05/24, 2:37am
New ad reveals the meaning of life
Apple has released two new televisions commercials featuring the iPhone 4S, its Siri voice capability and a celebrity in need of company. Like the first two ads in the series, a famous actor (in this case thespian and director John Malkovich) is inside a white house alone, making conversation with Siri. Unlike the previous commercials, Malkovich never leaves his chair, and gets two distinct ads -- one of which reveals the meaning of life.
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05/23, 10:25am
Technology considered corporate security threat
Siri, the voice command system on the iPhone 4S, is being blocked on IBM's internal networks, the company's CIO has revealed. Jeanette Horan mentioned the fact in an interview with MIT's Technology Review this week. The core issue involves the way Siri translates speech; rather than performing the task on a phone, it uploads recordings to Apple servers, where the speech is deciphered before results are sent back. Accompanying this is user data, such as the names of people in Contacts, since the information is needed to interpret some requests.
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05/22, 6:19pm
Technology behind Siri comes to cars
Nuance, maker of the technology that partially powers Apple's Siri digital assistant, has announced that it is bringing its natural language technology to cars. Dragon Drive will allow drivers to compose text messages, get directions, and find traffic information by speaking to their cars. Nuance's voice-command technology is already featured in Ford's Sync application, but the company looks to bring the capability to a wider range of manufacturers with Dragon Drive.
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05/15, 10:36pm
Apple claims Siri works fine, user error and opportunism
Apple has filed to dismiss a range of lawsuits filed against it over the performance of Siri, the digital assistant featured on the iPhone 4S. Apple contends in its motion that the plaintiffs in the case lack standing to pursue their case, have improperly interpreted Apple's advertising of Siri, and have failed to pursue other means of redress beyond litigation.
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05/14, 3:00am
Conflicting, complementary answers from smartphone assistants
Owners of the iPhone 4S and Lumia 800 can get solid advice on just about anything, thanks to the voice-recognition technology built into the phones' digital assistant software; but it turns out that if they ask for advice on smartphones, they may wind up with a bit of buyer's remorse. As The Next Web found out through experimentation, the two phones give conflicting and complementary answers when you ask each what is the best smartphone.
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05/07, 2:00pm
Hardware said to resemble oversized Thunderbolt Display
A "well-placed" source has seen a prototype of Apple's upcoming TV set, claims Cult of Mac. Visually the hardware is said to resemble Apple's current Thunderbolt Display, but with a size "much larger" than 27 inches. The centerpiece is actually an iSight camera, which will allegedly support Siri voice commands and FaceTime video calls.
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04/20, 5:50pm
Apple's Prineville, Oregon plant gets tax break
Apple has reached an agreement with the town of Prineville and Crook County in return for the placement of its Oregon datacenter. The deal will give Apple a 15-year property tax exemption. In return, it will have to invest $250 million in its 160 acres of land and promise at least 35 jobs at 150 percent higher than the county average.
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04/16, 7:45pm
iPhone 4S ad taps Sam Jackson in unusual spot
(Update: Zooey Deschanel too) Apple, Sprint, and Verizon on Monday renewed the iPhone 4S ad run with a first celebrity commercial for the hardware. The as yet unnamed TV spot (below) has Samuel L. Jackson acting out of stereotype and using his iPhone's Siri to cancel golf, shop for dinner ingredients, and time his gazpacho. The promo even exploits Siri's real reactions to direct statements, reacting to Jackson's telling Siri it can take the night off.
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04/02, 6:00pm
Apple still promoting Siri as selling point
One of the first print ads for Siri has been spotted in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine, reports Twitter user Philip Bernstein. The ad is a simple photo of a user holding the iPhone in a city environment (specifically, San Francisco) with the caption "I could use a latte" and Siri showing the results of nearby coffee shops. "You speak, Siri helps" reads the tagline, promoting the iPhone 4S as "the most amazing iPhone yet."
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03/29, 11:00pm
LA man says he can't get it to work properly
A second lawsuit has been filed regarding Siri, the voice-capable assistant in the iPhone 4S, this time in Los Angeles. The suit alleges that Apple is overselling Siri's abilities in its TV advertising, echoing an earlier one filed by a New York City resident, claiming that Siri doesn't understand the plaintiff or provides the wrong answer after a long delay. The new lawsuit seeks "relief and damages" for "false and deceptive" representations, and has applied for class-action status.
