NEWS: Chatbots.org survey on 3000 US and UK consumers shows it is time for chatbot integration in customer service!read more..
Erwin van Lun on 14 years, 11 months ago in Agent's perception of humans, Text recognition, Applications, Products, Business News | by
Summary: eGain: Assistant 5.0, a conversational agent that help search, solve problems and purchases items via typed Engli
eGain Communications has just released Assistant 5.0, a conversational agent that can help Web site visitors search, solve problems and purchase items via typed exchanges in conversational English.
The company says the new virtual agent learns faster and more efficiently than its predecessors, automatically converting existing knowledge—typically in the form of FAQs—into the “cases” in its knowledge base with a claimed success rate of 90%, nearly double the previous rate. The company explains that a case is a set of questions such as “Do you accept credit cards?” “Which credit cards do you take?”, for which there is a unique answer, such as “We accept VISA, MasterCard and American Express.”
Jetty van Kooij on 14 years, 11 months ago in Agent's perception of humans, Text recognition, Business News | by
Summary: According to Virtuoz vice president Mark Gaydos there are 4 ways how avatar virtual agents can help companies.
Recent research on context-aware computing, such as avatars, has shown many benefits for businesses. According to Virtuoz vice president Mark Gaydos there are 4 ways how avatar virtual agents can help companies (from allbusiness.com)
With James Cameron’s highly anticipated sci-fi movie Avatar opening this weekend, we had to find out if avatars can help businesses in the real world as much as they help humans in fictitious alien worlds.
Unlike the 10-foot tall blue avatars in Cameron’s movie, Web site avatars aren’t science fiction; they’re “real” virtual agents that provide customer service worldwide. These self-service software applications (which can appear as an animation or a picture of a real person) are intelligent, engaging personalities that help Internet customers find solutions faster and more efficiently.
The Michelin Man avatar, for example, not only answers questions about Michelin tires, but can also engage in conversations about how old he is and whether he has a girlfriend.
Read more about: 4 Ways how avatar virtual agents can help companies
Erwin van Lun on 14 years, 11 months ago in Agent's Appearance, Virtual worlds, Business News | by
Summary: New Sherlock Holmes movie offers players a new gaming experience with chatbots
An online game promoting the new movie Sherlock Holmes is offering players a new sort of gaming experience. The aim is to interview suspects - as Dr Watson or Holmes - to solve a robbery at the British Museum. Thanks to novel conversational “chatbots” embedded in the game, players can use natural language in their typed interrogations.
Other games have used natural language interactions before, says Rollo Carpenter, founder of Existor, the company behind the game, but these only use keywords to try to recognise what players are saying, he claims. “My script technology works by making predictions about what people will say,” he says. It then uses statistical analysis and fuzzy logic to try to find the best match for what was said against this vast number of predictions, before supplying the appropriate response.
Read more about: Chatbots add intelligence to Sherlock Holmes game
Erwin van Lun on 14 years, 11 months ago in Agent's perception of humans, Text recognition, Agent's Expression, Body posture, Business News | by
Summary: Virtual Agents of Polish Postal Services company Inpost can be undressed, if you know the codes! You should watch
Ever realized that not only humans are culturally bounded, but virtual agents as well? Practices that are completely accepted in some cultures would totally be rejected by other cultures. Even when they are part of so-called viral campaigns, which tend to be a little bit shocking. However, at Chatbots.org we believe learning starts with openness and sharing. So be prepared!
We’ve stumbled upon Anna and Adam, virtual agents (chatbots or virtual assistants if you prefer) of Polish company Inpost. Both Anna and Adam can be undressed if you know the codes! In fact, for non-Polish speaking people, it would come across as a code; for Polish natives it’s about answering questions about Inpost’s new service called paczkomat. They learn by interacting with Anna or Adam.
