iOs & iOs Apps (inc iPhone, iPad, iPod, iBrick)

I'm not asking it to answer the most profound and deepest philosophical questions, or to write my dissertation for me, or to tell me what that weird lump on my testicle is (although there's undoubtedly an app for that)

However, it doesn't require Asimov levels of AI to recognise a voice request, then combine GPS information with a yell search of local businesses to find a local bank or petrol station. It can manage it in the US apparently, so why not here?

Actually, expert systems for medical diagnosis are one of the great success stories of AI research and have been in real-world use for years now.

Not sure what you mean by "Asimov" levels of AI, but recognising human speech is very difficult. Firstly, recognising individual words is a challenge, then piecing them together and extracting contextual sense is even trickier.

The fact that Siri works best with US accents is hardly surprising given that it was largely coded by US developers. It does improve with use, so give it time.

Incidentally, it took many years of research by a DARPA-led team of coders from 25 universities to get it off the ground then years more in commercial development to polish it.

It's impressive, but it is still 2011 - what do you want, Star Trek?