Ask Siri where she was born and she’ll say that she was “designed by Apple in California,” but that’s only the half truth. She almost belonged on Android phones.

The brains behind this voice-activated personal assistant had signed a deal with Verizon in the fall of 2009, according to a lengthy Huffington Post feature.

The objective was to make Siri a default application for all of the carrier’s Android smartphones, which are of course powered by Apple’s chief rival, Google.

Apple, seeing the potential in Siri, didn’t just make a counteroffer, it bought Siri, Inc. This ensured exclusivity and killed any hope of Siri for Android phones in the future.

The most interesting part is just how far Verizon’s deal for Siri is said to have gone.

“Somewhere in the vaults of the wireless giant, there are unreleased commercials touting Siri as an Android add-on,” reported Huffington Post.

Before Siri for Android, iOS phones

Truthfully, Siri should credit the United States Department of Defense and its $150 million budget for its origin.

Apple’s artificial friend was spun out of a five-year, 500-person project by the Pentagon and Menlo Park, California’s non-profit research institute, SRI International, according to the expose.

The undertaking was “by any measure, the largest AI program in history,” said lead researcher David Israel.

As a start-up, Siri, Inc., initially launched its application as an independently developed iOS application before it was pulled from the App Store.

Apple then bought the 24-person company for a reported $150 to $250 million.


Siri updates in the future

Siri was updated with the launch of iPad 4 and rollout of of iOS 6 last year, adding new languages and the ability to open third-party apps, look up personalized sports stats, and send tweets.

In addition to expanding the way this personal assistant app is a “do engine,” Apple is looking to tweak the responses that Siri gives to commands.

The company is searching for a new writer to invoke a little more personality into its voice-activated application.

One thing that Siri will never properly respond to are questions about her almost-in-the-bag deal with Verizon that would have brought her to Android handsets.

She’ll just play coy and direct users to the nearest Verizon stores in the area. Sly.

Via Huffington Post

Amazon will develop a TV show adaptation of the hit movie Zombieland for its Prime Instant Video service, it was reported on Monday.

The company is seeking, like its big rival Netflix, to supplement its on-demand offering with original programming, rather than just archive movies and TV shows.

Netflix is currently miles ahead in that game with the likes of Lilyhammer and the forthcoming House Of Cards and new episodes of Arrested Development, but it looks like Amazon has now landed a noteworthy show of its own.

BroadcastNow reports that the adaptation of Zombieland, which starred Woody Harrelson and Jessie Eissenberg in the post-apocalyptic full-length comedy, was scheduled to air on the CBS network before Amazon picked it up.

Original crew

The report suggests that the half-hour episodes will feature the members of the original un-dead slaying crew, but it's likely to be a while before the show goes into production, let alone appears on Instant Video.

While the news mainly pertains to Amazon's US-only on-demand service, it is possible that the company could also screen Zombieland through its UK-based Lovefilm service.

Last last year Amazon picked up six comedy projects that will air as pilots through Prime and Lovefilm.

Viewers will get to vote on which they like best, and that show will be commissioned for a full season.

Via BroadcastNow (Thank You)

Sony has introduced a new 10.1-inch Android tablet to compete with the iPad and Nexus 10, Engadget reports. Dubbed the Xperia Tablet Z, it falls alongside the company's new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z, which was announced earlier this month at CES. Like its smartphone sibling, the Xperia Tablet Z features a thin and sleek design, measuring at just 6.9mm thick, besting the iPad mini and making it the thinnest tablet available. It sports Qualcomm's 1.5GHz quad-core APQ8064 processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of local storage, NFC capability, and a 1920x1200 display. While the display doesn't quite match the pixel density of the iPad (264ppi) or Nexus 10 (300ppi), it offers a respectable 224ppi.

While the Xperia Tablet Z won't feature the 13-megapixel, HDR video-enabled camera found in the Xperia Z, it will have an 8.1-megapixel Exmor R camera. It will also share the Xperia Z's waterproof casing, though the company hasn't explained to what degree. In terms of connectivity, Sony has announced that it will support Wi-Fi and LTE, though carrier partners have yet to be revealed. It will ship with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and come in either white or black.

Sony has yet to discuss pricing or release information Soon.

McAfee AntiVirus (AV) Plus 2013 is a sub-$50 home security suite featuring a redesigned user interface (UI), along with extra security tools such as a vulnerability scanner and a file shredder. How does the latest edition of McAfee's AV suite stack up against rival suites like Norton AntiVirus (NAV) 2013? We take a look in this review.  

 

Overview

McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2013 adds Windows 8 support to McAfee's previous support for Windows 7, Vista and XP. The new interface for McAfee AV Plus is tile-driven, with each tile representing a particular status.

For example, the top-left tile displays the "Virus and Spyware Protection" status. You can click on any tile to get more options.

For the antivirus component, there are options to scan the PC and to set up scheduled scans.

Something I like about this AV suite is the fact that it contains several extras, including a vulnerability scanner, a file shredder, and a two-way firewall.

The Extras
The vulnerability scanner scans the computer to see if any installed software -- including the operating system -- is out of date. It also checks for vulnerabilities in your web browser settings.

The file shredder is a secure delete utility aimed at ensuring that erased files cannot be recovered. You can add it to the menu when right-clicking any file in the operating system; simply select the "Shred" option.

The shredder is a nice feature because files deleted in Windows can ordinarily be recovered using special software. McAfee's shredder is especially useful for deleting files which contain sensitive information such as bank account numbers.

McAfee's inclusion of extras in its AV suite, a long-time tradition, can be seen as particularly important in that Microsoft's Windows 8 incorporates its own AV capabilities through Defender.

Performance

Download and Installation

In McAfee AV Plus 2013, the installer takes care of retrieving the latest files from the Internet for you as part of the install process. This method works out very well if you're installing McAfee on a computer connected to the Internet but not so well for offline installs. That aside, the install is straightforward with no surprises. This is always a good thing in our book.

Use and Effectiveness

Most people don't want an antivirus software to intrude on other PC activities by constantly asking for permission to do this and that, and so on. McAfee doesn't disappoint here; it runs quietly in the background with zero interference.

Also, McAfee AV Plus 2013 performed better than previous editions in our malicious file download test. This time around, it detected two of the four files as malicious and did not allow them to be downloaded.

I was able to download two of the files, but McAfee picked these up during a later scan. However, this level of proactiveness doesn't match top tier competing solutions such as Norton AV 2013, which detected all four files as threats off the bat in our tests and didn't allow them to be downloaded.

Entering the license key is not part of the install. Instead, you enter it afterwards by opening McAfee.

Performance Impact

Our test computer showed no abnormal side effects after installing McAfee AV Plus 2013; the startup and shutdown times didn't perceptibly increase and the computer continued to perform as though there was no additional resource strain.

We ran Futuremark's PCMark 7 benchmarking software before and after the install, and we saw differences amounting to less than five percent - unnoticeable, in other words.

Time it Took to Perform a Full System Scan

McAfee AV Plus 2013 scanned 128GB of data in just 28 minutes.

This is a faster result than that obtainable with most competitors.

Conclusion

McAfee AV Plus carries a list price of $49.99, the same as that of Norton AV. Both packages, however, can be found at deeply discounted prices on the Web and in retail stores, even long after Black Friday.

I like McAfee's redesigned interface, low performance impact and relatively quick scan times. I wish it were as proactive as some rivals, though; it didn't immediately catch all of the malicious files we threw at it.

Pros:

    Available at low price points
    Includes extras such as Shredder and Vulnerability Scanner

Cons:

    Still not as proactive as some competing AV solutions