Expect Labs Launches MindMeld Intelligent Conversation Assistant

Expect Labs, a San Francisco startup, has released the MindMeld intelligent conversation assistant app for Apple's iPad.

MindMeld works to continuously listen to and understand conversations and proactively find related information in real time. The app works with a single user or in a conversational setting with up to eight people at once.

MindMeld represents the first publicly available application built using Expect Labs' anticipatory computing platform. It is a new type of intelligent assistant that can be used to search and discover content using just voice and touch. As users talk, MindMeld listens, understands, and automatically finds relevant content from their social graphs or across the Web, with sites such as Yahoo!, Google, Yelp, YouTube, and dozens of others. Nuance Communications provides the voice recognition technology for the app, which can be activated by saying "OK MindMeld" or by pushing a button on the iPad.

"We're making it easier for users to find information, especially on devices without keyboards," explains Tim Tuttle, CEO and founder of Expect Labs. "MindMeld listens to what you're saying, understands it, finds information related to it, and shows it to you without you having to go out and look for it."

Originally, the app was designed to be always listening, but the current version needs to be powered up before running in the background, according to Tuttle.

Key features of MindMeld include the following:

• Continuous conversation analysis: MindMeld analyzes conversations as they are happening and displays the key concepts it understands in real time.
• Proactive content discovery: MindMeld automatically identifies and displays pictures, videos, articles, and Web pages that are directly relevant to the conversation.
• Touch-driven sharing and collaboration: MindMeld lets users share with everyone in the conversation using drag-and-drop gestures.
• Integrated voice conferencing: MindMeld enables high-quality voice conferencing with up to eight people at a time.
• One-touch summarization: MindMeld can summarize key concepts from the past few minutes of a group conversation with just a single touch.

MindMeld has been in limited beta release with Expect Labs' partners and customers for the past eight months.  The app is currently free for a limited amount of traffic, but Tuttle didn't rule out charging for the service for high-volume users.

In the coming months, Expect Labs also intends to release versions of MindMeld for the iPhone and for Android smartphones and tablets.