I agree that this is likely missing some pretty important pieces. Due to all the recent talk about Apple and Siri I decided to look into Siri the startup a lit

I agree that this is likely missing some pretty important pieces. Due to all the recent talk about Apple and Siri I decided to look into Siri the startup a little more closely. That's the company that Apple bought to bring you Siri the feature. I was curious how much of this technology was created by the startup and how much Apple contributed. While I didn't find the answer to that question, I did discover something even more startling. It turns out that Siri the company was born out of one of the largest computer science research programs in U.S. history. Or so claims the press release [1]. Looking at the the research project page [2], it appears to involve at least seven major universities, a lot of government funding, and several private corporate collaborators. While some of the pieces may be open, the license for the project itself only allows for non-commercial use. It's also fantastically complex and combines many state of the art techniques. While it's certainly possible for a company to reproduce much of the implementation from the open pieces, it is a lot more than 8 hours of work. All said, Siri is an amazing accomplishment, and more than anything, a great example of why science funding is important. [1] http://www.sri.com/news/releases/020510.html http://www.sri.com/news/releases/020510.html [2] https://pal.sri.com/Plone/framework https://pal.sri.com/Plone/framework