In the Heart of Silicon Valley


Amazon and Leading Technology Companies Announce the Voice Interoperability Initiative

Amazon, Baidu, BMW, Cerence, ecobee, Microsoft, Orange, Salesforce, SFR, Sonos, Spotify, Sound United, Tencent, Verizon and more to promote customer choice by supporting multiple, interoperable voice services on a single device. With multiple, simultaneous wake words, customers can access multiple voice services by simply saying the corresponding wake word – from Alexa and Cortana to Orange’s Djingo, Salesforce’s Einstein, and more. Solutions providers like Intel, MediaTek, NXP and Qualcomm to develop hardware and reference solutions that support multiple wake word engines.


AVIOS Conference Helps Businesses Make a Tighter Connection to Customers and Employees

The Conversational Interaction Conference digs deep into this key trend.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (PRWEB) September 04, 2019

The fourth Conversational Interaction Conference will be held in San Jose, California, February 10-11, 2020. The conference explores the major AI trend of conversing with computers in human language through text or voice and analyzing unstructured voice or text databases.


Speech Understanding: The Next Leap in Speech Recognition

Deep learning and the data that feeds it will drive speech tech’s commercial use

Early attempts to commercialize speech recognition technology were limited by the state of that technology. One typically had to find an application where hands- or eyes-free control of a system was required, and the actions controlled were restricted to a small vocabulary. One early application that found limited success directed a headset-wearing worker to a particular bin to pick up an order, with the worker saying things like “out of stock” or “next.”



Conversational Interaction 2019 creates conversation!

Attendees comment on the March 2019 Show:

I thought the conference was very well organized and the content was extremely informative. I liked the balance between larger research organizations (e.g. IBM, google, Amazon, Intel) and small companies. Many good examples of chatbots and converstional UI already in use. Good coverage of a wide range of applications, from social-public service to commercial, agricultural, and so on. Several enterprise-type chatbots for us from Oracle to consider. Great perspectives from Bill and the various NLU and technical people on what works, what the trends are. Very interesting additional information on internationalization, hearing of the digital assistants, and other factors that can make or break your implementation. I went to about 30 presentations over the two days. It's very convenient to have the meals right there so you don't waste time going out. I met a number of people I will be following up with.


What is a conversation?

Conversation: A major trend in the evolution of the user interface


Arguably, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) drove the growth of personal computers by making their use more intuitive. Today, the basics of the WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Menu, and Pointing device) have transitioned beyond the PC to many other devices and channels—smartphones and web sites being prime examples.

But the GUI is getting overburdened and less intuitive as it supports an increasing number of features and devices, with problems such as complex and long menus and the need to navigate many pages—each with too many choices—to accomplish a task. The problem is compounded when the interaction is on the small screens of mobile devices and the pointing device is a finger.


The goal of the Conversational User Interface (CUI) is to transform this complexity into simply “say or type what you want.” Conversational interaction can be essentially the same irrespective of device or application, creating a uniform experience across devices. The conversation is sometimes conducted through a “digital assistant” or a “virtual agent” that may even exhibit an engaging personality. Home speakers and some automotive systems have shown that flexible interaction with digital systems by voice is possible even when a screen isn’t used.