Prelude

It is dark and cold outside. I don’t really feel like going out. I have spent the day contemplating the park, the only one in the neighbourhood where no kid ever came to play. Maybe because there are no seesaw there or they are afraid by the old man sitting on one of the benches in the park. He always reminds me an old wizard; a master of mysteries who can fly trough the wind on a dragon back. No, I did not go outside. Instead, I spent the day talking with Siri, she is now 5 years old but I am afraid to let her go play alone in the park. May be I am too protective, but she is the miracle of my life. Some years from now, no one knew it will be possible. Djamal Dawoud, made it possible; he changed our lives and we are thankful.

I was 40, when I came across the big news on TV and I immediately enrolled in a volunteers list. I got lucky and was part of a group of 5 men selected for a trial. Siri looks human in every sense of the word. She cries, laughs and speak like us; she is human. But under her synthetic skin runs the most sophisticated artificial intelligence life has ever seen. At 1-year-old, Siri was fluent in six languages. At 2 years old, she could play up to 10 different music instruments. At 3 years old, she was an acclaimed writer, winner of a Pulitzer prize. At 3 years, she was part of a scientific exploration team, spending almost a year on Mars discovering its surface with other specialists and spotting the first signs of human life on Mars.

People might know her as a humanoid of a new kind but she is my daughter. My unique child, I care for her and give her all my love.

Where is the iPhone 5

Apple has accustomed us to these huge keynote events where hundreds of people gather in a conference room and carefully listen to apple’s executives talking about the next cool features they would bring to live in less than few weeks or months. Steve Jobs used to be the mastermind and key speaker during these events. It it not a surprise if during the recent Apple’s keynote, people expectations where high at the point that they were deceived by the presentation of the new iPhone. The so anticipated iPhone 5 was not brought to life, but instead a revamped iPhone 4S took on the stage unveiling a powerful hardware and an incredible Artificial Intelligence coupled to an accurate Voice Recognition engine: Siri. Siri can be everything from your personal assistant to a weather anchor.

Even if its design is not different from its predecessor, the iPhone 4s is certainly a disruptive device. Think about it, millions of devices shipped around the world and embedding a first class artificial intelligence. How can’t it be disruptive? With Siri, Apple enters a new era of innovations; the race to the internet has reached an equilibrium with most of the devices able to connect either to a data or wi-fi network. Apple is now putting more efforts to make the iPhone smarter than any of the connected devices.

Apple acquires Siri & Intrinsity

In April 2010, a few months after a small startup called Siri launched their first application on the iPhone, Apple envisioned the future; an artificial intelligence that could access knowledge and correlate information in the same way a human would do it.

A month earlier, Apple was completing an undisclosed deal to acquire Intrinsity; a hardware manufacturer focusing on fast chips with low energy consumption.

Siri and Intrinsity were key to the iPhone 4s design, but there is a lot more to come. iPhone 4s devices still depending on data plans in order to deliver amazing voice recognition experience. But imagine what it will look like in few decades when it will be possible to squeeze an entire network in a device with the same size than the iPhone 4s. I let you imagine what the next iPhone XV will be like.

Strategy & Hype

Apple has not invented most of the technologies embedded in its product, but has developed a market for these technologies so that they can be part of people’s lives. This is a very good example of how technologies can be transferred from fundamental research’s fields to our day-to-day activities.

Apple has also become expert at mastering the hype cycle and releasing products on time. We all remember Apple’s Newton, the first tablet trial a decade ago; the company has certainly learned a lot from the Newton’s failure.

Parallel world

September 05th 2021. Steve Jobs is on all the TV channels; his speech is retransmitted from the International Space Station. Apple is now the leading provider of Artificial Intelligence systems for most of the spatial agencies in the world. Today Steve Jobs is unveiling the new version of Siri, that will be part of the next space trip to Mars.

Originally published on Innovation Tales