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Editor’s Note: Norman Winarsky is the Vice President of Ventures and Bill Mark is the Vice President of the Information Computing Sciences Division at renowned research and technology development organization, SRI International. Norman and Bill helped found the Siri venture, of which Norman was also a Board member.

Since its launch in the iPhone 4S, Siri has become a phenomenon, and for good reason. Siri is a revolutionary consumer software product based on breakthroughs in speech and artificial intelligence technology.

Siri has appeared extensively in the media as a new consumer phenomenon, including Dilbert and Jon Stewart. In November, Eric Schmidt testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that Siri was potentially a major threat to Google. Siri has even been the major part of an episode of the sitcom “Big Bang Theory” on CBS and the subject of numerous parody Tumblr and Twitter accounts.

Without a doubt, Siri was a great achievement for Apple and Steve Jobs, helping to introduce virtual personal assistants to millions of consumers, and changing forever the way we view our smartphones. The team also brilliantly designed Siri to go beyond being a mere tool, giving it a personality, and human-like interaction characteristics.

Do you like me, Siri? Where can I bury a body, Siri?

There is no doubt in our minds that Apple will continue to advance the Siri, technology, and will create new breakthroughs in the virtual personal assistant (VPA) category overall. For example, it’s clear that Apple is capable of making a Siri API for application developers in the near term, enabling hundreds of thousands of applications to access their own assistant. Soon it will become de rigueur for all applications to offer spoken interaction and meaningful delegation. In fact, we consumers will be surprised and disappointed if or when they don’t.

Beyond the laudatory comments and requisite speculation, and because of our central role in creating Siri, we at SRI are often asked – what’s next?

As we always respond — Siri is just the first step in realizing the ultimate virtual personal assistant vision. This post first outlines what we think Siri’s legacy will be, and then gives the broad strokes of what will mark the next phase(s) of VPA innovation.

To start, Siri’s greatest effect will be the entirely new industry that it is creating before our eyes. At SRI, we see VPA technology as an essential element of future products in areas ranging from smart TVs, to health care assistance, to virtual tutors in education, and more. VPA is not just a fad, or a trend. It is in many ways the destiny of computing and a decades-long project, or more. As we speak, SRI is spinning out three new startups that are underwritten by the VPA paradigm and our related R&D. They are already VC-funded and preparing their first products for wide use. We think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Technologically speaking, Siri’s true impact is seen in the new bar it set for what we call “practical natural language understanding.” Using speech instead of keyboards to communicate with computers is an old dream, but it took more than thirty years to achieve the robustness and performance needed to make speech systems practical for consumers.

Developing software for limited-vocabulary and spoken language recognition was the first step, and we are all familiar with call center applications that marked the first efforts in this arena. However, developing software to enable computers to respond reliably to a broad range of spoken input is much more challenging. Siri required not just speech recognition, but also understanding of natural language, context, and ultimately, reasoning (itself the domain of most artificial intelligence research today.)

Post-Siri, new speech-enhanced artificial intelligence research continues to be subject of enormous investment at SRI and elsewhere, most notably by the U.S. Department of Defense, which is anxious to increase the performance of personnel dealing with complex systems across a wide array of use cases.

So with those forthcoming advancements in mind (which SRI cannot discuss in detail, unfortunately), what’s indeed next for VPA technology? What glimpses of the future can we nonetheless share?

We can tell you this — the next-generation VPA will enable you to have a much deeper relationship with your assistant. Siri has a conversational interface today, but these intercations seldom last more than one or two utterances. Tomorrow’s VPA conversations will be about more complex tasks with multiple steps and more nuance (exploring healthcare alternatives, planning a vacation, and buying clothes, to name a few scenarios.)

This next wave of VPAs will be also able to maintain the context of the conversation for long periods of time, reason with clarity about what you discuss, provide answers to your questions, execute tasks for you, and all along the way learn from you and noticeably improve with use. The experience will be more will be personalized that what you experience with Siri today, and it will have greater depth. VPA’s will also be more proactive, constantly discovering things that you might care about and even starting conversations with you about what they find.

