The co-founder of Siri, the company Apple bought last year and whose technology powers the sophisticated voice control features of its new iPhone 4S, has reportedly left Apple to pursue other interests.
The report of Dag Kittlaus leaving comes from the Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher, who based her All Things D story on information from sources. Apple had not responded to her query about this over the weekend. She wrote that Kittlaus planned to leave to spend more time with family in Chicago and to brainstorm new business ideas.
The Siri personal assistant software that became available with Apple iOS 5 uses natural language processing to answer all sorts of questions from basic directions to reminders. Apple has emphasized the technology in new ads for its iPhone 4S smartphone.
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Siri the company got its start in2007 when it was founded by Kittlaus, who was CEO, and Adam Cheyer and Tom Gruber. The business was a spinout from the Stanford Research Institute’s International Artificial Intelligence Center, where Kittlaus was an entrepreneur in residence.
The rest of the Siri team has reportedly remained with Apple, according to All Things D.
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