In most cultures, this kind of practice would be highly unusual for established brands like InPost. Note that Inpost is not a silly new web startup: They are the first company in Poland offering postal services throughout the country via its own units, represented in 200 cities of Poland via 800 Customer Service Points. Inpost is part of the Integer.pl group which is listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Anna was developed by a large virtual agent developer in Poland named Stanusch Technologies.
Wanna undress Anna or Adam yourself or checkout the video? Click below for the codes.
Read more about: Undress Anna (or Adam), Virtual Agents of Polish Postal Service.
Jetty van Kooij on 14 years, 11 months ago in Applications, User Client Technology, Business News | by
Summary: AIM Chatbots: Some NLP please?! Test and review of AIM's chatbots online gallery
The future of chatbots is just starting to unfold. Numerous applications are developed and one of Chatbots.org objectives is to find and test new chatbots and their capabilities.
For example, I have tested every chatbot compatible to America Online’s Instant Messenger which are displayed at AIM’s online gallery.
Jetty van Kooij on 14 years, 11 months ago in Agent's perception of humans, Facial coding, Business News | by
Summary: AIDA reads driver's mood from facial expressions and other cues and incorporates real-time city information
AIDA is one of the latest intelligent driving virtual agents which aims to change the way we interact with our car and communicates with the driver through a small robot embedded in the dashboard. AIDA is a sociable robot, which reads the driver’s mood from facial coding and through emotion capturing and responds in a socially appropriate and informative way.
Watch video:
Read more about: Audi and MIT researchers develop Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA)
Jetty van Kooij on 14 years, 11 months ago in Identification of humans, Speaker recognition, Business News | by
Summary: WowWee was founded in 1988 focusing on development and manufacturing of cutting-egde technologies
WowWee was founded in 1988 as an independent research and development and manufacturing company, focused on cutting-edge technologies. The introduction of WowWee’s Robosapien™ robot in 2004 revolutionized the way we interact with entertainment robotic companions.
One of the most popular entertainment robots in the world, with global sales of more than 5 million units, the Robosapien robot was the first commercially-available biomorphic robot - a fusion of technology and personality.
Erwin van Lun on 14 years, 11 months ago in Agent's perception of humans, Speech recognition, Agent's Expression, Gestures, Facial expressions, Business News | by
Summary: Steve Di Paola demonstrates a real-time, emotion aware, parametised virtual agent system to Chatbots.org. Awesome
Steve Di Paola of the Simon Fraser University demonstrated a virtual agent system to Chatbots.org. This system interprets real time emotions in input such as voice, and shows facial expressions and gestures.
During the 9th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (related to IVA Gala), Steve showed us how his parameterized facial animation system operates. His goal is to develop a system that can handle any face type, behavior, and voice to be used in games, movies and virtual agent worlds. Their current focus is on how emotions should be expressed.
In the first few minutes of the video, he demonstrated various types of faces. Steve grabbed his microphone and started talking. The avatar spoke similar to Steve and his (or her) lips were synchronized with his words. As soon as Steve raised or changed his voice, the avatar acted correspondingly, which was absolutely amazing. It widened its mouth when talking louder; it moved its eyebrow to emphasize what it was saying, and it responded to a drumming sound. Wow!
More explanation and images after break.
Read more about: Lip sync, facial expressions and gestures through real-time voice analysis
Diana Perez-marin on 14 years, 11 months ago in Business News | by
Summary: A new book gathering the most relevant research on Conversational Agents is going to be published by IGI in 2010
A new book gathering the most relevant research on Conversational Agents is going to be published by IGI next year. We invite you to contribute to this project, and make your work visible to a large community of people.
Chapter proposals of 2-3 pages are expected on or before December 16, 2009 explaining the mission and concerns of your chapter to me, Diana Perez.
Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by January 16, 2010. Full chapters (8,000-10,000 words) are expected to be submitted by April 16, 2010. Once the book is published in November 2010, authors may get a complimentary copy of the e-book and a discount for additional printed copies of the book.
Read more about: Call for papers Book on Conversational Agents