I read about Ms Dewey on Terry Gold's blog. You've *got to* check out this nifty interface for Microsoft's Live Search. It was developed by EVB, whose other projects include this also-must-see gallery of Mini Cooper roof graphics.
But while the site is way cool, Ms Dewey just fetches the same search results you'd get at Live.com. If only she were as interactive as V-Girl from Artificial Life...
A friend forwarded me this New York Times article (PDF) in early 2005. A former professor of artificial intelligence and neural networks, it said, has combined computerized voice synthesis, streaming video and text messaging technologies to create "Vivienne", a 3D virtual girlfriend whom you interact with through your 3G mobile phone. She speaks 6 languages and is able to converse on 35,000 different topics, "from philosophy to movies to sculpture". She is particularly interested in banking, as Artificial Life tweaked and reused 70,000 sets of questions and answers that it developed for a Swiss bank's knowledge base. Her attention and affection cost $6/month, but the price doesn't include airtime - or the virtual flowers and chocolates she expects to receive from time to time.
Vivienne has since been replaced with a team of 5 V-Girls. They laugh, cry, flirt and argue - but keep your hands to yourself... According to their FAQ, they'll offer companionship, advice and even commitment, but sex is absolutely out of the question. Artificial Life also offers V-Boys and V-Penguins. The characters converse with customers by querying an "expert system" (some kind of natural language knowledge base software similar to what ATG has, maybe?) running on the company's servers.
So - imagine if you combined Artificial Life's expert system with Collarity's social search capability? Instead of inputting search keywords in a mobile browser, you could just make a quick call to your virtual friend. He/she/it could instantly give you relevant results filtered by your past conversations, your mobile and desktop search history, and behavior data from "people like you"... If Terry and I both found Ms Dewey riveting, V-Girl Search might consume every bit of everyone's attention.
Comments