Let’s illustrate these new VPA capabilities with a conversation between a real person named Lisa, and a virtual personal shopping assistant named Nina, with Lisa wanting to buy a purse:

Lisa: “Nina, I need a new purse.”
Nina: “Great! Do you want to buy something from Michael Kors like you did last time?”
Lisa: “Well, I’d like Michael Kors, but I don’t want to spend more than $400.”
Nina: “Last time you bought your Michael Kors purse from Nordstrom. Nordstrom has a Michael Kors sale right now…here are some purses you might like.”
Lisa: “I like the chocolate brown one, at $329. Is that the best price you found?”
Nina: “I saw a couple of offers at $310 from other retailers, but their return policy isn’t as generous as Nordstrom’s.”
Lisa” “Okay, let’s go with Nordstrom”.

The important part about this conversation is that it is natural, real, and helpful. Lisa is getting what she wants from Nina, an assistant that is familiar with her purchase history and the stores that she prefers.

Lisa expects Nina to know all about shopping, and to use that knowledge to help select just the right item, at a good price. Her virtual personal assistant will also learn from this conversation, and maintain the history and context for follow-on conversations, as well as future purchases.

That last point bears emphasis. As the VPA learns, it will become more and more valuable. This kind of capability is often invoked, but seldom delivered. “Learning in the wild” is another old dream that is only now starting to come true. The truly adaptive VPA is the ultimate “sticky” application.

And of course, Lisa likewise trusts the VPA more and more as Nina demonstrates increasing competence. That trust applies not only to personalized, accurate information delivery, but also the protection of personal information. For any VPA, trust – especially vis-a-vis security and privacy — will be a central requirement, and the next generation of VPA offerings will be graded on a steep curve.

It all sounds pretty good, right?

Luckily, a VPA that can interact with me with such great depth and nuance is not merely a science fiction. SRI is building these capabilities today. We and our research partners are dedicating immense time and resources to making this future come true.

VPA is about augmenting humans in ways old and new – so that we can be our best selves, and accomplish more with less. At SRI, the theme of human augmentation goes back to the days of Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse, and pioneer of human-computer interaction. Doug’s quote from his 1962 article captures it well:

By ‘augmenting human intellect’ we mean increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems.

We believe that VPA represents a new and especially productive vein of progress. VPA is the most elegant and effective way we have figured out yet for humans and machines to interact. We think that it will revolutionize the way we think about machines, just as Engelbart’s vision did with the “mother of all demos” nearly 50 years ago.

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• NORMAN WINARSKY

Person: Norman Winarsky

Companies: Radar Networks, Siri, SRI International

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Tech Crunch Story

Siri lied to me.

I asked the personal assistant with that efficient female voice on my iPhone whether her services would be available on the new iPad. She told me that everything I needed to know about Apple Inc. products could be found on the company’s website.

Ha!

Many Apple followers expect the company to use a publicity event Wednesday to unveil the iPad3, a new tablet presumed to include the Siri assistant that responds to spoken questions and commands. But don’t bother looking for confirmation on Apple’s website or from any other official source.

The addition of Siri to a new iPad would certainly be a big deal for Nuance Communications Inc., the Burlington voice recognition company that helped bring the function to life on Apple’s iPhone 4s late last year. Nuance won’t discuss what specific technology it provides to Apple but confirms its software powers Siri’s uncanny ability to recognize human speech.

Siri was a hit right out of the gate, the shiniest new bell and the loudest new whistle on an updated iPhone that sold 37 million units during the last three months of 2011.

Nuance has been in the voice recognition business for a long time, and many people are familiar with its Dragon speech products, including its Dragon Go! applications for smartphones. The company is known for its relationship with Apple but sells its software to many other electronics manufacturers.

Years of internal product development and a long list of corporate acquisitions, including the recent purchase of local rival Vlingo Inc., have made Nuance the clear leader among voice recognition companies.

“Nuance is the umbrella under which voice innovation is happening,’’ says Sarah Rotman Epps, a senior analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge.

