All about Siri on Apple iPhone 4S

Siri, the intelligent personal assistant for latest release of iPhone 4S, is actually been around for the past eight years. Siri was only recently been acquired by Apple in Mar 2010 for an undisclosed sum.

History of Siri

2003: DARPA awards SRI with a five-year contract to create an “enduring personalized cognitive assistant.” It would go on to invest $150 million in the project.

SRI calls the project CALO, short for Cognitive Agent that Learns and Organizes. The stated goal: “To create cognitive software systems, that is, systems that can reason, learn from experience, be told what to do, explain what they are doing, reflect on their experience, and respond robustly to surprise.”

Jan. 2008: Siri, one of the consumer-branded products inspired by the CALO project, spun out of SRI as its own company.

Oct. 13, 2008: Siri announces it has raised $8.5 million in Series A funding in a round led by Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures.

Nov. 24, 2009: Siri announces it has raised $15.5 million in Series B funding in a round led by Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures.

Feb. 4, 2010: Siri launches an app for iPhone. The app lets you to talk to your phone and have it find and make plans for you. The app improves with repeated usage and better understands your requests over time.

March 28, 2010: Apple acquires Siri for an undisclosed sum just two months after its public release. Some members of the Siri team move to Apple.

Oct. 4, 2011: Apple announces Siri, a virtual personal assistant for the iPhone 4S.

» Siri: From App to Apple & Beyond | Mashable