Novauris and Existor Develop a New Generation of Human-Machine Spoken Interaction

Core automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology provider Novauris Technologies has teamed up with Existor to create a new generation of human-machine interaction.

The companies said they will combine their expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, and automatic speech recognition (ASR) to create mobile and wireless applications that allow people to interact conversationally. The technology will be used with smartphones, computers, cars, refrigerators, TVs, toys, or any device equipped with a suitable embedded processor.

"Novauris is recognized for its ability to provide rapid and accurate spoken access to large sets of data, such as millions of addresses or music items," said Melvyn Hunt, co-founder and president of Novauris Technologies, in a statement. "The collaboration with Existor, however, opens up a whole new range of new applications, such as interactive FAQs and personal-assistant functions, all running entirely locally. We are particularly impressed with Existor's ability to sustain extended conversational interactions using software running on a mobile platform, with or without an Internet connection."

Existor is known for its Cleverbot chatbot, which is capable of sustaining conversations in a human-like manner. Previously, it has resided on a server and has accepted text inputs. The company has now developed an embedded version of its software, which meshes well with Novauris's large-vocabulary embedded ASR to allow spoken conversations. The first product of the collaboration will be a series of speech-driven chatbot apps, a.k.a. CleverApps, which run on smartphones without the need for network access. The fully embedded solutions avoid the delays and costs introduced by network transmissions, and will also function when no network signal is available, according to the companies.

"We're excited to work in partnership with Novauris to deeply integrate our dialogue technology with their uniquely powerful embedded ASR capabilities,” said Keith Harrison, managing director of Existor, in a statement. “We may eventually be able not only to understand spoken human interactions, but also to recognize the emotional state of the person using Clever Apps and respond accordingly."