SRI International is hoping to bring the concept of virtual personal assistants closer to reality.

Recently, the institute has set its sights on the mobile phone and Web market, especially on creating applications that perform personal functions.

SRI’s newest venture: a Web-based personalized news feed, Chattertrap, that monitors what people are reading to learn what they like, and then serves up articles and links that suit their interests.

Another recent project is a mobile application, Siri, that allows people to perform Web searches by voice on a cellphone, and was acquired by Apple.