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03/28, 9:35am
Siri founder met with Jobs shortly after app debut
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs didn't particularly like the name "Siri," but decided to use it for the iPhone 4S' voice command system anyway, according to Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus. Kittlaus recently gave a speech in which he explained some of the origins of the app and its progression from a third-party title to a part of iOS. He mentioned, for instance, that he was told "Siri" is Norwegian for "beautiful woman who leads you to victory."
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03/26, 9:00pm
iPhone 4S sees active use but mixed uptake
A new Parks Associates study obtained early has given a rare glimpse into Siri habits on the iPhone 4S. Although talking to a small pool of 482 users, Parks told the Wall Street Journal that no more than a third of these were using it daily. The most common uses, which reached the one-third mark, were either making calls, sending texts or iMessages, and running searches.
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03/26, 6:10pm
Apple may get sports updates throigh voice search
A new discovery within code for Siri has suggested that Apple is about to start a tie-in with ESPN for voice-guided sports search. iOS app writer Evan Coleman found that Siri now recognizes sports teams as whole voice tokens, or search elements, rather than breaking it up into individual words. He noted that ESPN had just recently posted a limited-access API for accessing its sports scores from an app, and that the company when asked was unusually non-committal on its answer as to whether plans were underway.
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03/14, 11:55pm
Engine to provide direct answers to queries
Google is reportedly preparing to revamp its search engine, embracing "semantic search" technology to improve relevancy. The algorithms will be adapted and expanded in an attempt to understand the meaning of the words in a search query, allowing the servers to respond with a direct answer to certain questions.
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03/13, 6:00pm
Time and weather queries better handled
Apple's support for time and weather queries via Siri in Canada has been quietly improved, allowing users to get the correct response to a question like "what time is it" without having to mention location, which was previously required, reports iPhoneinCanada. The improved location ability also helps Siri answer questions about the weather in a more natural way, such as asking "what is the wind chill right now?"
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03/13, 2:00am
Compares moderately against DoCoMo alternative
A video posted on YouTube shows a comparison of Apple's Siri, which only just recently gained Japanese support, against a built-in voice recognition feature developed by DoCoMo, one of Japan's largest carriers. The match-up showed that Siri was able to understand basic and universal Japanese, but had trouble with more complex requests compared to Syabette Concier, an Android app developed for by the carrier, AppleInsider reports.
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03/12, 7:05pm
Brooklynite claims commercials 'misleading'
A New York man is suing Apple for false advertising, alleging that Siri's real-world performance and capabilities fall short of what is depicted in the commercials for the service, the Wall Street Journal reports. The suit, filed earlier today in California, is led by claimant Frank M. Fazio of Brooklyn, who says that Siri is "far less responsive" in real life and uses as evidence the fact that the program often didn't understand him or "after a long wait time, responded with the wrong answer."
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03/09, 10:15pm
Reiterates an earlier promise
An Italian Apple user who asked Apple CEO Tim Cook if he did not "like" Italy because Siri has yet to add Italian to its list of languages and because Italy wasn't in the group of "first day" launch countries for the iPhone and iPad has received a reply from Cook. In it, he says "I love Italy" and that the company will support Italian in Siri this year, a reiteration of an earlier promise on Apple's website that Siri will add Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Korean this year.
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03/07, 2:45pm
Upgraded tablet simply 'the new iPad'
As a part of its third-generation iPad event, Apple announced that iOS 5.1 will be released later today. Few features have been revealed, but the focus is on a Japanese version of Siri for the iPhone 4S. Previously Siri was restricted to English-, French-, and German-speaking users.
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03/03, 12:25pm
Google Assistant said coming by late 2012
Apparent new leaks have suggested Google is developing a very broad, multi-platform alternative to Siri. So far called Assistant, the concept TechCrunch saw would translate Google's search content into a "personalization layer" that would understand the relationships between data points. A voice-based recognition engine would, like Apple's system, focus on returning a key useful result or accomplishing a task, not just pushing a raw list of results.
