Has it really been 10 years of Siri? The Apple voice assistant was originally integrated into the iPhone 4S way back in October 2011, and we're now here to wish Siri a very happy 10th birthday. Sparking a trend for smart voice assistants across the board, Siri certainly changed how we all interact with technology these days, with the rise of Alexa no doubt helped substantially by the presence of Siri before it. It's possible that some of you won't remember the early beginnings of Siri – which is why we've taken a walk down memory lane and looked at the history behind how Siri came to be. We've also looked at just what it was like to use back in those early days, and considered what the next 10 years could mean for the (mostly) helpful voice assistant.

Riva Health, founded by scientist Tuhin Sinha and Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus, wants to help people measure their blood pressure in a clinically approved way. Blood pressure can help indicate at-risk patients before they are actually at risk, showing early signs of heart disease. While other hardware solutions on the market promise the same end goal, Riva wants to be a purely software solution that integrates with hardware that it thinks its end user has anyway: their smartphone. The company, launching out of stealth today, has raised $15.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from True Ventures. Greg Yap of Menlo, who talked to Sinha for three years before investing, will be joining the board.

Samsung's technological reach is formidable, shipping more phones than any other manufacturer. The company boasts nearly 23% of the global smartphone market, and its Gear VR headset, available since late 2015, is already among the most popular virtual reality devices going. But when it comes to voice-activated speakers, a medium that some believe is on the cusp of becoming the next major computing platform, there's reason to question whether Samsung has the wherewithal to keep up. The South Korean technology giant may be developing a new Amazon Echo-like smart speaker powered by its Bixby virtual assistant, reports the Wall Street Journal. But it's arrival would likely come long after category pioneers like Amazon, Google and Apple have either released or announced plans to launch voice-activated gadgets of their own.

Viv was named after the Latin root meaning live. Its San Jose, California, offices are decorated with tchotchkes bearing the numbers six and five (VI and V in roman numerals). When Apple announced the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011, the headlines were not about its speedy A5 chip or improved camera. Instead they focused on an unusual new feature: an intelligent assistant, dubbed Siri. At first Siri, endowed with a female voice, seemed almost human in the way she understood what you said to her and responded, an advance in artificial intelligence that seemed to place us on a fast track to the Singularity. She was brilliant at fulfilling certain requests, like "Can you set the alarm for 6:30?" or "Call Diane's mobile phone." And she had a personality: If you asked her if there was a God, she would demur with deft wisdom. "My policy is the separation of spirit and silicon," she'd say.

Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro displayed one of his androids on Sunday at the SXSW Interactive Festival. The android, which is modeled after Ishiguro, held an autonomous conversation in Japanese on stage with an Ishiguro associate. Professional South Korean Go players review a match after another bout lost to a computer in the Google DeepMind Challenge Match. AUSTIN – Science and technology have always cut with double-edged swords, capable of both propelling humanity to new achievements while threatening us with potential catastrophe. That chilling theme was explored by two leading technologists at SXSW Interactive, a festival that has seen its share of humans rising up against the machines.

So I've arrived late at the office of Viv, an artificial intelligence company based in San Jose, California. I missed my train from San Francisco after dawdling leaving my apartment and then finding the taxi service app on my phone wouldn't work. Dag Kittlaus, who I've kept waiting, looks on the bright side. "Your trials of getting here are a perfect illustration of how Viv will be helpful," he says. "Wouldn't it be nice to say'I need to get to San Jose, give me my options' and Viv would know how close you are to the train station, when the next train is coming, where the nearest cars, how much it was going to cost…" Kittlaus is the co-founder and CEO of Viv, a three-year-old AI startup backed by $30m, including funds from Iconiq Capital, which helps manage the fortunes of Mark Zuckerberg and other wealthy tech executives. In a blocky office building in San Jose's downtown, the company is working on what Kittlaus describes as a "global brain" – a new form of voice-controlled virtual personal assistant.

With the creators of Siri offering up a new personal assistant that won't just tell you what pizza is but can order one for you, artificial intelligence is showing a huge leap forward. Viv is an artificial intelligence (AI) platform built by Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, the creators of the AI behind Apple's Siri, the most well-known digital assistant in the world. Siri is known for answering questions, like how old Harrison Ford is, and reminding you to buy milk on the way home. Earlier this week during an onstage demo at Disrupt NYC, Kittlaus showed off Viv. This created an online buzz about the assistant's ability to not just answer questions or fire up a timer on a smartphone, but to answer complex questions and to interact with third-party services as well as online businesses.

Siri made the iPhone more responsive with artificial intelligence, but now its founders want to put AI in every device you own. Dag Kittlaus, who cofounded Siri, left Apple five years ago, but now he's back with a new voice assistant named Viv that he predicts will change the way we interact with not just our phones, but our home appliances, cars, and more. Viv has gotten a lot of hype for a product that hasn't shipped yet, but Kittlaus demoed Viv publicly for the first time at TechCrunch Disrupt on Monday. Right now, Viv is an iOS app, though it won't always be. You open the app and ask the assistant questions or issue commands.

Some of the people behind Siri, the voice of the iPhone's virtual assistant app, have developed a savvier bot called Viv. Viv reportedly can order a pizza with your favorite toppings, hail a taxi ride to the dentist, or order flowers for your mom by drawing on data from other web services, such as FTD, Uber, and GrubHub, with little typing, clicking, or further input from you. Instead of pre-programming scripted responses to anticipated questions, as is common with Siri and other services, Viv's artificial intelligence will let her learn her users' preferences over time, say company executives. "Tell Viv what you want and it will orchestrate this massive network of services that will take care of it," Dag Kittlaus, Viv's chief executive, told the Guardian. The bot, which The Washington Post called "one of the most highly anticipated technologies expected to come out of a start-up this year," will make its first public appearance at a conference on Monday.

From Siri creator Dag Kittlaus comes Viv, a product that aims to be the next generation personal assistant. Kittlaus sat down with USA TODAY's Ed Baig to talk about Viv and where he thinks its headed. SAN FRANCISCO -- No matter what tech innovations Dag Kittlaus creates in the coming years, the 49-year-old speech recognition expert will be best known as the man who sold Siri to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Now, strangely, the two figures have something else in common. According to an interview with Recode's Kara Swisher, Kittlaus reveals that in a routine screening he discovered he had the same rare type of pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer that felled Jobs in 2011.