I had a phone call late last week with a semantic startup called Siri that was spun out of SRI International (the birthplace of the computer mouse and the LCD screen, among many other important technologies). Most startups are willing to talk about their products “off the record” but this one wouldn’t divulge much beyond the fact that they’ve raised $8.5 million in Series A funding from Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler.
What we do know is that the company was incorporated in December 2007 with the goal of commercializing aspects of the CALO cognitive learning system, which receives heavy funding ($200 million plus) from the PAL arm of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a supporter of research in a broad range of technologies that could potentially benefit the Department of Defense.
From the sound of things, Siri’s 19 developers – mostly engineers who count Yahoo, Google, Apple, Xerox, Nasa, and Netscape as their former employers – have been working on a system that will use artificial intelligence to automate many of the tasks that people currently conduct manually online. The founders describe themselves as out to change the fundamental ways that people use the internet, apparently by leveraging artificial intelligence that will learn from you and then give you the luxury of thinking less on your own.
All of this sounds very high and lofty, and we won’t know for sure whether this is all hot air until we actually see a product. But the company is very concerned that existing companies (Google, Microsoft or Apple, perhaps?) might seek to copy their ideas – hence the tight-lipped secrecy, which is expected to remain the status quo until the first half of 2009.
Until then, you can check out the startup’s teaser website which, appropriately enough, is located at stealth-company.com.
google killer?
perhaps, hard to say.
morgenthaler?
haha … deadpool
Wow! With SRI/DARPA pedigree and CALO being implemented, it almost sounds like SkyNET will soon be released among us and certainly it will force a cease of production of the Sarah Connor Chronicles .
Either that or it is the launching point for Web3.0.
This is the company to look out for.
They are the next Cuil.
“They are the next Cuil.” Haa ha you must be joking!
I wd say that guys at siri will be very upset ti hear that they ve been compared to CUIL… CUIL just didnt take off sir!
I think as long as they start small and focused with basic semantic understanding it’ll be fine. I think too many semantic web startups are trying to conquer too many big things.
Wait a minute, they are going to ” … automate many of the tasks that people currently conduct manually online”?
Like watching YouTube videos for me, reading/replying to my emails, checking my bank account balance and transfering money whenever necessary, keeping my twitter friends up to date …. very interesting, indeed
Hell yeah.. its gonna understand whats going on in your head.. and p00p it out to Twitter before you think of doing it..
remember PreCogs? Minority Report anyone?
REPEAT AFTER ME: Google is the best Semantic Company!
It understands what you type and gets you what you want. Period.
Be open to the idea that your perspective turns on a dime here LAme DuCK.
They claim some sort of artificial intelligence. You dont need AI when you have common sense natural language location.
The major search players are already in place and the concrete is curing. Better to merge in quick because this is a limited engagement. Theres only so much good stuff (premium niche ad inventory) to go around.
NaturalLocator.com
This locator guy has got to stop, he sucks and by now he must know it. Please stop dude, your shit is retarded and whack. Go do something worthwhile. I am sorry if you don’t have the understanding of your “creations” value, but I think I and the rest of the readers of Techcrunch can unequivocally say stop commenting and stop developing your locator garbage.
Funny, I met the Siri guys and the first thing they told me is “we are not Cuil.”
Hehe… so they must be the next Cuil
By that logic, that would make EVERY startup the next Cuil.
Think mobile search. Look at the CEO’s background for hints.
Maybe they want to bring Iris to the web (siri=iris): http://www.openiris.org
yay, Pentagon System! Socialize the rick, privatize the profit!
my guess? automated preprocessing of query logic – read the stuff from 2000-2004 by this guy, http://www.know...s/lock_lee.html (future of web mining specifically, talks about preprocessing as a dream in automation of information foraging – i interviewed him for CIM as well, you can find that article on my web site)
The CEO of Siri will be on our semantic technologies and AI panel at the Singularity Summit Emerging Technologies Workshop – Oct 24th in San Jose. http://www.sing...aritysummit.com
Ah, so they are one of the “three of the most promising startups in this space today”. People must know more that they are telling. But everyone knows about CALO anyway.
Jonas – I am extremely interested in Scivestor. Could you please contact me. I hope to see you at the Singularity Summit, but I’m afraid I have a lot of other business obligations to attend to.
“… give you the luxury of thinking less on your own.”
Wow – you mean to tell me that any intelligent (or sane) person would give up thinking on their own and leave it to someone or something else to think for them???
Now that, that is somewhat sad.
Come on mug
This is my cousin and this past June he was explaining this to the whole family. All I can say is everyone better watch out……. this will superseed Google.
They are also making a presentation in Orlando
– Thursday, October 16th, 5:30 pm – 8 pm
– SRI International and Their Plans for the Future in Florida
– Presented by Keynote Speaker Peter Marcotullio
Ho
WOOOOOOOOOOOW
Very ambitious strong ideal but to close to hollywood tech their talking like a system for a system in a system thats should be as big as the first computer that would take a whole class room even so to tell a system that tells you what it has been doing and even knows what it did, maybe but lets scale that down to a system that learns, do and response for the time being now thats real.
Thank you all for your warm comments. Looking forward to meeting you next year.
Love,
Siri