The Personality Factory™ System
Faster, cheaper computers with better graphics capabilities and more efficient Internet delivery allow for multimedia-rich environments that can free users from the limitations of the now-familiar Windows or Macintosh interface.
Talkie's Personality Factory™ system creates a Conversational Character Interface™ where animated characters interact by speaking with computer users, allowing them to perform computer tasks more intuitively. Talkie's core functional components work in concert to create the life-like conversational experience that Talkie characters provide:
- Conversational Strategies - templates for Talkie character behavior that predict situations and engage strategies like 'placating a customer' or 'selling;" and featuring different types of dialog, e.g. contextual, social, or transitional.
- Natural Language Understanding (NLU) - the AI system that allows computers to recognize, understand, and reply to ordinary conversational speech.
- Responder - the system that concatenates (assembles) audio clips to form the correct response, using either recorded voices or Text-to-Speech ("TTS") synthetic voices; builds a response file based on conversational strategies or goals, controls the visual and aural behavior of the Talkie character, and combines lip-synch, audio and gestures and mood data.
- Semantic Gestures - linked to Responder is a semantically based behavioral system enabling realistic non-verbal communication, using animation elements that are assembled by the computer to represent the correct expression, and based on a library of over 500 facial and body movements derived from behavioral psychology research.
- Jaz Character System - an animation system to create behavioral animations in Flash, allowing multiple characters to use common animated gestures, the simulation of a 3D environment within a 2D environment, and the capability of scaling performance to available bandwidth.
Additional Features
Multimedia Integration. Like live TV presenters, Talkie characters can use background graphics called ShowScreens™ to display additional information, whether in text or bullet-point format, interactive fill-in forms, animation, video - even interactive 2D or 3D objects.
Backend Integration. Talkie characters can communicate with dynamic databases and CRM systems (e.g. Siebel, Primus etc.) using existing integration protocols, e.g. XML, CGI, Perl or other scripting protocols, allowing Talkie characters to respond to user queries with real time, live data.
Knowledge Base Updating. Talkie characters can be updated by non-technical personnel on a regular basis to reflect changes in their relevant knowledge bases, or to improve the effectiveness of their conversational strategies.
Reporting. Talkie report options can be customized to deliver a wide variety of real-time customer relationship feedback to management, including the number of inquiries and users, the topics and issues of user inquiries, the speed at which the interactions were handled, and the level of user satisfaction with the interactions.
Authoring Interface
Talkie is developing a turnkey multimedia software authoring system that will allow writers, executives, designers and others to create Talkie characters from scratch with no programming required. The Company plans to launch the first release version of this software development kit in Q3 2002.
Speech Input
The Personality Factory system is compatible with Automatic Speech Recognition ("ASR") systems.
Additional Platforms
Talkie technology can be extended to other hardware platforms, including Wireless/Personal Devices, Kiosks and IVR.
Patentable Proprietary Technology
- MoodOrgan (patent filed) - the emotional system that allows Talkie characters to display fluctuating, human-like moods based on pre-configured triggers activated by user conversation and employing variable volatility settings.
- Squint - the statistical Natural Language system that encodes lexical and syntactic patterns present in a sentence, and derives meaning from ordinary human speech (Extensive "corpus," or body of knowledge, in the area of human procedures and personal biography)
- The Brain - the inference engine that uses BrainPlans to guide a conversation and apply expertise in a particular knowledge domain, including Procedural (guide a user through a subject or procedure), Disambiguation (ask directed questions to clarify ambiguous user input), and Artificial Stupidity (redirect conversations to the agenda at hand).
"Cranium" Hosting Platform
Talkie has developed a very efficient Intel-based BSD (Berkeley System Distribution UNIX) configuration that currently handles roughly 2000 simultaneous user interactions per server. This optimized configuration is the recommended platform and it is entirely deployed and managed by Talkie personnel. Talkie servers can also be configured on Windows NT/2000 and Linux.
Technology Partners
Talkie has entered into a partnership with Automatic Sync Technologies, which is providing the lip-synchronization technology used by Talkie characters.
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