Don’t like what Siri says? Apple hunts new writer for its voice assistant!

 

Siri is one of the big selling points of the iPhone 5 and Apple’s other new iOS gizmos: you can simply ask it a question in natural language and it’ll do its best to answer you. But if you don’t like the responses you’ve been getting so far, we’ve got interesting news for you: Apple is now hiring a new writer to craft its replies!

A job description posted by Apple on recruitment and professional social network LinkedIn reveals that the company is on the hunt for a “Siri Writer/Editor”. If chosen, you’ll be tasked with knocking out new lines, wisecracks and retorts for Apple’s software, which is known for snarky replies to silly questions (“Siri, talk dirty to me” – “This carpet needs vacuuming”), and even posing questions of its own.

According to Apple, the “ideal candidate is someone who combines a love for language, wordplay, and conversation with demonstrated experience in bringing creative content to life within an intense technical environment.”

You’ll need to be hot on grammar, and ideally fluent in several languages, but if you fit the bill, you could be looking at a job with the biggest tech company in the world, right in its US headquarters. If you’re interested, you can see the listing here. Good luck!

Sound fun? What would you get Siri to say? Pipe up with your thoughts in the comments below!

iPhone 5: Five incredible Siri hacks you need to try today!

 

The iPhone 5 launched with a brand new version of the Siri voice assistant that let you issue all sorts of new commands. But it’s still quite limited – unless you turn on these epic hacks. Read on to find out how to make yourself truly the master of Siri in our guide right here.

Now it’s worth noting that some of these hacks require you to send a text message, so they’ll only work on an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5, and not an iPad mini or the new iPod touch – but not all. Let’s begin.

Use Google Maps to show you directions

By default, Siri will show you the way in Apple Maps, but anyone who has installed iOS 6 will know that Apple Maps isn’t just bad, it’s terrible, and woefully inaccurate. You can trick Siri into showing you the way on the far superior Google Maps instead though: just say “via transit” after the location and it’ll pop up with a list of installed navigation apps you can use, Google Maps among them. Give it a tap and you’re away.

Ask for your bank balance

If your bank supports balance requests via text message, you can have your iPhone 5 send you yours. All you have to do is add the phone number as a contact in your address book (Maybe call it ‘Bank’ rather than ‘Greg’), then say to Siri “Tell bank” followed by whatever shortcode you send by SMS.

Park your car or find a spot

If you regularly drive into town, only to be stumped by a lack of parking spaces, you can even use Siri to help solve your congestion woes. Many councils operate a pay by SMS option to pay for a spot, so just add that number as a contact in your address book. Others also will text you the parking times and constraints for the road you’re in if you text them the parking code; again, once you’ve added the number as a contact it’s a short “Tell” command away.

Change the TV channel

If you want to have a go at something more ambitious, it’s even possible to get Siri to change the channel for you and more: with a few tweaks and a certain set top box, you can have Siri skip through channels for you, and even jump to ones by saying their name.

Open your garage door

Here’s a weekend project with a difference: you can even use Siri to open a garage door on command. The creator of this hack attached a super cheap Raspberry Pi to the door and used some free software, but that’s about it. .

Apple iPhone 5: hottest rumour roundup

 

As the release of the iPhone 5 surely draws closer, the already sizzling rumours continue to hot up. Everyone wants to know about the next iPhone, but what do we really know of Apple’s next smartphone? The answer lies somewhere here, in our roundup of the hottest Apple iPhone 5 rumours.

From what colours will be available at launch, to the size of the memory cards rumored to be injecting the iPhone 5 with more memory than an elephant, here’s a bitesize chunk of the hottest iPhone 5 rumours.

