Siri was meant for Android phones before Apple stepped in

Ask Siri where she was born and she'll say that she was "designed by Apple in California," but that's only the half truth. She almost belonged on Android phones.

The brains behind this voice-activated personal assistant had signed a deal with American carrier Verizon in the fall of 2009, according to a lengthy Huffington Post feature.

The objective was to make Siri a default application for all of the carrier's Android smartphones, which are of course powered by Apple's chief rival, Google.

Apple, seeing the potential in Siri, didn't just make a counteroffer, it bought Siri, Inc. This ensured exclusivity and killed any hope of Siri for Android phones in the future.

The most interesting part is just how far Verizon's deal for Siri is said to have gone.

"Somewhere in the vaults of the wireless giant, there are unreleased commercials touting Siri as an Android add-on," reported The Huffington Post.

Before Siri for Android, iOS phones

Truthfully, Siri should credit the United States Department of Defense and its $150 million budget for its origin.

Apple's artificial friend was spun out of a five-year, 500-person project by the Pentagon and Menlo Park, California's non-profit research institute, SRI International, according to the expose.

The undertaking was "by any measure, the largest AI program in history," said lead researcher David Israel.

As a start-up, Siri, Inc., initially launched its application as an independently developed iOS application before it was pulled from the App Store.

Apple then bought the 24-person company for a reported $150 million to $250 million.

Siri updates in the future

Siri was updated with the launch of iPad 4 and rollout of of iOS 6 last year, adding new languages and the ability to open third-party apps, look up personalized sports stats, and send tweets.

In addition to expanding the way this personal assistant app is a "do engine," Apple is looking to tweak the responses that Siri gives to commands.

The company is searching for a new writer to invoke a little more personality into its voice-activated application.

One thing that Siri will never properly respond to are questions about her almost-in-the-bag deal with Verizon that would have brought her to Android handsets.

She'll just play coy and direct users to the nearest Verizon stores in the area. Sly.

THQ is officially dead, its games and talent auctioned off

It's a sad day for video game fans, as THQ, the California-based video game developer and publisher founded in 1989, is officially kaput.

It's been more than a month since the company filed for bankruptcy, though at the time a private investment firm called Clearlake Capital emerged to keep things afloat.

Clearlake's support evidently dried up, though, as this week reports came in that THQ would be broken up and auctioned off piecemeal in federal bankruptcy court, different studios and properties going to the highest bidders.

At least THQ's numerous games, ranging from an RPG based on South Park to a horror-shooter set in post-nuclear Moscow, won't have to go down with the ship.

Picking up the pieces

The auction for the various pieces of THQ began on Tuesday and continued on to Wednesday. The highest bidders were revealed Wednesday afternoon.

Based on an early report from Joystiq, with Eurogamer and Kotakubacking up several of these claims, it seems that:

Relic Entertainment and the upcoming Company of Heroes game were bought by Sega for $26.6 million (UK£16.7 million, AU$25.2 million);

THQ Montreal and its two little-known projects "1666" and "Underdog" were bought by Ubisoft for $2.5 million (UK£1.5 million, AU$2.3 million), along withSouth Park: The Stick of Truth for $3.26 million (UK£2.05 million, AU$3.08 million);

Take-Two Interactive purchased the rights to Evolve for $10.8 million (UK£6.8 million, AU$10.2 million);

Koch Media, which publishes games under the name Deep Silver, got Volition and Saints Row for $22.3 million (UK£14.07 million, AU$21.1 million) as well as the Metro games for $5.87 million (UK£3.7 million, AU$5.5 million);

And Crytek won Homefront for a bid of $544,218 (UK£343,420, AU$515,650).

Meanwhile there's been no official word yet of the WWE license that THQ possessed, and company CEO Brian Farrell and President Jason Rubin wrote in a letter to employees (published by Kotaku) that Vigil and theDarksiders franchise currently have no buyer.

Letter from the president

Farrell and Rubin reportedly sent the letter out to all THQ employees in the wake of the auction.

They told employees that many, though not all, of those whose studios were included in the auction should receive employment offers from the various buyers within the next week or so.

"The work that you all have done as part of the THQ family is imaginative, creative, artistic and highly valued by our loyal gamers. We are proud of what we have accomplished despite today's outcome," they wrote.

"It has been our privilege to work alongside the entire THQ team. While the company will cease to exist, we are heartened that the majority of our studios and games will continue under new ownership."

TechRadar's thoughts go out to all those whose jobs were lost or are uncertain this week.

Microsoft to buy Dell?

The latest chatter from round the tech water cooler is that Microsoft is mulling buying Dell in a multibillion dollar purchase.

Sources described as "close to the matter" told CNBC that the Redmond company is looking to drop between $1- and $3-billion on the PC-making company.

The secret sources suggested that the cash injection would take the form of a leveraged buyout which would give Microsoft the controlling share in Dell.

For whom the Dell tolls

This tech company alliance makes sense given Microsoft's recent moves into hardware manufacture alongside its software divisions.

With an in-house manufacturer like Dell, it would instantly have an in to the worlds of PCs, laptops, notebooks and more tablets (alongside its existing Surface range).

There's no way of knowing how far along these talks are or whether they'll ever be finalised given that Microsoft and Dell are keeping schtum on the matter for now; but with Michael Dell and Dell's corporate sponsor Silver Lake Partners reportedly meeting with Microsoft reps, it may not be long until it all goes through.

Which is fine, but what we all really want to know is how we should refer to this deal in shorthand - Microdell? Dellcrosoft? Mell?

Nokia Drive+ Beta now available for all Windows Phone 8 users

Nokia's much awaited turn-by-turn navigation application, Drive+ is now available for free to all Windows Phone 8 users in United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

The application is still technically a beta, but we have already had numerous chances to see that it's actually pretty great and little to no bugs. So as long as you live in one of the three countries above you now gain access to full turn-by turn voice guided navigation, offline maps, speed limit warnings and other conveniences such as day and night modes.

Nokia Drive + has been one of the key advantages of the Nokia Lumia lineup over WP smartphones from other manufactures, so this might have a significant impact on the balance of power in the Microsoft platform.

Nokia Drive+ can be downloaded from the official Windows Phone website. We are yet to hear anything about its availability for other countries, though.

Nokia to release a 38MP WP EOS phone this year

The Nokia 808 PureView was the company’s first PureView smartphone and it still holds the throne as the best cameraphone out there, despite the Lumia 920 challenge. It seems that this is about to change though as the company's Windows Phone camp is going to get its own PureView device.

According to the information that The Verge acquired, the device will include a sensor similar to the one inside the 808 PureView and the whole device will be made of aluminum. The latter coincides with the rumor for another upcoiming high-end Nokia Catwalk that’s also going to be made out of aluminum, according to previous reports.

The EOS is going to a high-end Lumia device, but isn’t clear whether it’s the aforementioned Catwalk, that’s going to replace the Lumia 920, or if it’s going to be a completely different animal.

What sources familiar with the matter have confirmed, though, is that AT&T will be offering the EOS, which isn’t much of a surprise considering the carrier's close connections with Nokia. As far as the design of the device goes, it’s believed to keep the square edges of the current Lumia line-up of smartphones.