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03/02, 10:40am
Complaint accused Apple of misleading public
The UK Advertising Standards Agency has ruled in defense of Apple in the case of a complaint brought by an iPhone owner. The person specifically complained about an online Vodafone ad for the iPhone 4S, originally posted in October of last year. Even though the ad was devised by Vodafone, the carrier directed the ASA to Apple as the source of the offending text. "Simply ask Siri to help you send messages, set reminders or search for information, the ad read. "It can even use information from your iPhone -- such as your location, contacts and contact relationships -- to provide intelligent, personal assistance."
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02/27, 4:40pm
Motorola shows superior voice control performance
Motorola Mobility has released three videos that illustrate the performance advantage offered by Android Voice Actions compared to the iPhone 4S' Siri feature. The videos below, match up the iPhone 4S with Motorola's Atrix 2, Photon 4G, and Electrify, respectively, and different tasks assigned by voice operate quicker than Siri.
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02/27, 4:30pm
App could take on different form
Apple is looking to resolve the situation with Evi without kicking the title off of the App Store entirely, a report says. Citing "sources familiar with the matter," The Verge claims that Apple is currently working with developer True Knowledge to iron out offending similarities to Siri, the voice command system on the iPhone 4S. It has allegedly become standard practice for Apple to "flag" an app that could be confusing and then cooperate with its creators.
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02/27, 1:35pm
Title offers alternative for non-iPhone 4S owner
Apple is threatening to pull a Siri-like app called Evi from the App Store, according to the app's developer, True Knowledge. The latter company says that on Friday, Apple representative Richard Chipman called and explained that Apple was "going to pull Evi from the App Store," based on the title's parallels with Siri. As of this writing, though, Evi is still on sale for about 99 cents, and has managed over 200,000 downloads.
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02/20, 1:40pm
Google TV may get natural voice and proximity tech
Google is now known to have applied for a patent that could give Google TV natural language voice commands of its own. The method would use a smartphone or tablet as a voice remote, optionally using a technique similar to Google Translate or Apple's Siri where the commands are uploaded to a server and then deciphered. It could be used for searching both TV and local content, and could send information to more than one computer or device on the network.
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02/19, 10:05pm
Samsung Galaxy Note mega phone gets our review
Samsung made much ado of the Galaxy Note during the Super Bowl: the massive 5.3-inch screen and pen were tickets to "freedom" from the comparatively tiny iPhone. But are size and handwriting giving smartphone owners real choice, or is it an attempt to shoehorn the phone/tablet crossover into a market that doesn't want it? Our review of the Galaxy Note will find out if it's rethinking smartphones or just rewinding back to 2006-era PDAs.
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02/15, 3:00am
Both poised to drive company into the future
During his rare private appearance at an investors and analysts technology conference hosted by Goldman Sachs, Apple CEO Tim Cook talked on a number of topics, but raised some eyebrows when he mentioned that Apple's iCloud service, which was just launched in October, was now at 100 million users. The last time Cook had mentioned iCloud numbers -- during the quarterly analyst conference call on January 24th -- he said it had just over 85 million users.
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02/14, 8:05pm
Siri adds first non-European language
Apple through indirect means confirmed a longstanding expectation of Japanese language support in Siri. While direct proof of conversation wasn't mentioned, 9to5 in a quick check found that Siri now included Japanese along with the existing English, French, and German. The mention supported hints of extra language support coming by March.
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02/14, 1:40pm
Problems so far inconsistent
Apple may be trying to intentionally sabotage hacked versions of Siri, accounts received by iDownloadBlog suggest. The company has reportedly introduced a "SetActivationToken" into the system, creating problems for Siri hacks dependent on third-party servers, such as Spire. Difficulties have been inconsistent though, such that some users of the hacks have been completely unaffected.
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02/13, 2:15pm
Samsung thinks UI no factor in facing Apple TV set
Samsung's AV product lead Chris Moseley in an interview Monday was dismissive of the threat posed by a possible Apple TV set. In the chat with Pocket-lint, he insisted that image quality was the primary factor and that Apple wouldn't have the image scaling or "world-renowned" picture quality. He downplayed the interface and software features, normally the highlight of Apple's devices, as backseat elements.
