Cajun:
Yep, that's Siri. And I love her. You can get to her several ways, but the easiest is the way you discovered by accident: Hold down the Home button for several seconds.
As long as you have an Internet connection, Siri is available. You can ask her sports scores, what the weather's going to be like, how your stocks are doing, what time it is in London, what you get if you multiply 256 x 32 (or anything else), and virtually thousands of other questions. If she doesn't know an answer straight off the bat -- and Siri's abilities are based on the Wolfram-Alpha AI database -- she'll pull up Web pages that she thinks will help. (I'm constantly asking her, "Are the Cardinals playing baseball today?" She always tells me if it's an "on" or "off" day. And if they're playing, she'll tell me who and at what time.)
When you ask a question, she'll display a transcription of what she thinks you said. If she misunderstands you -- for the life of me, I could not get her to understand the name of my hometown "Centralia" -- just touch the transcription and type in the correct words. That should help her learn how you pronounce certain things.
If you're ever bored, you can even ask her philosophical or nonsense questions. . . and chances are, she'll have a witty answer for you.
And in case it isn't obvious, Siri isn't a real person. Just a "virtual personal assistant." But it's amazing what she can do. (Seems rude to call her an "it"!)
Holler if you have any other questions with the iPad. I've been a passionate user since the original one came out in 2010. (And, yes, the Apple Kool-Aid is delicious!
)
Bob