http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/living/creativity-improvisation-intelligence-heather-knight/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

About a person’s research into robotics and conversational improvisation.

It’s a tricky subject.

The quote in the story that really popped was:

“I think that robotics has a tremendous amount to work with from theater,” she said, her speech alternately full of girlish enthusiasm and steady with technical detail. Theater, she adds, is focused explicitly on character interactions — and her research is engaged in how to help robots “read” people and vice versa.”

Now, she is absolutely looking in the right direction (in our opinion), but, where we differ is that the contentAI platform is equally focused on the “audience” within the theater (or cinema, which is an easier analogy).  The audience (i.e. “end user experience”) within a dramatic/narrative can, and expects to, undergo a certain level of “suspension of disbelief.”

When you factor that into the equation, fast tracking conversational AI, including what “passes” for improvisation, becomes achievable in a different form.

But, for the End User, it’s about satisfying them…it’s about engaging them emotionally…it’s about them wanting more.

“So, you’re walking down the cereal aisle in the grocery and you want to have a conversation with Captain Crunch?”

That line has been repeated dozens of times — It’s a quick image that’s easy to grasp.

But, sometimes people thought we were just using it as a humorous example…more of a metaphor, than reality.

In fact, we were dead-serious.

Turns out, the CMO of General Mills is too:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/talkingtech/story/2012-01-31/general-mills-tech/52906314/1

In the USA Today article entitled:

General Mills spoons up digital fun on cereal boxes

Cool.  We’re there.  We believe.

And, well, it’s nice to hear someone else say it.

Though, I think we’d need to change the details to “chat with the Leprechaun on Lucky Charms” and delete the Captain Crunch reference.

27 JANUARY 2012

contentAI studios | Portland, OR | http://contentAI.com

True Story:  Once upon a time, a major motion picture Studio had one person assigned to traveling to their global offices to see if the films in development or production had any World Wide Web needs or if there might be any cross promotion potential?  The Distribution, Production and Development executives all said, “no.”

Which happened to be at a time when we were tapping into an online (remember Compuserve!) fan base for a series of novels that were being developed for a motion picture property (which we’d already licensed Electronic Game and merchandising Rights to) – The absolute hub of our activity was our Property’s URL and it’s Forums.  For us, all of the pieces fit together into one large User experience to dip in and out of from various locations.  The term “transmedia” hadn’t been invented.  We didn’t know what we were doing, other than knowing that the Whole Enchilada was a lot cooler than the individual ingredients.

Fast Forward +/- 15 years into the Future.  Today.  OK, technically  a couple of weeks ago at CES in Las Vegas.

The most exciting space for us was the INTEL® booth – OK, “booth” is used loosely, it was the INTEL Command Center at CES.

Featured were INTEL’s “trees” that we saw set up around the Command Center at their disconnected workstations.  Typically, it was different divisions and technologies and their team members focused on their silo of interest, including:

•  Ultrabooks– OK, we love them.  We use them for coding and building our apps (picked up an Asus U21 the first day it shipped)

• AppUP – Desktop apps for Windows machines; with an amazing team working behind the scenes to make the process rapid and enjoyable (See:  Encapsulator).  What an amazing platform and reach – Whether for Enterprise or for Education – Or, for home…(more on that in a minute)

• WiDi – Huh?  Wireless HDMI to bridge between the devices on your couch and your big screen

• Ultrabooks & Nuance Deal:  Lost in the press releases was a remarkable partnership announcement to advance speech recognition on Ultrabooks (yes, that Nuance, the one that really does a lot of the heavy lifting for SIRI).  No mention of this on the floor.

• Smart TV: Formerly the Digital Home Group, the device(s) to bridge from big screen to on-the-couch interface continue to expand.  While we saw competitors such as Panasonic (Vierra) and others all migrating to the “television app store” experience, the INTEL group, when coupled with other offerings within INTEL is what creates the groundwork to cohesively extend television to handheld devices.

• INTEL Embedded / Retail (though their presence at the Retail’s Big  Show the following week is what we were sorry to miss; Nice article HERE):  Update: Now found @IntelSys,  Intelligent Systems

You see, we at contentAI studios are really “content people.”  We’re storytellers.  We’ve worked on motion pictures, television, internet television and interactive television…oh, and mobile experiences.

Why is INTEL® massively exciting for us?

Because the “future” we thought was 2-5 years away is already here today.  If you just connect the dots.   If you envision how those silos all interconnect at a content experience level. ..

Our contentAI studios platform was originally created to produce emotionally engaging, personalized interactive experiences with film and television characters on hand held devices.

It looks like this:

That’s the image that’s been in our PowerPoint® deck for about a year.  It was a vision of our “Gen 4” UI.  It was science fiction.

But, looking at INTEL during CES, we realized this could exist now.  We can deliver this experience today.

The idea that the Audience can engage in one-to-one, personalized “conversations” (text or voice) with a character on television (Pause the linear show and engage in a one-to-one chat); where the consumer discovers new and alternate storylines…where Brands have all new interactive real estate (in someone’s hand).  All possible.  Now.  Today. #wayCool

When we looked around at INTEL’s “trees” at CES, we saw the forest.

