Siri

Robin Williams' impression of an iPhone in Paris

What if Siri had a French accent -- and an attitude to match?

If Apple (AAPL) ever opened up a Siri app store, a line of personality modules -- like the haughty Parisian Robin Williams trotted out on The Ellen Show -- could be a real money-maker.

Via boxerconan at Apple Sanity.

Tellme fail: 'Swingers swap sex partners in prudish Singapore'

Microsoft's claim that its voice command system is Siri's equal is put to the test 

You might think that Microsoft's (MSFT) Chief Research and Strategy Officer would have spent some time playing around with Apple's new intelligent personal assistant before making the claim -- as Craig Mundie did earlier this week -- that there's nothing to Siri but clever marketing and the usual mindless fascination with anything Apple (AAPL) chooses to sell.

"As MORE

Yes, Google, Siri is a serious threat

The question isn't whether Siri is a search engine that can replace Google's search box. It's a different kind of search -- one that could be the future.

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE -- It sounded pretty good until Eric Schmidt said it: Siri, the so-called personal assistant app on Apple's iPhone 4S, is the new face of search. Siri is threatening to sideline the tried-and-true search box that Google turned into MORE

iPhone 4S pre-orders sold out in Hong Kong in 10 minutes

Bodes well for Friday's launch in 15 countries -- and maybe mainland China by December

Ticonderoga's Brian White, who has been keeping as close tabs on Apple's (AAPL) prospects in China as any Western analyst, reported Monday that pre-orders for the iPhone 4S ended almost as soon as they began in China last Friday.

According to his checks, pre-orders were sold out in Hong Kong 10 minutes after Apple started taking them. MORE

Today in Tech: Google calls Siri a threat

Fortune's curated selection of newsworthy tech stories from the weekend. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you every day.

* Google (GOOG) chairman Eric Schmidt told the U.S. Senate antitrust committee that the iPhone 4S's voice assistant, Siri, poses a "competitive threat" to his company's business. Confessed Schmidt: "Apple's Siri is a significant development -- a voice-activated means of accessing answers through iPhones that demonstrates the innovations in search." (Apple MORE

An Apple-branded TV set? Not likely, says Toni Sacconaghi

Sanford Bernstein's top Apple analyst is dubious about Steve Jobs' television dreams

Analysts have been arguing for ages about whether Apple (AAPL) is ever going to enter the $118 billion/year flat-screen TV market. But two things have changed in the past month:

1. Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs quotes him as saying he's "finally cracked" the problem of controlling an integrated cloud-based television.
2. The Siri system that Apple introduced on MORE

Artificial stupidity: Siri suffers a 5-hour outage

The downside of server-based voice activated computing

Apple's (AAPL) Siri, to paraphrase Alan Kay's comment about the original Macintosh, is the first voice-activated artificial intelligent assistant good enough to criticize.

Good enough, in fact, that Asymco's Horace Dediu has suggested that voice-activation might be the next revolutionary user interface, as disruptive for future computing devices as the mouse, the scroll wheel and the touchscreen were before it. In his Critical Path podcast Wednesday (Back to MORE

Apple turns up the volume on TV advertising for iPhone 4S

Ten days after it aired the first Siri ad, the company launched three more

The focus, as usual with Apple (AAPL), is on the product and what it can do for you.

Via 9to5Mac.

Piper Jaffray: Apple is already building prototype TV sets

The solution Steve Jobs said he "finally cracked" could be a $6 billion business by 2014

In a note to clients released Monday, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster seizes on remarks attributed to Steve Jobs in the biography published overnight as "another data point" to support a thesis he's been championing since 2009.

"I'd like to create an integrated television set," Jobs told Walter Isaacson, his authorized biographer. "It would be seamlessly synced MORE

Apple airs its first Siri TV ad

In typical Apple (AAPL) style, the focus is on the product and what it can do for you.