Chatbots.org Business News

Small Worlds is a fast-growing online virtual world that runs in a browser instead of requiring you to download a graphics-intensive application. Members of Smallworlds create avatars and use these to have shared experiences like chatting, watching videos, playing games, or listening to music.

Pandorabots is a chat bot hosting service. From any browser, you may create and publish your own bots for web pages, instant messenger services, virtual worlds and many other places. Pandorabots utilizes a patented memory management algorithm that scales in number of bots, amount of bot knowledge, and number of conversational interactions. The bots are based on AIML and spring entirely from the work of the A.L.I.C.E. and AIML free software community.

IVA-2010 is an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main forum for presenting research on modeling, developing and evaluating intelligent virtual agents with a focus on communicative abilities and social behavior. The conference encourages a spectrum of presentations from theoretical issues to working applications. Researchers in human-human and human-robot interaction are also welcome to share work relevant to intelligent virtual agents.

Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are (in the definition of the organisation) interactive characters that exhibit human-like qualities and communicate with humans or with each other using natural human modalities such as behavior, gesture and speech. IVAs are capable of real-time perception, cognition and action that allow them to participate in a dynamic social environment.

It is being held September 20-22, 2010, in Philadelphia, USA.

Last year I’ve attended the conference in Amsterdam and it was awesome! Truely awesome. You can still expect our report on Chatbots.org, which in a more academic context than we currently present ourselves. The realtime emotion aware parameterized avatar system of Steve DiPaola was a video report of things we’ve experienced in Amsterdam. Furthermore, we’ve attened the IVA GALA 2009 awards and we’ll soon make sure the participants and winners are uploaded to the 2009 page of IVA GALA. It’s all coming up!

2010 will be a great year for the virtual agent/chatbot researchers and businesses!

Do you ever ask yourself if you are going to need an umbrella today? Or: ‘Where can I get a green tea latte’? Or: ‘What’s up this weekend’? With a new free iPhone 3GS app Siri, you simply ask these questions by talking to your phone. Your question will be interpreted and displayed and suggestions will follow immediately. Very, very cool.

And when you feel like travelling this weekend, you can just continue your questions after ‘what’s up this weekend?’ by asking: ‘How about San Francisco?’, as if you would speak to a real person. Sire will recognize that you’re still interested in something to do for the weekend as it’s context sensitive.

Awesome! Also check out review below the fold showing more examples of how you can use

VirtuOz, the provider of virtual agent solutions, announced today that the company grew rapidly in 2009, posting record sales as a result of accelerated new customer adoption and expanded use of VirtuOz at existing customers in both North America and Europe.

The benefits of the personalization and adaptation of computer applications to each user have been widely reported in recent decades. Educational applications are not an exception, both in e-learning, i.e. the use of electronic media to teach or assess, and b-learning blended learning), i.e. to combine traditional face-to-face instruction with electronic media.

Pedagogic Conversational Agents (PCAs) can be defined as virtual characters, which can teach or be taught by students in a domain, and even to serve as learner companions to void the so-called isolation problem of computer-based education. PCAs can be animated, and may consist only of a face, or have a full body (embodied conversational agents). Given that the educational application keeps a learner model, the PCA could use this to adapt the information presented to the user. It is therefore expected that the interaction will not only be more natural, but also more efficient, because it will be focused on the needs and preferences of each student.

Call for papers: International Workshop on Adaptation and Personalization in E-B/Learning using Pedagogic Conversational Agents June 21th, 2010, Hawaii, USA.

This proof of concept of Intel Digital Signage is designed to let retail customers touch its holographic screen to virtually tour a store, shop for products, learn about sales, read customer reviews, submit their own reviews, and share feedback with family and friends through integration with social networks and cell phones.

The world’s first sex robot ‘Roxxxy’ by TrueCompanion knows your name, your likes and dislikes, can carry on a discussion and expresses her love to you and be your loving friend. She can talk to you, listen to you and feel your touch.