Recently, that innovation has meant two things to the average customer: Voice recognition works much better than it once did, when a user had to spend hours training the software to hear correctly; secondly, voice instructions are helping all kinds of electronics - smartphones, computers, and even televisions - execute more complex tasks, including many that depend on cloud-based resources reached via the Internet.

“I feel like every year since 1999 was supposed to be the year for speech, but Apple has changed the nature of the game and everyone else is following,’’ says analyst Tom Roderick, who follows Nuance for Stifel Nicolaus & Co.

So you might have expected Nuance’s Feb. 10 announcement of its financial results for the last quarter of 2011 to turn into a kind of victory lap for the company’s role in the iPhone launch that sold so many millions of units.

Here’s what really happened: Nuance’s quarterly revenues fell about $28 million short of forecasts, and the company’s stock suffered its worst day in 18 months.

Sure, quarterly sales and profits were greater than the same period the previous year. And even with the recent slide Nuance shares are up more than 50 percent over the past 12 months. Still, the company came up short of expectations for the final months of 2011.

Nuance executives pointed to contract negotiations that took more time than expected to complete and other complications as explanations for why business didn’t pan out as investors had expected.

But they won’t discuss details of Nuance’s payment arrangement with Apple; rather than get a piece of every iPhone sold, Nuance likely got paid a flat fee for its technology used in Siri.

Roderick believes it’s taking more time to negotiate and work the kinks out of more complex voice-driven products.

“I fall into the camp that believes the last quarter was a misstep and you’ll get a bounce-back this quarter,’’ he says.

Nuance will face another issue in the immediate future. As voice recognition becomes a standard part of technology products, giants like Google Inc., Microsoft Inc., and others loom as potential competitors on an entirely different scale. Apple, a partner with Nuance at the moment, could become a business problem in the future.

For now, Nuance has technology people want. Companies that make mobile phones using Android operating systems are surely keen to knock Siri offer her perch with a new product.

“Nuance is certainly going after that market,’’ says Roderick.

But the question at hand is about Apple and what kind of voice recognition capabilities it might build into a new iPad. Don’t bother asking Siri for the answer.

Try BostonGlobe.com today and get two weeks FREE. Steven Syre is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at syre@globe.com.

I knew or had a pretty damned good idea that Nuance Communications was the ultimate power behind not only SIRI, but Voice recognition apps like : Dragon Go, Dragon Dictation, Vlingo, Evi, Assistant, and Voice Actions. There are others too. However thanks to Apple, the most well known IS SIRI ! This News Story thru the Boston Globe , Nuance admits to being a a BUSINESS PARTNER (for now) with Apple. Today's date: March 06,2012 Wednesday.

With Mobile World Congress having concluded, the smartphone market is seriously heating up. But which of the super phones coming soon will be your next handset? Here’s how these upcoming beasts compare.

The list below is something new for Giz AU: think of it as a living document. As new phones are announced/released, we’ll add them to our list for your easy reference. Here we’ll be focusing on the hottest phones, including 4G models earmarked in Australia. We’ll be sure to let you know when we’ve done so and encourage you to drop a comment if you spot a sexy new device.

So… which of the phones below take your fancy?

Note: Specs below may change without notice.