The iPhone 5 will have a larger screen

That the iPhone 5 will have a larger screen than the current iPhone looks dead cert, but how big will it be? The most consistent rumours indicate a 4-inch Retina Display. That’s half an inch larger than the current models, but still nearly smaller than say, the Samsung Galaxy S3’s 4.8-inch display. Will that be big enough? 

iPhone 5 blueprint reveals larger display

A white iPhone 5 could be ready at launch

Earlier this week a photo appeared online of what could be the final case design for a white iPhone 5. From the looks of things, the iPhone 5 will have a 16:9, 4-inch display, and a slightly tweaked camera position, centred, rather than to the left of the earpiece. But the big news is that a white iPhone 5 may exist, suggesting that one might actually be available at launch. Apple customers have in the past had to wait for months for a white iPhone 4. A white iPhone 5 would race off the shelves quicker than you can say FaceTime. 


Apple’s thinnest ever screen

The iPhone 5 is reported to feature a new type of LCD screen with built-in touch sensors, saving on space for better components inside, and bringing the weight of the iPhone 5 down. The payoff is a larger, but thinner iPhone. 

It will have a two-tone design

A two-tone look will be the biggest design overhaul to the iPhone range since the iPhone 4. Alleged photos of the device have shown the back panel of the phone in black and white, and silver aluminium and white using a combination of metal and glass. The iPhone 5 could be the most striking looking iPhone yet.

Groundbreaking camera focus technology

A rumour back in January suggested that one of the biggest upgrades to the iPhone 5 will be in its camera. Apple has been rumoured to be working with camera technology specialist Lytro to develop cameras that that lets users focus after a shot is taken. The payoff would be great pictures, no matter how fast moving the subject. 


iPhone 5 camera to pack groundbreaking camera tech

The iPhone 5 will use nano-Sims 
 With nano-sims, Sim cards are about to get smaller, and the iPhone will be among the first devices to feature the smallest sim ever sim cards, freeing up more room in its innards, presumably for all the amazing tech rumoured to feature inside the iPhone 5. 
 It’s coming this year

As the rumour mill goes into overdrive and pictures begin leaking online, a 2012 iPhone 5 release looks increasingly likely. Reports from China suggest that the iPhone 5 is already being put into production to make way for a release in the coming months. Will you be waiting in line for an iPhone 5?

iPhone 5

Heard any more iPhone 5 rumours? Then share the gossip with us

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Gadget Digest: Jobs the movie, Siri changes her tune, an Android army, Max Payne 3 and more

 

It’s Friday, which is good news in itself. But it also means a chance to catch up on some of the gadget news that’s been bubbling under the surface over the past week – stories worth knowing about from the wide world of technology.

Our selection this week covers movies, phones, aliens and games – which is pretty much the perfect way to kick off any weekend, if you ask us. Enjoy!

Jobs: the movies

The Steve Jobs biography has proved a massive hit, selling by the truckload and giving gadget fans the world over an insight into the life of the late Apple founder and CEO. But there’s also an independent movie in the pipelines simply titled Jobs, and this week saw the first photos of lead actor Ashton Kutcher in character, bearing a surprising likeness to Jobs’ longer-haired 1980s look. Not only that, but we also heard that Sony has landed The Social Network writer Aaron Sorkin to pen the screenplay for the separate Jobs biopic that’s also in the works.

Siri back on the straight and narrow

While we’re on the subject of Apple, non-iOS devotees (and even a few fans) have been having a good chuckle at iOS voice assistant Siri singling out the Nokia Lumia 900 as the best smartphone on the planet. Well needless to say Apple has stepped in to put matters to right, and has done so in a way that for many sums the company up perfectly. Ask Siri the same question now and thanks to a software update she’ll now simply deflect the question with one of several pre-programmed responses, the pick of which has to be “wait… there are other phones?”

The Android invasion

At the other end of the scale is of course Android, which seems to have taken over the world by weight of sheer numbers. Most of us have a vague idea that the number of Android devices kicking around the place has steadily gone from “a few” to “quite a lot” to “I’ve lost count”, but this week a group of hardy souls presumably without much of a social life revealed the true extent of Android fragmentation: there are now officially 3,997 distinct Android devices in circulation around the world. At that rate, surely they could have waited another 20 minutes for it to hit an even 4,000?

