Apple has recently acquired Siri, a company that makes a virtual assistant app.  Siri was inspired by Darpa’s CALO – the Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes – project.  While Siri was initially designed to help streamline military personnel’s activities the consumer app now focuses on helping your find things like restaurants, hotels, businesses and even utilizes speech recognition tools.  This app is essentially a smart search app and has people speculating about the direction that Apple might be taking.  Many industry experts feel that this acquisition is leading Apple into Google territory. While the terms of the acquisition are not known Business Insider guesses the deal could be worth $100 to $200 million.  A deal of that magnitude would definitely signal a commitment to this new type of technology for Apple.  The technology that Siri can bring to the table for Apple’s various consumer electronics will certainly enhance the user experience of iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad users.