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02/11, 1:40pm
Apple lawsuit vs Samsung expanded
An expansion upon what few details have been available from Apple's new Samsung lawsuit has suggested that it reaches more at the core of Android and less at Samsung's specific actions. Along with accusing Samsung of violating a newer unlock gesture patent than what was covered in Germany, a second patent for a "universal interface" for retrieving data appeared to Florian Mueller to accuse Samsung of violating Siri-style searches, where stitching together keywords presents just the immediately needed results. While Android on a base level doesn't do this, it would prevent Google from providing a narrower search method in Android.
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02/09, 8:30pm
Both tout major advantage over alternative phones
Apple has quietly added two new iPhone 4S ads, both showcasing Siri's voice recognition and intelligent-assistant technology, to its iPhone videos web page. In "Road Trip," a man decides to travel across the US from what appears to be Boston to Santa Cruz with his partner, and both of them consult Siri throughout the trip. In "Rock God," a young man progresses from locating a guitar store to forming a rock band and changes the name Siri addresses him by.
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02/08, 3:15pm
Could coincide with iPad refresh
A Chinese version of Siri will launch next month, claims DoNews. The website quotes an Apple engineer said to be working on the project, who adds that the technology is already in internal testing, and will moreover be able to process information and navigation requests, something only US Siri users currently enjoy. General language support has so far been restricted to three different English accents, as well as French and German.
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02/07, 12:50pm
Alpha tech built deep into Siri system
Siri now represents about a quarter of all the queries submitted to Wolfram Alpha, says the New York Times. The Siri technology is an integral feature of the iPhone 4S firmware, and aside from direct voice commands, allows asking plain-language questions about various facts and figures. A Wolfram Alpha widget primarily answers questions related to math and numerical facts, such as the distance to the moon.
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02/06, 10:35pm
Tentative claim has Apple TV set tested in Canada
Unusual rumors on Monday had Apple negotiating for fabled TV set with Canadian telecom providers Bell and Rogers. The respective satellite and cable TV providers were said by the Globe and Mail to be Apple targets as they had "wireless and broadband capabilities" that could be used for launch partners. The two allegedly even had prototypes in their labs.
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02/06, 3:10pm
EarSmart built directly into A5 processor
Siri's exclusivity to the iPhone 4S may be connected to the use of Audience's EarSmart noise cancellation technology, suggests Linley Group analyst Linley Gwennap. While teardowns have shown the presence of a dedicated Audience chip in the iPhone 4, Gwennap points to a January S-1 filing, indicating that EarSmart is built directly into the 4S' A5 processor. "Even after accounting for the dual Cortex-A9 CPUs and the large GPU that provides the A5 with industry-leading 3D graphics performance, the remaining die area seems too large for the usual mundane housekeeping logic," the analyst explains. "To reduce system cost and eliminate the extra package required for the Audience chip, Apple cut a deal to integrate the noise-reduction technology directly into its A5 processor, which appears in the iPhone 4S."
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01/30, 8:15am
Flaming Lips song uses Siri as core instrument
The Flaming Lips' frontman Wayne Coyne posted word of a very unique, fleeting track (below) where the iPhone 4S' Siri plays a central role. The experimental "Now I Understand" has Siri saying it doesn't understand "the moon, the stars, and the sun." After Erykah Badu comes in with verses pointing them out, Siri answers with what's now the song title.
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01/29, 8:35pm
Big Bang Theory makes Siri a key selling point
Apple got more than a few endorsements this week after The Big Bang Theory made Siri a core part of an episode's plot line. Raj gets an iPhone 4S and quickly falls in love with it, since it appears to respond to every romantic question he has. It agrees to call him "sexy" and suggests places to that he imagines being places for a date.
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01/24, 1:00am
Turns voice commands into OS actions
Hacker developer Nick Frey is now offering a utility forjailbroken iPhone 4S models that extends Siri slightly, allowing users to speak commands beginning with "open" or "launch" to allow Siri to launch programs (even "webclips") or execute system commands such as "unlock" (if password protection isn't on) and "reboot." The program can open both first- and third-party programs and relies on the recently-released Absinthe program for jailbreaking.
