Siri-ously DARPA

Don't let her dulcet voice and easygoing, eager-to-please manner fool you. Behind Siri, the voice-controlled personal assistant app destined to power Apple's iPhone 4S, lies the heart of a hardened combat veteran.

That's because the technology was spun out of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's high-tech research and development arm. While Siri was developed as cognitive software with artificial intelligence baked into its code--designed to learn from experience and respond to ever-changing threats on the battle field -- iPhone users will find more prosaic uses for it as a hands-free replacement for the touch screen. It'll even decipher drunken slurs, so you can order your phone to order a pizza for delivery, text a friend, read email back to you, turn on music, search for the nearest Starbucks bathroom, and who knows: Maybe your phone will get so smart it will know what you want before you ask. Once there was Ask Jeeves. Now there's the ever mobile Siri. For now it can only respond to simple commands, but the technology underlying it is anything but.