Chatbots.org Business News

Hi house, how are you doing? We are seeing a growing number of initiatives that aim to promote home automation using natural language voice technology rather than buttons or keyboards as the user interface.

I just read Nick Bilton’s blog post in Bits “Disruptions: TV Makers Ignore Apps at Their Own Peril”.  I know it’s now a couple of months since it was published but hey, you can’t catch every blog post every time and what he’s saying still remains spot-on.

The blogosphere is awash with views on Apple’s Siri. Some of it effusive with its praise, some reveling in its supposed shortcomings — see this post from the New York Times Bits blog for example. One thing for sure, you could be forgiven for thinking that Apple’s natural language technology that powers Siri was the only game in town.

These days we can control the key functions of a smartphone, TV or even automobile by voice. Clearly, voice control is a cool feature that will soon be commonplace on a broad range of consumer devices. For disabled people, however, assistive technologies like voice control are not just cool but an essential way to help make their lives better.

VirtuOz, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) for online marketing, sales, and support, has been recognized as a finalist in the 4th Annual 2012 Golden Bridge Awards in the software innovations category. 

“Each and every employee at VirtuOz is committed to delivering leading virtual agent solutions that exceed both our customers’ and their customers’ expectations,” said Alex LeBrun, CEO and president of VirtuOz.  “Today’s digital consumer is more demanding than ever, and we are privileged to partner with global industry leaders who are willing to explore new customer engagement frontiers in order to deliver winning customer experiences.  We are honored by the industry and peer recognition of our efforts that this Golden Bridge Award represents.”

Despite the advance of Twitter and Facebook, email is still the “killer” electronic communications medium particularly at work, where it long ago replaced the telephone as the preferred way for communicating between colleagues. But not all of the billions of emails handled each day by office workers are strictly work-related. According to a recent study, about 15% of the emails sent by corporate users contain information about a person or persons not among the recipients. In other words, they contain gossip.

Since 1946, one generation has been said to remodel society as it has passed through it – the baby boom generation. This was the first generation in the western world to grow up with television and since then it has witnessed many great technological achievements such as the moon landing, the internet revolution, new mobile technology and now the launch of intelligent consumer devices such as smart-TVs and talking fridges. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and a baby boomer himself has become a symbol of this ultra-techie generation. The question is, are consumer electronics ready to offer what these demanding boomers are expecting?

My video cassette recorder finally stopped working last week. Even if I wanted to replace it, I’d have trouble doing so as Panasonic, one of the last remaining manufacturers, stopped VCR production earlier this year. Few consumers will mourn the passing of the VCR. Apart from their infuriating habit of chewing tapes, VCRs were notoriously difficult to program. The common sight of the VCR clock display flashing “12:00” became a symbol for just how little thought the consumer electronics industry gave to usability.

Building a closer relationship with individual customers is now a key objective for many organizations. However, those customers are already one step ahead. A decade of overexposure to increasingly aggressive marketing tactics has made them understand the power they wield over businesses that want their data and wary of trusting brands. Instead of engaging directly with an organization users choose to connect with friends, and even strangers, online to crowd source opinion on purchasing decisions. But surprisingly, treat them right and they are still willing to share.

VirtuOz, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) for online marketing, sales, and support, announced today that VirtuOz’ Intelligent Virtual Agents have been recognized by three industry award programs in May 2012 alone, including the Best in Biz Awards EMEA, Silver Winner for Best New Service of the Year; The American Business Awards Finalist in the Relationship Management Solution Category for the second year in a row; and TiE50 Awards Finalist, where VirtuOz beat out over 2000 entrants.