Holding down the “home” button on the new iPhone 4S, available in the U.S. starting on October 14, summons a “personal assistant” known as Siri that can understand commands given in English, French, or German, says Technology Review. It responds in a conversational style in both text and synthesized speech.

Siri also draws online sources of information, from weather feeds to local business reviews, as well as the question-and-answer search engine WolframAlpha, and uses calendar, contacts, music and everything else on the phone as resources.

AI developer Dr. Ben Goertzel reviewed a pre-Apple version of Siri in February, concluding that it “may be very useful for carrying out a very limited set of very specific functionalities [but] … it’s not anything like a real assistant.” We asked him for an update for the new Apple version when it’s available.

Also see:
Forget the new iPhone, let’s talk Siri (New Scientist)
Siri-ous Mind Blowing: Video Evidence Of Apple’s Prophetic Past — Circa 1987 (TechCrunch)