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Siri: Awesome new mobile app for iPhone with AI

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Well, I said that if it was as cool as adveritsed I’d be blogging here. Almost better than the app is the pedigree of the senior management team. Read on!!

 

Siri is created by an all-star team of designers and engineers drawn from Google, Yahoo, Apple, Motorola, Netscape, eBay, RealTravel, SRI, NASA, and Xerox PARC.

Siri founders
Siri’s Founders: Tom, Dag and Adam

Dag Kittlaus

Co-founder and CEO

Siri’s CEO is Dag Kittlaus, who founded the company as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at SRI.
A serial innovator and consumer wireless internet veteran of 10 years in Scandinavia and the US, Dag is working on creating his third consecutive mobile internet product with over a million users.

Dag has held leadership roles as VP of Consumer Internet Services at Scandinavian telecom giant Telenor Mobile, and several consumer product groups at Motorola including GM of xProducts and founder and GM of Motorola’s Interactive Media Group. He conceived and launched Screen3, a breakthrough consumer mobile application currently used by millions of users and adopted by Cingular, China Mobile, and Telefonica.

Adam Cheyer

Co-founder and VP of Engineering

Siri’s VP of Engineering is Adam Cheyer, who joined the company from SRI, where he was the Program Director in SRI’s Artificial Intelligence Center and Chief Architect of the CALO/PAL project. A pioneer in the areas of distributed computing, intelligent agents, and advanced user interfaces, Adam is the author of more than fifty peer-reviewed publications and nine patents. He was previously the VP of Engineering at Dejima and the VP of Engineering at Verticalnet. Adam is also a founding member of Change.org and Genetic Finance, LLC.

Tom Gruber

Co-founder, CTO, and VP Design

Siri’s CTO is Tom Gruber, a recognized expert in Artificial Intelligence, intelligent interfaces, and semantic technologies. Tom was a founder and CTO of RealTravel, a knowledge sharing site for travel; a founder and CTO of Intraspect, a collaborative knowledge management application for business; and a founder and Chief Scientist at Consider Solutions. Products designed by Tom are used by millions of consumer and professional users. He was a pioneering researcher at Stanford in the use of Web for knowledge sharing and semantic integration, and helped establish the technical foundations of the Semantic Web.Tom has served as advisor to SocialText, LinkedIn, Powerset, and others.

“The Gates”

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Going through the archives, I came about this 2005 trip to New York to see this amazing exhibit. Details below

The Gates - 1 by you.
The Gates is a site-specific work of art by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The artists installed 7,503 vinyl “gates” along 23 miles (37 km) of pathways in Central Park in New York City. From each gate hung a panel of deep saffron-colored nylon fabric. The exhibit ran from February 12, 2005 through February 27, 2005.

The books and other memorabilia distributed by Christo and Jeanne-Claude refer to the project as The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979–2005 in reference to the time that passed from the artists’ initial proposal until they were able to go ahead with it.
The Gates were greeted with mixed reactions. Some people loved them for brightening the bleak winter landscape; others hated them, accusing them of defacing the landscape. Some cyclists saw them as an obstruction which could cause accidents, although cycling is not legal on those paths. They received a great deal of their nationwide fame as a frequent object of ridicule by David Letterman as well as Keith Olbermann, whose apartment was nearby. (notes courtesy of Wikipedia).

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Apple reports record revenue and profits for Q1 2010

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by Kelly Hodgkins on January 25th, 2010 at 5:21pm
Filed under: Apple, Breaking News20 Comments

apple-logo21

Apple reported its financial results for Q1 2010 which ended December 26, 2009 and the results were nothing short of impressive. Apple posted its all time highest quarterly revenue, its all time highest quarterly profit and when annualized, these numbers will push Apple into a $50+ billion per year company. Dollar figures that are so impressive they don’t require an explanation, so we will let the numbers speak for themselves:

  • Revenue of $15.68 billion ($11.88 billion in Q1 2009)
  • 58% of revenue derived from international sales
  • Net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion or $3.67 per diluted share ($2.26 billion, or $2.50 per diluted share in Q1 2009)
  • Gross margin of 40.9 percent (37.9 % in Q1 2009)
  • $5.8 billion generated in cash

 

Sales of Macintosh computers and iPhones went through the roof in Q1 2010 with Apple selling 3.36 million computers and 8.7 million iPhones, representing a 33% unit increase for Macintosh sales and 100% unit growth for the iPhone when compared to Q1 2009. The only blotch on an otherwise stellar performance was the iPod which sold 21 million units in Q1 2010, an 8% unit drop from the same quarter last year. Estimates for Q2 2010 remain equally as optimistic with the Cupertino company expecting another quarter of impressive revenue that will top out at an expected $11.4 billion. And oh yeah, Steve Jobs said, “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

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Easy Chair Talks Back: Taveuni, Fijian Paradise

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Taveuni, Fiji looking toward Matagi

Going through my old photos, I found this and some other shots of our 3 trips to Taveuni in Fiji.

Its about a 90 minute flight on a small plane form the international entry point of Nadi (pronounced NAN-dee).

One of the most beautiful places I have been on my travels over 6 continents and 55 countries. Its the Kauai of Fiji, boasting beautiful waterfalls, beaches and spectacular diving in the Somosomo straits.

We stayed all visits at Dive Taveuni, owned by New Zealanders Rick and Do Cammick. They sold it a while back and returned to NZ after almost 20 years there.

A great vacation retreat and if you enjoy diving, a treasure!

via bpeasychair.blogspot.com

Get Ready for 14-Megapixel Camera Phones

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Camera phones may soon offer more megapixels than some DSLR cameras. Imaging company OmniVision announced today that they have developed a 14.6-megapixel image sensor that will fit in cell phones. These sensors are capable of both high-resolution still photography and 1080p high-definition video recording.

I wonder how long it will be before camera phone imaging quality rivals the quality of the best point-and-shoot cameras.

(via Photography Bay)

via petapixel.com

soon to carry only a phone, no camera…

The Greenville Saga Continues

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Just returned from a weekend in Greenville, confirming our love for the area. We stayed in the golf cottages at Cherokee Valley Golf Club. We spent most of the weekend trying to confirm our decision to build there on the lot we purchased in August, 2007. We visited the lot to see the 6,700 square foot McMansion going up next door.

Now I have nothing against large homes, but on a 0.3 acre lot!!

On top of this we find out that this (Cherokee Valley) semi-private course with intentions to go private sounds like it will be public ad infinitum. We found a house style that we thought we would like to build, a traditional Southern look like the second photo here. But could we make it work.

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We set out the second day after taking a ton of photos of our lot to look for a golf club more like the one we have here. We fell in love with Greenville Country Club and then started to think that although the mountains are beautiful, its a bit too remote. I dont know if I can live without proper broadband and 3G wireless. I am spoiled?

Also the commute seemed better if we settled closer to the I-85 corridor since I would be commuting to Shelby, NC area a few days a week to work.

We’d certainly be sacrificing an amazing view to move closer to town, but would we be happier?

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We had a great dinner at Saskatoon on Saturday night in town, recommended by new online friend, Trey Pennington. Very unique and good!

We met with a builder, Jason Bergeron of Bergeron Builders, on Sunday via a realtor. We realized that, although building has slowed dramatically, new home costs per square foot have not. So now, we’re thinking possibly buying a used home.

Of course to do this, we would need to sell our lot next to the McMansion. Many folks might argue that a home of this value would increase the inherent value in our lot.. We’ll see.

All in all, another great weekend Upstate, but one that gives us new information that answered some questions and raised others…stay tuned.