SRI International
In December 2007, SRI launched a spin-off company, Siri Inc., which Apple acquired in April 2010. In October 2011, Apple announced the Siri personal assistant as an integrated feature of the Apple iPhone 4S. Siri's technology was born from SRI's work on the DARPA-funded CALO project, described by SRI as the largest artificial intelligence project ever launched. Siri was co-founded in December 2007 by Dag Kittlaus (CEO), Adam Cheyer (vice president, engineering), and Tom Gruber (CTO/vice president, design), together with Norman Winarsky (vice president of SRI Ventures). Investors included Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures.
Virtual assistant privacy
The "Hey Siri" function allows the iPhone to listen through ambient sound until this phrase ("Hey Siri") is spotted. Once this phrase is spotted, Siri is triggered to respond. In order to not always be listened to, an iPhone user can turn off the “Hey Siri” function. Without this function turned on, the device will not always be listening for those two words and other information will not be overheard in the process. This voice authentication serves as a singular layer, since only the voice is used to authenticate the user.