Siri is awesome.  In fact, it's the most notable upgrade to the current-gen iPhone and it's well worth the hype.  That's why it's a big deal that somebody managed to hack it.

French-based hackers Applidium claims to have cracked the security protocol that allows Siri to communicate with Apple's servers.  Why is that significant?  Because it means anyone can now write an app that contacts those servers as well.  Yep, Siri on your Android, anyone?

What exactly did Applidium manage to do?  First they figured out that Apple uses TCP to connecty with Siri.  Then, they dug up the server name and address the service uses.  Then, they found a way to fake valid certificates that can be recognized by those servers.  They did a lot more complex stuff than that, of course.  If you're interested, you can check out the detailed explanation of the process from their blog.

Here's the important part: Apple uses a VoIP codec to encode raw audio from Siri for sending to their servers.  To send the same thing from a device other than an iPhone 4S, all you need to do is get an identifier and add that to your encoded data.

Applidium is currently working on crack tools that should help developers take advantage of this hack to use Siri's talents on other devices.  Of course, the prospect of those tools being useless by the time they roll out is high, given Apple's seeming all-in attitude over Siri.  Suffice to say, they won't take this lying down.  At the least, expect a restructuring of the protocol in iOS 5.0.2, which should come as soon as they can patch it.

Will we see Siri on other devices?  Probably not in a truly functional form (and, perhaps, not more than a couple weeks at a time).  Quite an intriguing turn of events, though.

[via Forbes]

Siri is awesome and could very well be the future of smartphones.  It won't come perfect out of the box, though.  Here are some ways you can squeeze the most out of Siri's power.

1. Talk naturally.  Even if it leads to mistakes in transcription now, take the time to edit and correct.  Siri is a learning system.  The more you teach it how to transcribe your speech properly, the more accurate it's going to be down the line.
2. Use Siri to do your usual web searches.  Instead of opening Safari and typing in your search term, just instruct Siri to "Google search Hello Kitty boxer shorts" or "Yahoo Broncos score" to do the same thing.
3. Teach Siri to recognize your relationships.  Instead of saying "Call James Pryzbylewski" all the time, you can teach Siri to recognize that James is your best friend.  That way, you can just state "Call my best friend at work" to automatically dial Pryzbo.  To set this up, you'll need to do the work establishing the relationship by editing your contacts.
4. Use the advanced commands.  Siri is capable of processing more than commands to text and call someone.  Learn advanced functions like adding stuff into your schedule, setting up reminders, searching your emails, digging for dates in your calendar and more.  You can find plenty of samples for advanced Siri commands online.
5. Use Siri to get answers.  Got a question?  Try Siri first.  At most, all you'll lose is a couple minutes.  The time you could save, on the other hand, can add up.
6. BONUS: Turn Siri into HAL 9000.  Could there be anything more awesome?

In the movies, all you had to do to get your futuristic computer to perform tasks is give it a command in plain language.  I really thought we were still years out from that, but I'm happy to be proven wrong by Siri, an AI-based voice-recognition app for the iPhone.

Google's voice transcription sounds great in theory.  The application, though, is just one brain cell short of crappy.  I totally expected the new software to perform the same way.  Fortunately, it's a lot more sophisticated than that.  A whole lot more, in fact.

Siri's voice recognition has it roots from SRI, under a research project partly funded by Darpa.  The company behind the app consisted of members of the research team who went their own way in 2007, setting out to develop a virtual personal assistant.  This new iPhone app is one of the fruits of that effort.

The current version only integrates 20 web information services (including Yelp, CitySearch and OpenTable), although they do have an available API that should help see that grow in the future.   Early testing is ridiculously impressive, to the point that we're suspecting there's a physical person listening to our questions and manually finding the answers.  Yep, it's that good.

Want to find a Persian restaurant in your vicinity?  Want to book a table for Thursday next week?   Looking for a three-star hotel in a city you're visiting?  Tell it and it will do the deed with scary accuracy.

The best part?  Siri is totally free.  According to the company, they make their money on the backend, taking affiliate commission for the products and services they send you to.   It's available for download from the App Store now, although the current version is strictly for iPhone 3GS users (it uses a lot of processing power).

[Siri Website]