ConferenceCall 2010 02 25

= Ontolog Invited Speaker Presentation - Adam Cheyer & Tom Gruber on "Siri" - Thu 2010.02.25 =


 * Invited Speakers: Mr. AdamCheyer & Dr. TomGruber (Siri, Inc.)


 * Title: "Siri: An Ontology-driven Application for the Masses"


 * Archive:
 * [ Abstract ]
 * [ Agenda & Proceedings ]
 * [ slides ]
 * [ audio recording of the session ] (mp3 ; 1:27:39 ; 10.0 MB)
 * [ Transcript of the online chat session ] during the panel discussion

Note: to allow us to share the latest in commercial deployment of ontology-based technology, this invited talk will be featured under a special waiver to Siri on the Ontolog IPR Policy.

Agenda & Proceedings:

 * Session Format and Agenda:
 * this will be virtual session over a phone conference setting, augmented by shared computer screen support
 * 1) The session will start with a brief self-introduction of the attendees (~15 min.)  [We will be skipping this if there are more than 20 participants.]
 * 2) Introduction of the invited speakers
 * 3) Presentation by our invited speakers - AdamCheyer & TomGruber (~60 min.)
 * 4) Q&A and Open discussion (~30 min.) [Kindly identify yourself before speaking.]


 * Topic: "Siri: An Ontology-driven Application for the Masses"


 * http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/presentation/Siri_20100225/TomGruber_20100225c.png                        . . . . . . . . http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/presentation/Siri_20100225/AdamCheyer_20100225c.png

[Dr. Tom Gruber]                       [Mr. Adam Cheyer]


 * Abstract:


 * Siri is a Virtual Personal Assistant ... more specifically, an intelligent software one would download into his mobile device (like an iPhone or a Nexus One phone) and have it start "doing" things for you like an assistant.


 * Siri was born out of SRI's CALO Project (which Adam presented here before), the largest Artificial Intelligence project in U.S. history. (CALO stands for Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes). Made possible by a $150 million DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) investment, the CALO Project included 25 research organizations and institutions and spanned 5 years.


 * Among other accolades, Siri has been recognized by the MIT Technology Review as one of their "TR 10" in 2009 - the magazine's annual recognition of the list of top 10 emerging technologies that can change the way we live.


 * Started in 2007 in a stealth mode, Siri has finally released their product earlier this month. We are glad Adam and Tom (who co-founded Siri, along with Dag Kittlaus) can come and give us a talk and a demo on this brainchild of theirs and their team.


 * About the Speakers:


 * Adam Cheyer is a co-founder and Siri's VP of Engineering. He joined the company from SRI, where he was the Program Director in SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center and Chief Architect of the CALO/PAL project. A pioneer in the areas of distributed computing, intelligent agents, and advanced user interfaces, Adam is the author of more than fifty peer-reviewed publications and nine patents. He was previously the VP of Engineering at Dejima and the VP of Engineering at Verticalnet. Adam is also a founding member of Change.org and Genetic Finance, LLC.


 * Tom Gruber is a co-founder and Siri's Chief Technology Officer. He, of course, is best known to this community as the Stanford scientist who, back in 1992, defined the term "ontology" in the sense we apply to its use in computer science, artificial intelligence and the semantic web these days. Tom is a researcher and entrepreneur with a focus on systems for knowledge sharing, collaboration, and collective intelligence. He did foundational work in ontology engineering with approaches and technologies that are precursors to the infrastructure for today's Semantic Web.

Transcript of the online chat during the session:
see raw transcript here.

(for better clarity, the version below is a re-organized and lightly edited chat-transcript.) Participants are welcome to make light edits to their own contributions as they see fit.

PeterYim:.

Welcome to the Ontolog Invited Speaker Presentation - Thu 2010.02.25


 * Invited Speakers: Mr. AdamCheyer & Dr. TomGruber (Siri, Inc.)