Phone	In Australia?	OS	Screen	CPU / RAM	Cameras	Storage	Weight
Apple iPhone 4S	Everywhere	iOS 5.0.1	3.5-inch LCD (960×640)	800MHz dual-core A5 / 512MB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 0.3MP front	16/32/64GB / not expandable	140g
Asus Padfone	TBC	Android 4.0	4.3-inch (smartphone/960×540) / 10.1-inch (tablet)	1.5GHz dual core / 1GB	8MP rear / 0.3MP front	16/32GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	129g
HTC One S	TBC	Android 4.0 with HTC Sense 4	4.3-inch Super LCD 2 (960×540)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 0.3MP front	16GB internal	119.5g
HTC One XL	Preregistration open with Telstra / possible 4G	Android 4.0 with HTC Sense 4	4.7-inch Super LCD 2 (1280×720)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal	129g
HTC Sensation XE	Vodafone	Android 2.3 / Sense 3.0 (Android 4 Coming)	4.3-inch LCD (960×540)	1.5GHz dual-core / 768MB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	4GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	151g
HTC Sensation XL	Vodafone	Android 2.3 with Sense 3.5 (Android 4 coming)	4.7-inch LCD (800×480)	1.5GHz/ 768MB	8MP rear (shoots 720p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal / not expandable	162.5g
HTC Titan II	Overseas 4G March 2012, AU unknown	Windows Phone 7.5	4.7-inch Super LCD (800×400)	1.5GHz / 512MB	16MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal / not expandable	160g
HTC Velocity 4G	Telstra 4G	Android 2.3 with HTC Sense 3.5	4.5-inch LCD (960×540)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	163.8g
Huawei Ascend D quad	TBC	Android 4.0	4.5-inch IPS LCD (1280×720)	1.2GHz quad-core / 1GB	8MP rear (1080p) / 1.3MP front	8GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	130g
Huawei Ascend P1 S	Confirmed for AU start of Q2	Android 4.0	4.3-inch Super AMOLED (960×540)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	4GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	130g
LG Optimus 3D Max	TBC	Android 2.3 (Android 4 coming)	4.3-inch WVGA glasses-free 3D display (800×480)	1.2GHz dual-core/ 1GB	dual 5MP rear (2D/1080p; 3D/720p)	8GB internal / not expandable	TBC
LG Optimus 4X HD	TBC	Android 4.0	4.7-inch True HD IPS (1280×720)	1.5GHz quad-core / 1GB	8MP rear (1080p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	TBC
LG Optimus L7	TBC	Android 4.0	4.3-inch NOVA display (800×480)	1GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (720p) / 1.3MP front	TBC / up to 32GB microSD	TBC
LG Optimus Vu	TBC / possible 4G	Android 2.3 (Android 4 coming)	5.0-inch True HD IPS (1024×768)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (1080p) / 1.3MP front	32GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	168g
Motorola Droid 4 (aka Milestone 4)	ETA early Feb overseas	Android 2.3 (Android 4 coming)	4.0-inch LCD (960×540)	1.2GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	179g
Motorola Droid Bionic	US only (CDMA) / Overseas GSM variant rumoured	Android 2.3	4.3-inch LCD (960×540)	1GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 0.3MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	158g
Motorola Droid RAZR	Optus	Android 2.3	4.3-inch Super AMOLED (960×540)	1.2GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 2MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	127g
Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx	Larger battery version of RAZR ETA late Jan overseas	Android 2.3 (Android 4 coming)	4.3-inch Super AMOLED (960×540)	1.2GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 2MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	127g
Nokia 808 PureView	TBC	Symbian (Belle)	4.0-inch AMOLED (640×360)	1.3GHz / 512MB	41MP rear (shoots 1080p)/ 0.3MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	169g
Nokia Lumia 610	TBC	Windows Phone 7.5 Mango	3.7-inch LCD (800×480)	800MHz / 256MB	5MP rear (shoots 720p) / 0.3MP front	8GB internal / no external	131.5g
Nokia Lumia 710	Optus? (Nokia AU) / Available at MobiCity	Windows Phone 7	3.7-inch LCD (800×480)	1.4GHz / 512MB	5MP rear (shoots 720p) / no front	8GB internal / not expandable	125.5g
Nokia Lumia 800	Hits Telstra, Optus and Vodafone in March / Also available from MobiCity now	Windows Phone 7.5	3.7-inch AMOLED (480×800)	1.4GHz / 512MB	8MP rear (shoots 720p) / no front	16GB internal / not expandable	142g
Nokia Lumia 900	Overseas ETA March 2012, rumoured for Telstra in AU	Windows Phone 7.5	4.3-inch AMOLED (800×400)	1.4GHz / 512MB	8MP rear (shoots 720p)/ 1MP front	16GB internal / not expandable	159g
Samsung Focus S	Not official in AU / Available now at Electronic Bazaar	Windows Phone 7.5	4.3-inch Super AMOLED (800×480)	1.4GHz / 512MB	8MP rear (shoots 720p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	110g
Samsung Galaxy Nexus	Everywhere	Android 4	4.7-inch HD Super AMOLED (1280×720)	1.2GHz dual-core / 1GB	5MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	16/32GB internal / not expandable	135g
Samsung Galaxy Note	Coming to AU officially Q1 / Available now at MobiCity	Android 2.3	5.3-inch Super AMOLED (1280×800)	1.4GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 2MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	178g
Samsung Galaxy S II	Everywhere	Android 2.3 with TouchWiz 4.0 / (Android 4 coming)	4.3-inch Super AMOLED (800×480)	1.2GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 2MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	130g
Samsung Galaxy S II HD	Not official in AU / Available at MobiCity	Android 2.3	4.6-inch Super AMOLED (1280×720)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 2MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	130.5g
Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket	Not official in AU / Available at MobiCity	Android 2.3	4.5-inch Super AMOLED (800×480)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 2MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	132g
Samsung Omnia W (aka Focus Flash)	Telstra	Windows Phone 7.5	3.7-inch Super AMOLED (800×480)	1.4GHz / 512MB	5MP rear (shoots 720p) / 1.3MP front	8GB internal / not expandable	115.3g
Sony Xperia P	TBC	Android 2.3 (Android 4 coming)	4.0-inch TFT LCD (960×540)	1GHz / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 0.3MP front	16GB internal / not expandable	120g
Sony Xperia S (Ion)	ETA Q1 in AU	Android 2.3 (Android 4 is coming)	4.55-inch LCD (1280×720)	1.5GHz dual-core / 1GB	12MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 1.3MP front	16GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	144g
Sony Xperia U	TBC	Android 2.3 (Android 4 coming)	3.5-inch TFT LCD (854×480)	1GHz / 512MB	5MP rear (shoots 720p) / 0.3MP front	4GB internal / not expandable	110g
ZTE Era	TBC	Android 4.0	4.3-inch qHD TFT (960×540)	1.3GHz quad-core / 1GB	8MP rear (shoots 1080p) / 0.3MP front	8GB internal / up to 32GB microSD	TBC

