Apple patent suggests Siri may soon remind you to take your meds

For those of us who have gotten on in age, you know that some parts of our bodies are not what they used to be when we were much younger. Our eyesight and hearing begins to fail, and we might end up popping more pills than we might be comfortable with. The thing is, even the regular pillbox might not be good enough a reminder for you to swallow those pills within per day, so why not enlist the help of technology?

A recently-granted Apple patent seems to lay out some of Cupertino’s thinking about the future of Siri and the Internet of Things: and it’s spooky. Essentially, Apple sees the device you carry as acting as the interface between wetware like you and I, and the Internet of Things, represented by sensors in the home or office. According to Patently Apple, which has undertaken the daunting task of unpacking the claims in US Patent 8,677,377, Apple’s aim is to make Siri – or something like it – not just something Theodore Twombly falls in love with, but the centre of the household.