India Develops Siri Knockoff for Android

In a matter of eight hours, India-based software company Dexetra was able to create a Siri knockoff - an early Android version of Apple's Siri voice recognition system.

Dubbed Iris, the reverse of Apple's Siri, Dexetra claims that the name is an acronym for Intelligent Rival Imitator of Siri. Although this may seem like a blatant knockoff of Siri, the Indian software company has actually been working on this type of technology for over a year now.

Iris essentially looks and operates just like Siri. The app is still in an alpha stage, but it's being constantly updated by the company to add features many have on the iPhone version.

A most improved version of Iris is currently available on the Android Market for free. According to the numbers, it's already been downloaded over 50,000 times. Even though the voice control feature is nothing new on mobile devices, Apple's introduction of Siri has focused everyone's attention on the idea of a smart, helpful mobile assistant.

Other third-party apps out there like Vlingo also seem to get the job done pretty well. The difference is that Siri integrates the voice control with Apple's own tools, such as the calendar or weather app.

How does Iris compare on this level? There seems to be mixed thoughts so far. The team from iPhone Help took a look at Iris to test it against Siri. They found that Iris was able to do perform most of your tasks in an amusing way, much like Siri. In terms of productivity, however, it may still be too early to gauge the potential of Iris as it is still in the really early stages of development.

Upon testing the app herself, CNN's Amy Gahran tested the voice control herself as she wrote the story and found it more entertaining than actually helpful. It seems as though many Siri users have come to the same conclusion. It's amusing, but how much can it handle your day to day tasks?

Our dreams of just talking into a phone and letting it take care of your chores and tasks-the parts that would just make life easier-has long been motivating software companies to create the next breakthrough. Of course, this early development of human intelligence for smartphones is still a ways from the advanced, futuristic cyber-assistant we imagine in our sci-fi fantasies.