Nintendo DS leads the way

For some reason, Japan tends to be the source of many of the stranger technology tales we come across, and here’s another: Toyota and Nintendo have created a service that turns the Nintendo DS handheld console into a portable GPS device. It’s not as daft as you might think, either: the screen size is about right, and if you’re on a family outing there’s every chance the DS will be in the car anyway. Of course, getting the youngsters to hand it over so you can commandeer their gaming gizmo to get you from A to B probably won’t be easy – plus there’s the $3,000 you’ll have to hand over for the compatible Toyota Smart Navi system and the $92 for the Kuruma de DS title itself. Is it just us or does spending a couple of hundred quid on a TomTom make way more sense?

Max Payne 3 out now!

It’s been quite a week for gamers, though perhaps Rockstar Games won’t be feeling too clever right now for going ahead with today’s Max Payne 3 launch given how soon it comes after Diablo III’s headline-grabbing emergence. Still, hardcore gamers will no doubt have cleared their schedules for the next few… months to make room for both, and there is an unexpected bonus waiting if you do snap up Max Payne 3: apparently tucked away somewhere on the game disc is a file containing a full list of vehicle names from Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V, which is set to arrive somewhere around the end of the year.

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Apple iPad 3 is coming: Here's what you might be getting

Apple’s iPad 2 was revealed on March 2 2011, so if the company follows suit with the follow-up we should be seeing the iPad 3 very soon indeed. With that in mind, what are we hoping to see from the next slab of Apple loveliness?

The iPad 2 has sold like the proverbial hotcakes over the past year, even though (as seems to have been forgotten) it was seen by many as a bit of a modest overhaul of the original device. We’ve been told that the iPad 3 could be the one to watch. Here’s what we might be getting…

HD screen
The main reason some people were a bit miffed with the iPad 2 (though we love ours to bits) isn’t because of a misplaced sense of entitlement or the curious need to diss Apple at every turn. Oh no. It was because the screen was absolutely identical to the original iPad’s.

That won’t cut the mustard for a third year running, which is why we’re expecting Apple to provide a major screen overhaul. We’re talking an HD display with double the resolution of the previous models, which should provide a picture that’s almost as sharp as the iPhone 4S.

Quad-core processor
Dual-core mobile processors are so 2011, darling. This year will see the emergence of quad-core smartphones and tablets, and the iPad 3 will almost definitely be at the forefront of that progression.
All reports are suggesting that the next Apple tablet will feature a new A6 chip with double the processor cores of the iPad 2. Considering how powerful last year’s model is, that’s quite a prospect – we’re approaching laptop speeds here.

Slightly bulkier body
For all its internal changes and that shiny new screen, we’re not actually expecting the iPad 3 to change all the much on the outside. Indeed, there have been rumours that a real working iPad 3 was out on the floor of CES last month, but that no one noticed because it was so similar to the iPad 2.
Regardless of the truth of that tantalising claim, it has been suggested that the only difference in the iPad 3’s design will be a slightly thicker body. Well, with a high def screen and a souped up camera to squeeze in, what did you expect?

iPhone 4S-standard camera
The iPad 2 introduced a camera to the Apple tablet range, but in truth it was only really any good at shooting videos – and even then it wasn’t the sort of thing that could replace your camcorder. The iPad 3 should change all that.

We’re expecting the iPad 3 camera to be very similar to the iPhone 4S’s – which means it’ll be one of the best 8-megapixel smart device cameras around. We could also get an HD front-facing camera in a bid to sharpen up FaceTime performance.

Siri
Apple’s voice-operated assistant, Siri, was the star of the iPhone 4S show. For the first time, voice recognition actually seems to have a practical use on a mobile device, such is Siri’s knack for understanding what you want and offering a shortcut to it.

Not only would it be logical for Apple to include its smart new tool with the iPad 3, there have also been mentions of Siri on iPad spotted in a beta version of the next iOS, 5.1.