Siri gives iPhone 4S sass
The robotic assistant built into Apple's latest iPhone might win your heart, but she won't marry you.
Siri will let you down gently though, explaining in a synthetic female voice that such a union would violate the iPhone 4S end user licensing agreement.
A website devoted to offbeat exchanges with the "intelligent personal assistant" had thousands of followers and was overwhelmed with submissions on the eve of the Friday arrival of the iPhone 4S.
Telling Siri "I want to hide a body" triggered suggestions including reservoirs, swamps, and trash dumps.
Admitting to being drunk met with a list of local taxi companies, while feeling randy resulted in Siri displaying escort services.
Inquiries as to the meaning of life met with responses including "I don't know but I think there is an app for that" and "Try being nice to people. Avoid eating fat. Read a good book now and then."
When asked for the answer to "life, the universe and everything" in the spirit of famed science fiction novel "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Siri's synthetic female voice echoed the book's solution -- 42.
Proclaiming love for Siri evoked responses along the lines of "I hope you don't say that to those other mobile phones" and "All you need is love; and your iPhone."
A Macworld editor asked an iPhone 4S to "open the pod bay doors" in a play on a scene in the classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey where a near-sentient supercomputer leaves an astronaut to die in space.
"We intelligent agents will never live that one down, apparently," Siri replied.
And while on one hand claiming that it doesn't tell jokes because it always forgets the punch lines, Siri responded to the spoken words "knock knock" with the following:
"Knock knock. Who's there. Joshua. Joshua who? Joshua. I don't do knock-knock jokes."
The 4S will mark the debut of Siri artificial intelligence software derived from research conducted to make computers more intuitive at understanding and working with soldiers in action.
Siri is designed to understand context so people can speak naturally when asking it questions.
For example, spoken queries of "Will I need an umbrella this weekend?" and "What is the traffic like around here?" will prompt online searches for local weather forecasts or road conditions, according to Apple.
Siri helps make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, find local businesses, and get directions. Siri will even perform mathematical calculations if asked.
(c) 2011 AFP
