CURRENT ISSUE
May/June 2005
-
-
|
|

Cellular Squirrel

Cellular SquirrelWE HAVE A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR TELEPHONES: WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT THEM, BUT THEY ANNOY US TO NO END—ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY INTERRUPT US AT THE MOST INOPPORTUNE TIMES.

To address this dilemma, recent PhD recipient Stefan Marti, working with Chris Schmandt in the Lab’s Speech Interface group, has developed the Cellular Squirrel—an autonomous interactive intermediary to manage telephone interactions.

“Humans are experts in social interactions; devices are not,” says Marti. “But the squirrel can send out readable social cues, such as gaze and gesture, to alert in a subtle and non-annoying way—to give human-like social intelligence to our telephone agents.”

page 1 of 3