Clarity Lab engineers review their work on Sirius Google has Google Now, Apple has Siri and Microsoft has Cortana—these personal digital assistants are playing an increasingly dominant role on mobile and desktop. Now researchers from the University of Michigan have unveiled an open-source alternative called Sirius, the latest of several similar open-source efforts along the same line. Mobile phone makers, wearable startups and app developers could all potentially use Sirius to bring some instant smarts to their projects in the not-too-distant future, Jason Mars, one of the co-directors at U-M's Clarity Lab where the system has been developed, said in a video: Unlike Google Now, Siri and Cortana, Sirius is free to use and can be customized as required by anyone interested in the technology. "Now the core technology is out of the bag, and we all have access to it," says Mars in a press statement. "Instead of making an app to run on the Apple Watch, for example, maybe I could make my own... - Web2024