I had an update today (December 13th) and now S voice isn't working.

I'm on VZW and I don't have an update available. What carrier are you on?
 
This was a security update. Bell Canada. Assuming it may have been an update that you received weeks ago :)
 
So it is magically working today which leads me to the conclusion that something needs to be aligned on the Samsung side for everything to work? Very frustrating as I only use svoice for my gear S3 and I was crippled without it.