We feel that in order to make this truly exciting, the content that is offered needs to be more than games or fancy new, intuitive cable menus.  The content needs to connect on an emotional level.   After all, “television” was always a storytelling device in our homes.  Tapping into that engagement level is what will both sell devices and also satisfy the new interactive audience.

And, what about the opportunities for retail solutions with these same tools?  Absolutely possible.

Where does will it start?

With the question:  Why doesn’t every Saturday morning cartoon allow kids to directly engage with the characters via a conversational interface?

We know the issues from the Television production side.  Someone needs to slap the Unions on the upside of their head so they don’t prohibit Writers and Actors from participating in these new storytelling formats.  Union contracts need to be “living” documents that can be changed year-round to adapt to emerging technologies (rather than showing up 5 years late to the party).  But, that’s another blog post…for another day…

But, the “forest” is much wider and deeper than Saturday morning television – with the contentAI studios’ platform solutions alone, we see ESL schools in China using these tools to improve conversational English.  We see in-store Retail “intelligence” also being delightful and intuitive. . .and more. . .because there’s always more. . .

So, now we need to figure out how to tie the pieces together as a Developer.  Heck, I can’t even tell if my Ultrabook has WiDi?  Or, what device I need to make it so?  Or, if the Smart TV group have an App Store, or if they will be leveraging AppUP?

To navigate through the forest path at INTEL, we are fortunate to have a Senior Community Relations executive who can help steer us.  That kind of one-to-one relationship between INTEL and the Development Community is remarkable – We’ve been extremely impressed with their AppUP team since early 2010 and look forward to weaving our way through more branchs of INTEL in order to realize the potential, from a content Developer’s point-of-view, of their astounding technologies.

While HTML.5, Ultrabooks, WiDi and other technologies all link to one another, it’s the human component within INTEL® that serves as the Pandoran Neural Network…it’s humans that glue it all together…fortunately,  corporations have evolved in the past 15 years compared to  when different motion picture divisions ignored each other (especially digital divisions; and, um, Motion Pictures studios are now paying the price for such early ignorance).

Seeing INTEL’s forest, as an outside Developer, made the trip to Vegas worth every long line, worn out pair of shoes, over-priced everything and endless package of mints that were required for the trek.  For next year’s CES, seeing these devices all playing nicely together and creating all new content experiences is what we’re looking forward to and hope to be a part of.

#CES2012

Please CONTACT US if you’d like to meet during the show.

Hello 2012!

For direct access to the mobile URL:  http://m.MySantaTalk.com

For additional access, the main site has links out to the various platforms:  http://MySantaTalk.com

Looking forward to the New Year (Teaser:  our new UI is continuing to evolve with all new responsive/adaptive features…check back in January for updates)

Obviously, SIRI was the big one.  Lots of press and very slick ads.  Now, along comes MAJEL:  http://technomondo.com/2011/12/14/google-working-on-its-siri-competitor-codenamed-majel-for-android/

It’s really important to differentiate between a “generalist” which can access finite data sources and act on them (e.g. send an SMS, register an appointment in your calendar), and a “virtual brand agent” who has a specific “voice” (even if text based) and knowledge specific to the Brand as well as a personalized engagement with the User.

At contentAI, we don’t build “generalists.”   The “one bot to rule them all” just isn’t as interesting as building virtual characters who are unique to a Brand or user experience.

There’s plenty of room for many mobile virtual assistants and characters – But, there will never be, on our lifetime, one bot to rule them all.  We do find it interesting that much of the “pleasure” people derive from SIRI is that it has some level of “personality,” beyond data retrieval.  People enjoy personable virtual characters…2012 looks like a very busy year…

INTEL’S appUP (Windows 32 & 64)**
http://www.appup.com/applications/applications-My+Santa+Talk

The new UI developed by contentAI is featured with the mobile web and app versions.  Have a safe and happy Holiday.

Mobile Web URL:  http://m.mysantatalk.com

Android:  Marketplace or AppsGeyser

Windows 32 & 64:  INTEL AppUP

Text:  SANTA   To: 20757 (U.S. Only to receive URL via SMS)

Also available on most Android App Stores.  iPhone and iPad users please visit us on Mobile Web.

http://gigaom.com/2011/12/07/interactive-ebooks-take-on-fiction-novels/

While our interactive narrative is a unique branch of “interactive fiction,” seeing this as an emerging topic is terrific.

We are releasing the 2001 MySantaTalk mobile web (and some native app versions) tomorrow!

The URL:  http://m.MySantaTalk.com will redirect to the new app as soon as it’s “live.”

Our new UI is featured — While the UI is still undergoing upgrades and responsive design enhancements, this is a true Ver. 1.0 release as we move out of Beta.

We’re looking forward to the “App of the Week” status from our friends at INTEL’s AppUP…We’ll post links there next week too.

Have a wonderful and safe Holiday Season.

And, have a chat with Santa while you’re out and about, from your mobile!

Oh, right, yes, all of our web properties are undergoing a makeover the next few days…so, that’s our final year-end clean up…

See you at CES?

Nice article and fabulous screenshot (gee, shopGirl looks familiar in her new interface!), even if we weren’t specifically mentioned!

http://www.remodista.com/starting-a-conversation-with-mobile-customers-cloning-your-best-sales-staff-with-mobile-virtual-agents/

Yes, that’s a preview of the new UI…though, it’s evolved a bit since that prototype…