Ever wonder how we got to Siri? This nifty infographic captures the history of speech recognition, beginning with Pope Sylvester II's Brazen Head, which reportedly gave yes/no answers to questions, kind of like an ancient Magic Eight Ball.
I think my favorite is John of Bell Labs saying in 1969 that speech recognition will not be a reality for several decades because it requires artificial intelligence. Granted, anyone who has called an IVR in the last few years might still argue that speech recognition still doesn't involve any type of intelligence, but you have to admit that Siri is pretty cool.
