Meet the PDA That Can Hold a Conversation
From: Sydney Morning Herald - 10/07/2003
By: Helene Zampetakis

University of New South Wales researchers Dr. Mohammed Waleed Kadous and
Professor Claude Sammut have developed a prototype personal digital assistant
(PDA) that features virtual agents - a male agent named Joshua and a female
agent named Amanda - that can schedule appointments, check the weather, read
email, and perform other functions via natural language technology called
Internet conversation agent (inCA). The voice of the PDA agents can be
switched from a robotic monotone to an Australian accent. "What we're trying
to do is have more unconstrained conversation," explains Sammut. InCA, which
was developed under the aegis of the Smart Internet Cooperative Research
Center, is also connected to touch-based communications, and will eventually
be capable of inferring the user's emotional state. Natural language
technology operates on several domains--the client, a PDA, and the server,
which harmonizes speech recognition, speech synthesis, and dialogue
management and features an artificial intelligence coordinator designed to
handle Internet data retrieval in real time. The technology employs speech
recognition technology and an 802.11b link. Kadous acknowledges that adoption
of the technology could be hindered by multiple standards, but his team is
proceeding with the development of more expansive market applications, such
as a PDA with a global positioning system connection for visually handicapped
users, and a handheld for emergency services workers. 

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/06/1065292519401.html
http://www.vhml.org/cgi-bin/HF2002/create_paper_page?kadous
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/db/staff/info/waleed.html
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~claude/
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/db/staff/info/claude.html