 * Title: "Siri: An Ontology-driven Application for the Masses"

Please refer to details on the session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_02_25 .

anonymous morphed into JackRing

anonymous1 morphed into JimDisbrow

anonymous morphed into Hasan Sayani

anonymous morphed into JoelBender

PeterYim: we are running a webex shared-screen session today (info just posted) ... please refresh your session page, and follow instructions at the top of that page - http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_02_25

JoelBender: Peter, step 3 says "Enter the meeting password: ontology123" and it doesn't seem to need the password.

PeterYim: thansk, Joel ...

anonymous morphed into Tejas Lagvankar

anonymous morphed into JimDisbrow

anonymous morphed into Geroge Terre

anonymous morphed into JoelBender

anonymous morphed into Tom

Tom morphed into TomGruber and AdamCheyer

anonymous: Richard Christian Brown (UNF)

anonymous morphed into Richard Christian Brown

Richard Christian Brown morphed into Richard Christian Brown

anonymous1 morphed into Ellie Trevarthen

anonymous morphed into TJ

anonymous morphed into michael

anonymous morphed into John McGrath

anonymous morphed into ElizabethFlorescu

michael: Is there a limit to the web ex..just got an error saying only 15 people allowed in webex

michael: I got a network error for the vnc2

ArturoSanchez: There is a limit of 15 connections on the Web-Ex site ...

ArturoSanchez: Question for presenters: are you developing an extensible architecture to support changes organically?

ArturoSanchez: Question: does Siri know/learn about personal preferences?

ArturoSanchez: Question: what is the range of the context associated with the questions posed to Siri? Can Siri also learn about new contexts?

ArturoSanchez: Question: if you ad a friend named "Siri" would Siri know it has to ask you who you are referring to?

michael: How does the company intend to make money with this tool?

Ellie Trevarthen: How is the speech interface affected by background noise -- i.e. if one is using Siri in a crowded place, vehicle, etc.?

ArturoSanchez: Question: how is the ontology represented in Siri? Do you use your own inference engine?

John McGrath : Question: I see the system uses NLP to understand term meaning and intent. Is there a query syntax standard for the various services or is their a custom interface require for each service? Or do they need to create an API to a Siri standard?

ArturoSanchez: Question: "Find the best restaurant around according to Zagat and Martha Stewart" how would Siri handle this question?

Richard Christian Brown: Can we take a break to answer some questions?

PeterYim1: @Richard Christian Brown - we'll be doing Q&A after the presentation and demo ... try using this chat room to type out your question(s) first, if you please

michael: CAn you please tell us the name of the tools they are using? are they home grown or commercial products?

PeterYim: I am somewhat surprised Adam's voice worked on Tom's phone ... do you need to "train" the voice recognition?

Richard Christian Brown: *noted

ArturoSanchez: Oh... Java

anonymous1 morphed into Cecil Lynch

ArturoSanchez: HAL

ArturoSanchez: On fire!!

PeterYim: @Adam & Tom - how do you manage performance and scalability ... tell us something about that, please

SeanBarker: When would we be able to try this out in the UK?

ArturoSanchez: Pretty cool guys! Thank you for sharing your system with us!

Richard Christian Brown: @Adam & Tom - How have you leveraged available computing power and resources to promote real-time processing and rendering of results?

Richard Christian Brown: Right on!

Richard Christian Brown: What portions of processing are done on the device?

Richard Christian Brown: Or more specifically, do you utilize the device running the application (be it a MDA, PDA, notebook, etc...) to do naturally language processing and disambiguation?

PeterYim: Tom: "Big Think, Small Screen"

Richard Christian Brown: nice try

JoelBender: (no iPod Touch support, I'll try this on my iPhone later )

anonymous2 morphed into BernardUlozas

ArturoSanchez: Question: what main security concerns did you identify while developing the application and how did you address them?

BrandNiemann: I have used this for several weeks now and it has worked very well. Thanks, Brand

Tejas Lagvankar: I'm waiting for the Android App !

GaryBergCross: Do you think that it will difficult to maintain your preferences for various services as they change or time? Say Yelp is preferred for reviews but then adds better info for reservations and some other service starts to have better reviews.

TomGruber and AdamCheyer: For other devices, please stay tuned...

EvanWallace: Thanks. I want this.

michael: what is the business model?