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01/23, 7:10pm
Evi promises to answer complex questions by voice
True Knowledge has developed a voice command app that promises to beat Apple's Siri in key areas. Evi on iOS (99 cents, App Store) and Android (free during beta, Android Market) can answer typical Siri quesitons, such as restaurant recommendations, but specializes in answering answering the less immediate questions that would normally have Siri perform a generic web search. A deep knowledge class system lets it answer age comparisons, provide recipes, and otherwise answer directly.
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01/23, 6:25pm
Samsung miselads with Galaxy S II voice spot
Samsung has run another ad for the Galaxy S II that this time deliberately omits an iPhone feature that negates its advantage. One of those waiting in line for an iPhone ducks into a store and is impressed when he sees a clerk use Android's built-in Voice Actions to send a text. In a first for the ad campaign, the S II actually catches a buyer, who raises concerns among his iPhone queue friends when he doesn't come back.
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01/19, 8:30pm
Another patent may hint at a quiet acquisition
Apple has been awarded a patent for its implementation of Siri, crediting original Siri inventor Thomas Gruber and others with the technology, which covers both its original format and its current Apple-enhanced incarnation. The company was also granted two patents related to battery technology, including a certification on non-rectangular battery shapes that may herald future devices. There's also a hint that Apple has quietly bought another company.
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01/13, 11:40am
LG and Google may make reference Google TV device
A pair of sources claimed Friday that Google was partnering with LG to develop a refernece Google TV set. Much like the Galaxy Nexus or the Nexus One before it, the display outlined to Bloomberg would run the latest version of the Android-based interface, possibly before anyone else, and would go without any customizations. The set would be running the next major version, which Google has already said should arrive before the end of the year.
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01/10, 3:45am
We test Sony's 2012 Google TV hardware
Sony at CES unveiled new Google TV hardware that we had the opportunity to try. The hardware itself, a new NSZ-GS7 Network Player and a NSZ-GP9 Blu-ray player, isn't a revolution but is subtler and fits well into a home theater. The more distinctive feature for us is the remote: while Sony wouldn't let users touch the early prototypes, which we'll go into depth for along with launch details and pricing.
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01/08, 11:45pm
Lenovo avoids Google TV with K91 set
Lenovo as part of its wide-scale introductions brought out its first TV with an unusual approach to Android that we saw for ourselves. The K91 Smart TV is based on Android 4.0, not Google TV, and uses a completely new Sandwich UI that focuses on traditional TV, VOD with a viewing history, and Internet-aware apps.
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01/02, 8:10pm
App uses Nuance voice recognition
Developer Shai Leib has introduced a Windows Phone app, titled 'Ask Ziggy', that aims to compete with Apple's Siri app for the iPhone 4S. Like Siri, Ask Ziggy uses speech recognition technology in lieu of traditional text entry for search queries. Users can find directions, flight status information, stock prices, weather, calculation results and other information.
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12/31, 12:25pm
Google takes down fake Siri app but leaves Speerit
Google has partly reacted to the presence of cloned Siri apps on Android by pulling one of the titles. The "Siri for Android" app has been quietly pulled from Android Market about a day after it was first discovered. The developer, operating under the deliberately misleading company name Official App, has also had its only other app, a fake Pinterest app that only linked to the website, pulled from the store.
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12/30, 8:30am
Google lets dummy Siri apps slip through
Google has let through a pair of fake Siri apps. Both Siri for Android (Android Market) and Speerit (Android Market) both steal Apple's icon and, in the case of Speerit, try to clone Siri's interface. The currently Korean-only app claims to have "real" Siri, although the differing results on the weather widget suggest it's not actually asking Apple's servers.
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12/27, 10:55am
New hack should dodge copyright worries
Two iOS hackers, Chpwn and Ryan Petrich, have released Spire, a new implementation of Siri for jailbroken iOS 5 devices. The code brings Siri to hardware other than the iPhone 4S, specifically the iPhone 4 and 3GS, the iPad 1, and third- and fourth-generation iPod touches. Chpwn claims that unlike a hack published earlier this month, there should be no copyright issues putting the legality of Spire in question.
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12/20, 11:40am
Nuance takes over Vlingo
Nuance shook up the smartphone field Tuesday by acquiring Vlingo. The deal gives it a natural language voice command system available both after the fact and preloaded on phones like the iPhone 4S, which itself uses Nuance as part of its recognition.
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