that Apple's virtual personal assistant Siri was telling the world that the Nokia Lumia 900 was the best smartphone ever. But it appears now that she has been scolded back into the Apple fold.

When iPhone 4S owners now ask Siri which smartphone is the best ever, she replies with a sarcastic, "you're kidding, right?" A reader who tipped CNET to the change said Siri will also reply with "the one you're holding" when asked the question. A CNET staffer on the West Coast also got "the … Read more

Apple's Siri virtual personal assistant certainly has said some rather interesting things in the past. But to diss its overlord seems a bit much, don't you think?

When iPhone 4S owners ask Siri which smartphone is the best ever made, the obviously disgruntled virtual personal assistant responds saying it's the Nokia Lumia 900 4G running on AT&T's network. It goes further, stating that the Cyan-colored Lumia 900 stands above all others.

Although it may seem a bit odd that Apple's own service would … Read more

If a report from Cult of Mac this morning is true, we may have our first good sense of what Apple's long-rumored and much-hyped HDTV looks like and what features it contains.

In the report, Cult of Mac cites an unnamed source who is said to have seen a prototype of the forthcoming device and who claims that it looks like "Apple's current lineup of LED-backlit Cinema Displays but is 'much bigger.' It [also] has a built-in iSight camera for making free FaceTime video conference calls. And it has Siri, the iPhone 4S' voice-activated virtual assistant." … Read more