Iphone has one of the SMALLEST screens amongst the one listed.

Google will release a voice-enabled application for Android that is similar to Apple’s popular Siri by the fourth quarter of 2012, according a report by TechCrunch.

While some view Siri as a gimmick, Apple touted its voice assistant heavily in several advertising campaigns throughout the winter. Apple must have struck a chord with consumers, because Siri and a few other great features made the iPhone 4S an incredible seller. While we don’t know exactly how many 4S units were moved in the last quarter, Apple sold a record 37 million iPhones in Q1 2012. Ask Siri how she likes them apples.

Google, wanting to help Android cash in to this frenzy, will reportedly be pushing out its Siri competitor before the end of the year. The application is rumored to be simply called “Assistant” and it wants to one up Apple’s darling. Ideally, it will be able to tap Google’s powerful search engine for knowledge and integrate Google services like Gmail, Google+, and YouTube, making it easier than ever to do anything on your phone.

Assistant additionally could find its way into other applications with Google offering an open API. This way, developers could integrate features from Assistant into their apps. I could see that being exceptionally helpful for doing searches on social apps, travel apps, games, and more.

Further adding fuel to this rumor fire, Google applied for a patent that sounded quite a bit like Siri a few weeks ago. That patent was targeted for Google TV, but based on Google’s history, it will use this technology across all of its services.

Would you like to see a Siri-like application on Android and Google TV by the end of this year?

Corporate assistant photo: Andy Dean Photography/Shutterstock

All of a sudden, Two articles in one day that Siri IS powered by NUANCE COMM! I have several Nuance Communication Voice Recognition apps on MY Iphone 4 (no S )

I have Evi on MY iphone, to me it's NOT as good as I hear and read from sources that SIRI is. Apparently Siri and EVI do have the same COMPANY; Nuance Communications as I suspecdted. Nuance Comm. is the VOICE RECOGNITION software of nearly ALL the best Voice apps for Iphone on the web. Nuance Comm. powers EVI, and Siri, and Speak to it's assistant and lots more. EVI is NOT my favorite Siri alternative but am sorry to read that Apple will be pulling it from the app store. Todays's date Thursday, March 01, 2012.