Richard Christian Brown: gone are the days of viral marketing ... well so to speak

John McGrath : Very informative. Most interested to understand how search engine platforms can best interface to the closud to support service providers like Siri. Seems a more robust dialog(vs query) interpretor stand will be required in the long run.

Ali Hashemi: thanks all

ArturoSanchez: Great session!

TomGruber and AdamCheyer: Thanks

PeterYim: Thanks everyone!

PeterYim: -- session ended 12:12pm PST --

-- end of chat session --

Almost all the questions raised on the chat were addressed by our speakers verbally during Q&A segment of the session. Check out the audio recording for the responses.


 * ... More Questions
 * For those who have further questions or remarks on the topic, please [mailto:ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net post them to the [ontolog-forum]] so that everyone in the community can benefit from the discourse.


 * Session ended 12:12 pm PST

Audio Recording of this Session

 * To download the [ audio recording of the session], click [ here]
 * the playback of the audio files require the proper setup, and an MP3 compatible player on your computer.
 * Conference Date and Time:	25-Feb-2010 10:38am ~ 12:12 pm Pacific Standard Time
 * Duration of Recording:	1 Hour 28 Minutes
 * Recording File Size:	       10.0 MB (in mp3 format)


 * suggestion: its best that you listen to the session while having the presentation opened in front of you. You'll be prompted to advance slides by the speaker.
 * Take a look, also, at the rich body of knowledge that this community has built together, over the years, by going through the archives of noteworthy past Ontolog events. (References on how to subscribe to our podcast can also be found there.)

For the record ...

How To Join (while the session is in progress)

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 * 3 access our shared-screen session
 * or, 4. Download presentation material from the speaker here: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_02_25#nid29LT ... if there is any issue with getting into the shared-screen (webex) session

Conference Call Details

 * Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010
 * Start Time: 10:30am PST / 1:30pm EST / 7:30pm CET / 18:30 UTC
 * see world clock for other time zones
 * Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hours
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 * Discussions and Q & A:
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 * thanks to the soaphub.org folks, one can now use a jabber/xmpp client (e.g. gtalk) to join this chatroom. Just add the room as a buddy - (in our case here) ontolog_20100225@soaphub.org ... Handy for mobile devices!


 * Please review our Virtual Session Tips and Ground Rules - see: VirtualSpeakerSessionTips


 * RSVP to [mailto:peter.yim@cim3.com peter.yim@cim3.com] appreciated.


 * This session, like all other Ontolog events, is open to the public. Information relating to this session is shared on this wiki page: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_02_25


 * Please note that this session will be recorded, and the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees:

 * Attended:
 * AdamCheyer
 * TomGruber
 * PeterYim
 * JoelBender
 * RogerBurkhart
 * JackRing
 * Tejas Lagvankar (UMBC)
 * JimDisbrow
 * George Terre (UNF)
 * ArturoSanchez
 * Hasan Sayani (UMUC)
 * Richard Christian Brown (UNF)
 * AliHashemi
 * SamsonTu
 * BrandNiemann
 * PavithraKenjige
 * Naicong Li (University of Redlands)
 * Ellie Trevarthen (NASA/JPL)
 * John McGrath (Infinity venture Group)
 * GaryBergCross
 * JimRhyne
 * SeanBarker
 * ConradBock
 * EvanWallace
 * ElizabethFlorescu
 * CecilLynch
 * BernardUlozas


 * Others who were registered and might have joined us after the roll call:
 * JeffreySchiffel
 * Grit Denker (SRI)
 * DeniseBedford
 * Valerie Kelly (Kent State U)
 * Hal Gill (USAF/USMX)
 * Larry Lefkowitz (Cycorp)
 * Erin Shaw (USC/ISI)
 * Connie Pascal (Wayne State U)
 * Salih Demir (CMU)
 * (please add yourself to the list if you are a member of this community, or, rsvp to )
 * (please add yourself to the list if you are a member of this community, or, rsvp to )


 * Regrets:
 * JulitaBermejoAlonso (holiday in Paris)
 * RaviSharma (May be for a while)