So I find this clip of the Ellen Degeneres show. Some dude in the audience gets down on a knee, pops the question to his girlfriend, and she says no. He's f*cking crushed and, I figure, will need a drink or 17 before the evening is over. But, as any recently dumped individual knows, the worst thing you can do in this situation is get historically slammed and drunk dial your freshly-ex'd. And that got me to thinking.
I thought I would be bored with silly Siri videos by now but nope! Not even close. I'm still laughing my ass off. This one shows a make-believe feature in Siri that I wish was really real: Siri can rap any Notorious B.I.G. song.
Abortion-finding aside, Siri isn't that bad. That's why Google is reportedly feverishly working on its own version of the voice-activated, natural-language assistant, code-named Majel. It's named after Gene Roddenberry's wife — the voice of many a Star Trek computer. While we can't currently confirm a release date, rumours put its street date prior to the new year. More speculation is available at Android and Me.
I personally don't give a damn about this gimmicky piece of software, but if you have a jailbroken iPhone 4 now you can add full Siri functionality using a Cydia program called H1Siri. Unfortunately, there's a catch.
A long time ago, I made a pact with Apple. "You can control my entire technological life, from my computer to my phone to my stereo. I'll pay premium prices. I'll dive into your product ecosystem, and buy books and music and movies and apps from you. Even though they won't work on devices made by anybody else."
Siri, are you pro-life? Siri, are you a proto-Republibot? Siri, are you... just a crappy search engine?
What's the deal with Siri and abortion? Well, Apple told the NY Times that Siri, the iPhone 4S' personal assistant extraordinaire, isn't against abortion; doesn't have a pro life bias and isn't part of some sort of conspiracy. Instead, Apple blamed the odd omissions on Siri being a beta product.
Want a digital personal assistant like Siri but without all that iPhone? You're not alone. Cluzee, a new app for Android, promises to fill that void. Unfortunately, Cluzee needs a little more time in temp school.
Apple iPhone 4S' Siri can find you hookers in your neighbourhood. Siri can find you Viagra. Siri can find you a local surgeon to give you breast implants. But apparently it can't find abortion clinics.
Can someone who has an iPhone 4S ask Siri what type of music she's into? I'm sure it's infinitely better than what you listen to. (I'm joking, of course! Maybe.) Thanks to the SiriProxy software recently created, it's now possible to control your Spotify playlist via Siri, queuing up new songs and even asking her to identify tracks for you.
Last week we showed you how a developer had hacked Siri to operate his internet-connected thermostat. But that's not cool. Starting your car using Siri, now that's cool.
Microsoft is a little sad and angry about all the publicity Apple's Siri app has been getting, because Windows Phone 7 has been doing the same sort of thing since launch. In a way.
The video above demonstrates how Siri can be hacked to control your thermostat, but with a little massaging the hack could be used to make Siri perform a wide array of new functions. Let the games begin!
We already know that Siri does most of its processing server-side, and that Apple's claims of hardware as a limiting factor are tenuous at best. But new research from French developer Applidium reveals that Apple is truly full of it.
Just when we thought the comedic potential of Siri had been thoroughly exhausted, they went and introduced the two things that guaranteed make anything funnier: a collapsing marriage and abundant swearing.
