siri

Earlier this evening, when it was revealed that Sam Jackson (as Siri knows him) was shilling for Verizon's iPhone, I received what seemed like a longing e-mail from a reader called Harv.

It said: "Add Zooey Deschanel to the Siri ad folks." I thought this was a plea. Soon, I realized that this was a fact. The delightful -- in Harv's words, "adorkable" -- Deschanel seems to be shilling for the Sprint version of the Apple's Siri-ed iconophone.

I am grateful to a YouTube poster with the handle "Thenewxmancxd" for posting … Read more

Siri called Samuel L. Jackson "Sam."

There's one piece of intimate information you probably didn't have yesterday. And it comes to me via The Next Web, which unearthed this preternaturally odd piece that seems to be an iPhone 4S ad from Verizon. (Apologies for the sound and picture quality. Video was posted by Shawn King.)

It is odd because it is not often that Samuel L. Jackson -- um, Sam -- cancels golf. I am told that he has golf days built into all his film contracts.

And then here he is in the kitchen cooking … Read more

At CES this year one of the most interesting announcements involved Samsung's Smart Interaction, a new feature on its 2012 TVs that utilizes a built-in camera and microphone to enable you to control the boob tube just by speaking and/or gesturing to it. I've spent the last few days doing just that, much to the amusement of my co-workers, and boy are my arms (and at least one finger) tired.

My takeaway? Smart Interaction has promise but feels half-baked and more like a gimmick than a compelling upgrade. Once the novelty wears off, its usefulness is limited (at best) to those times you don't have a remote in-hand. … Read more

Apple's Siri ads have once again become the focal point of a legal complaint.

A lawsuit was filed by plaintiff David Jones on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, arguing that the advertising surrounding Apple's virtual personal assistant does not match the service's actual functionality. The Los Angeles Times was first to report on the news last night.

"Through its nationwide multimedia marketing campaign, Apple disseminates false and deceptive representations regarding the functionality of the Siri feature," Jones charges, according to the LA Times, which obtained a copy of the suit. &… Read more

What's in a name? That which we call Siri, by any other name would be as sassy -- though we might have known the voice assistant technology by another name.

NetworkWorld this morning recounts some of the highlights from a speech given by Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus at Chicago's Technori Pitch event yesterday. While the speech focused mainly on the importance of building Chicago as a startup scene, Kittlaus included a handful of behind-the-scenes tidbits on what led to Siri becoming an Apple technology.

One of those was that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs originally sought a different … Read more

According to a new study, most people who have access to Apple's Siri voice assistant think she's just fine -- they just don't want her around all that much.

As part of its quarterly "Market Focus" report, Parks Associates today said that in a polling of 482 iPhone 4S owners in the U.S., more than 50 percent of respondents said they were "very satisfied" with Siri. About a fifth of the group said that they were simply "satisfied," and some 9 percent said they were "unsatisfied."

According to … Read more

Siri Dictation on the new iPad, as well as the iPhone 4S, is fairly accurate a majority of the time. But, as with anything software-based (let alone in beta), sometimes mistakes are made. However, when those mistakes throw out some choice four-letter words, especially when kids are present, it's not going to make people happy.

Yesterday I was asked by a reader if it was possible to disable explicit language for Siri Dictation on the new iPad. So, I decided to make a video showing how easy it is to disable explicit language for Siri on both the iPad, … Read more

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One of my favorite pastimes has to be pulling pranks around the office. The pranks may leave a sour taste in the mouth of the recipient for a few days, but in the end they often lead to some good laughs and classic memories.

April Fools' Day naturally lends itself to a flurry of random jokes and pranks, so I took the liberty of rounding up some tech-inspired pranks. I hope you find a way to put one, if not all of them, to use--heck, it doesn't even have to be on April 1!

Here, let me Google that for you Do you have a co-worker who refuses to look anything up on the Internet for himself? Do you often feel like your name should be "Google"? On April 1, send the lazy Web searcher a link to LMGTFY; perhaps he'll learn a thing or two.

To use LMGTFY, visit the site, type in a search query, and click on either search button. You will then be presented with a link to copy and send off to the unsuspecting recipient. The link you send will then open a Web page with an animation teaching the recipient how to use Google. After the site automatically fills in the search bar with the query and clicks on the search button, he will be redirected to the actual Google search results. … Read more

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Apple's third-generation iPad, officially available as of today, doesn't include all of the features we have come to love about Siri, but it does include Siri Dictation.

Siri Dictation is a voice-to-text solution, allowing you to speak what you want entered into a text field, and Siri will automagically type it for you.

You'll be given the option to enable dictation during the initial device setup. However, if you change your mind, you can disable (or enable) dictation by visiting Settings > General > Keyboard > Dictation.

With dictation enabled, you will see an extra … Read more