Friday, October 14, 2011

Siri and Our Lives

While there was initial disappointment with the release of the iPhone 4s vs the anticipated "5", a few days have given us time to digest the impact that Siri might have on mobile technology. Siri is a voice recognition and assistance solution that's likely to change the mobile landscape as we know it. For example, instead of searching for weather you can ask the device if you need an umbrella, as you would a personal assistant. The device responds, "Rain is not in the forecast." These certainly seems like a natural progression, and it's interesting to note how much we've adapted to technology over the last decade. Certainly the next 10 years will usher in a period in which we better integrate with our electronic devices, and Google may have been one of the first to begin this trend with it's approach to search algorithms. At one level, Siri is the next level of search which has adapted to us (and our common conversational language) versus us adapting to an algorithm. The sky is the limit with this software.

Once you couple SIRI with location services, you essentially have a personal assistant reminding you of places to go, errands to run, as you mindlessly shuffle through your neighborhood. Now your phone is an even stronger extension of your mind. Will Siri isolate us more or enable us to better integrate? Time will tell.

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