Apple: We never said Siri would actually work in the UK
March 4th, 2012 | 
Author: Ad watchdog says punter’s expectations too high
The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has quashed a complaint from a fanboi disappointed by Siri’s lack of UK knowledge – and said the punter had above-average expectations compared with what it would expect from the “average Brit”.
Siri, the voice-recognising virtual assistant on the iPhone 4S, is unable to direct users in Blighty to businesses, nor can it provide routes and traffic updates, because it only does map-integration and biz lookups in the US.
But a disgruntled Jesus-mobe owner in Britain complained to the ASA that this omission was skirted over in an online advert for the 4S posted in October 2011. The advert read:
Simply ask Siri to help you send messages, set reminders or search for information […] It can even use information from your iPhone – such as your location, contacts and contact relationships – to provide intelligent, personal assistance.
The complainant said that the ad was misleading because it did not make it clear enough that location-based Siri functionality only worked in the United States.
Find this “pub” yourself, mate
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Microsoft releases Windows 8 Preview
Windows 8 is now out – albeit in the form of an early consumer preview version, with all the usual disclaimers that come with a test build (some bugs and incomparability issues are to be expected).
You can grab the preview of the OS here, and check out Microsoft’s attempt at an all-new Metro-style interface, and an operating system which works across all devices, bridging the gap between mobile and desktop.
Chrome stagnates in latest browser stats
Net Applications has released its latest figures for desktop browser share in the month of February 2012.
And the news is that there’s no change for the major players in the market since January – although January did see a rather surprising development.
In the first month of the year, Internet Explorer reversed its downward trend and increased share from 51.9% in December 2011 to 53%. It slipped a fraction to 52.9% in February.
Raspberry Pi pre-orders get snapped up
The Raspberry Pi has proved as tasty a computing morsel as it sounds, with the tiny, inexpensive machine going up for pre-order yesterday – and the website promptly falling over due to demand.
You’ve probably heard of this project, which was begun some six years ago, with David Braben (of Elite fame) and the Pi Foundation creating a super-budget, credit card sized computer.
