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Ben Bajarin is the Director of Consumer Technology Analysis and Research at Creative Strategies, Inc, a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm located in Silicon Valley.

When Apple showed the world Siri, I believe they showed us the next major man-to-machine user interface.
The idea of talking to computers is nothing new. It has, of course, been featured in sci-fi novels, movies and TV shows for years now. Even software itself has shown shades of voice input as the next user input for over 10 years. The challenge had always been bringing it to the mass market. This is what Apple plans to do with Siri on the iPhone 4S.

(MORE: Apple iPhone 4S Review: It's the iPhone 4, Only More So)

This technology has been in development for quite a while and is getting progressively better. Besides bringing
it to the mass market, another challenge has been making it useful by going beyond simple dictation. One of the most impressive elements of Siri is not just the ability to do voice-to-text dictation, but its ability to turn natural-language directives into action.

What I mean by that is that I can use my voice to say, "Remind me to feed my goats when I get home." Because Siri is trained to know where my house is and the iPhone 4S has GPS, the second I drive into my driveway, I get a reminder that tells me to feed the goats. I live on a farm and this is quite handy for me.
It's a valuable proposition to be able to use voice commands to create calendar items, search the web, get abstract information like how many feet are in a mile, search local information, set alarms, check the weather, and much more. This can be done because Siri is tied to some very powerful databases and, through its AI and voice comprehension technology, can deliver some amazingly accurate information that has already proven helpful to me and many who have used this technology.

What is fascinating is that as I have been using Siri, the experience actually feels more like a conversation than me ordering my iPhone to do things. This is because when you use your voice to create an action, Siri asks you relevant questions in order to make sure it takes the correct action.
(MORE: Siri: Can Apple Sell the Concept of Natural Language Computing?)

For example, the first time I told it to call my dad, Siri asked, "What is your father's name?" I responded "Tim" and Siri said, "Do you want me to remember that Tim Bajarin is your father?" I answered yes and Siri acknowledged that it would remember that Tim Bajarin is my father.

Another example was when I was in an unfamiliar part of a city. I brought up the voice prompt and asked, "How do I get home?" Because I had set Siri up to know my home location, it then quickly gave me directions to my house using Google Maps.

Experiences like this cause you to realize that we are only just starting to scratch the surface of using our voices to interact with personal computers.

Steve Jobs packed a lot of living into his 56 years. If his career had ended 30 years ago, he still would have made history for helping popularize the personal computer. But he did so much more than that.
As we all know, Jobs defied F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous quote, “There are no second acts in American lives.” Jobs’s final years at Apple were as notable as his early ones. Even his 11-year hiatus from the company should provide inspiration for businesspeople who think their careers are over.
The below infographic, from Infographic World, lays out Jobs’s life and accomplishments.

Right Click and open in new tag the picture below...

source : http://mashable.com/2011/10/11/life-and-times-of-steve-jobs/

During this decade of uncertainty and instability for the music industry, Apple has remained one of few companies that has managed to nail it. Apple has conquered nearly every musical endeavor that it attempted (the only exceptions being its social networking efforts with Ping and its decision to shutter Lala upon acquisition).
Over the past decade-plus, Apple has succeeded in redefining and reinventing certain aspects of the music industry. In particular, Steve Jobs helped create music products and services that impacted four particular areas.

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1. Musical Consumption Patterns

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It’s hard to imagine life without the iPod today. Although it wasn’t the first portable MP3 player released, the iPod extracted the best elements from its early competitors, and morphed them into a product that defined portable technology and changed the way listeners experience music.
People everywhere began to analyze the device’s impact on consumption patterns. For starters, the iPod meant that a listener could hear any song in his library at any time. This allowed users to create their own personal soundtracks, instead of being constrained by a particular time, place or media.
“I remember the first day I got an iPod,” The Postelles’ David Dargahi recalls. “I was on the crosstown bus in Manhattan during a snow storm and had a sudden urge to listen to some Bob Marley. Needless to stay it brightened up my mood and showed me the power of the iPod.”
In addition, iPods impacted the format of the musical experience. The user could now purchase individual songs and subsequently shuffle through a several-thousand song library. We could hear any given song at any given time with the click of a button. Therefore, records in their classic sense were deconstructed. No longer was the album a mandated listening requirement – playing the duration of a full-length release became an option, not a necessity. As a result, the iPod empowered the single track more than ever before, simultaneously diminishing the impact of the full-length album.

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2. Accessibility of Recording and Production Tools

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To put it simply, Apple leveled the playing field. The barrier between writing songs, recording and production lessened with the advent of affordable, easy-to-use software programs like Logic and GarageBand. The former became an industry standard for professional audio engineers, while the latter offered an entry into the recording and production world for amateurs. As these programs became available, the lines blurred between professional recording artists and bedroom musicians.
Dave Yang, singer and guitarist of the New York indie-rock group Extra Arms, is a testament to Apple’s impact on emerging musicians. “I’ve now recorded hundreds of songs on Apple computers, and GarageBand taught me basic recording engineering that got me started,” he explains. “Steve Jobs leveled the playing field for who could make music or art, and allowed me to get my voice out.”
Without Apple’s innovations, Warm Ghost’s Paul Duncan doubts his music would sound the same. “I’m not sure I would be making the same music if I hadn’t started using Macs to record,” he says. “It can be a cheap way to make a record, which has not just changed the artist’s relationship to music, but music’s relationship to the world and vice versa (for better or worse).”

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3. Online Retail and Distribution Models

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While many of Steve Jobs and Apple’s services revolutionized the music industry over the past decade, few have made as profound an impact as now eight-year-old iTunes.
In 2003, Apple launched iTunes and sold single MP3s for $0.99 each. From that point forward, Apple grew the platform into a widely successful and profitable effort, eventually becoming the number one music retailer in the United States.
iTunes stood out among the early online music retailers and has continued to serve as a model for all other Internet media distributors. By being the first online distributor to secure deals with all four major corporate record labels (Universal, Sony, Warner Music Group and EMI), iTunes effectively legitimized digital music sales following the proliferation of illegal sharing sites like Napster.
Since then, iTunes has continued to exist as one of the most stable entities in the far-from-certain territory of online music sales.

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4. Live Electronic Performance Becomes Reliable

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Before Apple, reliable processing for live electronics was a crapshoot. Granted, PCs have long been used to process effects, sample instrumentation and help electronic artists perform their music live. However, Apple computers like the PowerBook and MacBook became staples at shows, garnering a reputation for their reliability.
Brooklyn electronic musician J. Viewz heavily relies on Apple to craft his works. “Live, I use a MacBook Pro with Ableton,” he says. “In the studio on a Mac pro, Cubase & After Effects.” Viewz is one of countless musicians now dependent on Apple products to manufacture and refine his sound.




source : http://mashable.com/2011/10/11/apple-changed-music