SUNNYVALE, Calif.-General Magic Inc. introduced MagicTalk, the intelligent voice user interface platform for its integrated voice and data network, code named “Serengeti.”
Based on a distributed VUI (voice user interface) model, MagicTalk is the foundation technology for Serengeti-a second-generation virtual assistant designed to provide users access to e-mail, voice mail, address book, news, stock quotes and other information using a voice-based interface.
MagicTalk “will act as `the voice of the network’ much like a graphical user interface acts as the `face’ of the personal computer,” explained Steve Markman, chairman, president and chief executive of General Magic.
“The distributed VUI would allow users to gain all the benefits of human interaction using the simplest devices, like a [personal digital assistant] or even a watch,” said Markman.
The new platform uses social, content and technical intelligence, said General Magic. Social intelligence is the personality of MagicTalk that lets the user interact comfortably with the system; content intelligence is the product’s rules and filters that recognize and sort information received by the various communications sources on the platform; and technical intelligence allows the system to be “dynamically extensible,” and able to recognize new content.
Serengeti is scheduled to be commercially available the middle of this year.
