Scoble Tours SRI and Gets Scoop on Siri

Robert Scoble, a frequent contributor to Rackspace's Building 43 recently toured SRI and conducted interviews with senior staff. Videos of those interviews have just been published on TechCrunch. A related, long inteview, about the spin-off and subsequent acquisition by Apple of Siri, creators of the iPhone app by the same name — with Norman D. Winarsky, Vice President of Ventures, Licensing and Strategic Programs at SRI, Gary J. Morgenthaler, General Partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, and Shawn T. Carolan, Managing Director at Menlo Ventures — is linked from the TechCrunch article in two parts (Part I, Part II). There is a notable quote in Part II (beginning at 8min 30sec): Think of the world's best AI technology in the hands of the world's greatest consumer electronics company. While the AI technology Apple acquired with Siri may represent a competitive advantage, it also represents the state of the art, and suggests that AI of the sort used by Siri is ready for prime time.