Student Creates Pilot Korean Version of iPhone's Siri

Published on 2012/01/20 | Source

A pilot Korean version of the iPhone 4S' voice-controlled personal assistant Siri has come out, but it was not officially released by manufacturer Apple but by Yoo Ju-wan, a student at Yonsei University, who also developed an app for bus and traffic information in Seoul. Yoo, who is only 20, made it while "playing with Siri to relieve stress", he said.

Although the version of Siri answers in English, it recognizes Korean instructions to deliver functions from weather reports to stock market information and alarm setting. It even dictates simple and complex sentences in Korean on a notepad. The product is demonstrated in a video uploaded on YouTube on Thursday.

Siri is a voice-controlled virtual personal assistant that responds to voice commands. The official version does not support Korean yet and can only recognize English and French.

Industry insiders expect that Apple will begin Siri services in Korean when the company launches its iPad 3, which is likely to happen in March.