NVIDIA Goes Virtual Assistants

To me an unexpected direction.   Apparently a prototype early access effort for partners.   

Develop Intelligent Virtual Assistants with NVIDIA Omniverse ACE Early Access

By Stephanie Rubenstein and Alex Qi    NVIDIA

NVIDIA just announced at CES 2023 that early access is now available for NVIDIA Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE). Developers and teams building avatars and virtual assistants can register to join the program, which includes access to the Omniverse ACE suite of cloud-native AI microservices for faster, easier development of interactive avatars.

Early partners include Ready Player Me, whose avatar was showcased in the CES demo. With this early access program, NVIDIA is looking for developers and partners to provide feedback on the microservices, collaborate on product improvement, and help push the limits of what’s possible with lifelike, interactive, digital humans. Applicants are reviewed and approved on a rolling basis as the program continues to expand.   .... ' 

What is the Omniverse ACE early access program?

Methods for developing avatars often require expertise, specialized equipment, and manually intensive workflows.

To ease avatar creation, Omniverse ACE enables the seamless integration of NVIDIA AI technologies—including pre-built models, tool sets, and domain-specific reference applications. The available avatar applications are built on most engines and deployed on public or private clouds.

Towards Communal Computing

 Good thoughts, having now been involved in many smart home setups and updates,  the direction needs to be much broader.   And these adaptations also need to learned over time.  This article presents the model needs, but not the actual solution. 

Communal Computing    in O'Reilly Radar

How do we build devices that are shared by default?  By Chris Butler

Home assistants and smart displays are being sold in record numbers, but they are built wrong. They are designed with one person in mind: the owner. These technologies need to fit into the communal spaces where they are placed, like homes and offices. If they don’t fit, they will be unplugged and put away due to lack of trust.

The problems are subtle at first. Your Spotify playlist starts to have recommendations for songs you don’t like. You might see a photo you took on someone else’s digital frame. An Apple TV reminds you of a new episode of a show your partner watches. Guests are asking you to turn on your IoT-enabled lights for them. The wrong person’s name shows up in the Zoom call. Reminders for medication aren’t heard by the person taking the medication. Bank account balances are announced during a gathering of friends.

Would you want your bank account balances announced during a dinner party?

This is the start of a series discussing the design of communal devices–devices designed to work in communal spaces. The series is a call to action for everyone developing communal devices–whether you are creating business cases, designing experiences, or building technology–to take a step back and consider what is really needed.

This first article discusses what communal devices are, and how problems that appear result from our assumptions about how they’re used. Those assumptions were inherited from the world of PCs: the rules that apply to your laptop or your iPad just don’t apply to home assistants and other “smart devices,” from light bulbs to refrigerators.  It isn’t just adding the ability for people to switch accounts. We need a new paradigm for the future of technical infrastructure for our homes and offices. In this series of articles we will tell you how we got here, why it is problematic, and where to go to enable communal computing.

The Wrong Model

Problems with communal devices arise because the industry has focused on a specific model for how these devices are used: a single person buys, sets up, and uses the device. If you bought one of these devices (for example, a smart speaker) recently, how many other people in your household did you involve in setting it up?  ... " 

Amazon Assistant to Roll on 700K Ford Vehicles

Pretty impressive rollout here.   Like to see additional novel uses as well.   My own Echo Auto continues to run well. 

Amazon’s Alexa Gets Biggest Auto Rollout in Six-Year Ford Deal By Matt Day in Bloomberg

 Digital assistant will be on 700,000 cars and trucks this year, Companies will collaborate on tools for commercial fleets

Amazon.com Inc. is deepening its ties with Ford Motor Co. in a deal that will integrate Alexa into the entertainment system of F-150 trucks and other models.

Amazon’s digital assistant will roll out to about 700,000 Ford vehicles this year, including new and recent models of the pickup, as well as the Bronco and the electric Mustang Mach-E in the U.S. and Canada. New and existing vehicles powered by Ford’s SYNC-4 in-car software will also offer drivers the option of invoking Alexa hands-free.   ... " 

Home Robots that Hug You

With some connections to other 'family' home robots, that claim to be family friendly.   By taking it further to the tactile level.  We examined work going in in Japan that aimed to take this to eldercare applications.  With assistant style voice systems we can imagine warmth and friendliness,  now can we take that further?  On to the hug ..    And we note that the Kuri is no longer, and though family friendly made no claim to 'hug'.  ...

Home Robots that Hug You in DigitalTrends

Forget Roomba, your most important house robot could be the one that hugs you    By Luke Dormehl

Sure, so Alexa can play you the right song at the right time, and Google’s Duplex tech means you never need to phone up and book a restaurant again, but our relationship with machines still has the non-tactile frigidity of an unhappy marriage. However, that could all change thanks to work coming out of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany. Researchers there have been developing a robot that is designed for giving you a hug. And, far from an amusing gimmick, they are convinced that it’s really important.

“A robot hugging a person is a good idea because people may crave the benefits that come from a hug at a time when they can’t get a hug from a person, due to factors such as distance, timing, and health,” Alexis Block, one of the lead researchers on the HuggieBot project, told Digital Trends. “We think a hugging robot could be beneficial in this case because a person can get the support they need without feeling self-conscious.”    ... '

Assistants for Your Job

Is What I call figuring out what the nature of assistance is.   Varies also in different industries.  And once it ascends to doing the job ....

AI might give you a personal assistant instead of taking your job
Karl Redenbach, Cofounder and CEO, LiveTiles

With the advent of artificial intelligence, assistants should no longer be a luxury confined to executives. We already have AI helpers in our personal lives, such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, but now is the time to take this to the workplace.

Despite advancements in technology that promise to help us leave the office closer to 5pm, we’ve arguably never been busier—and more in need of some assistance. While hiring a human personal assistant for every staff member would be a logistical and financial nightmare, everyone could have their own personal AI assistant. With the ability to automate time-consuming tasks and focus more on revenue-raising work, the productivity benefits could significantly change how we operate and how businesses scale.

The trick though will be how to build an assistant that works for you rather than you working for it. There’s no one-size fits-all in the workplace, and any company that claims to have built an AI to complete multiple types of tasks will ultimately be useless at all of them. Instead, there are a lot of single-purpose products built to help people get through their work days: x.ai can schedule your meetings, Lucy can help you with market research, and Restless Bandit automates the candidate-screening process and even reaches out to qualified people for vacant positions. ... " 

Capital One Rethinking Banking: Multimodal Skills

A useful example of multimodal assistance development. Voice plus visual.   Following with another example of skill in this space.

Session recording now available! How Capital One Rethought Multimodal Voice Experiences and Brought Banking to the Kitchen with Echo Show (and the Echo Spot)   #AmazonEcho #Alexadev #IoT #VoiceDesign #AWS #reinvent2017    By Dave Isbitski  @theDavedev

Kuri Update and Future

The updated newsletter for the Kuri home robot includes extensive new information.  Very nicely presented. The system is now scheduled for shipment this month.  It costs $799 plus shipping and handling.   Expensive.  Still have not seen any extensive operational tests written about. 

The idea of having an attentive,  crawling device with camera and a voice of sorts,  that can learn your home and play with the kids and pets, is fascinating.  Emphasizes the mobile picture-seeking and taking capability.   Assume it would have at least the minimal conversational intelligence of assistant devices.     It uses a 'beep' language code to signal.  Will it ultimately allow skill apps to be written for it?   Not now.

Can it replace the far less expensive and now common stationary devices like the Echo or Home?  Is the movement very useful, or will it just get in the way?  It does not seem to be able to fetch or carry things.  Is voice + movement  enough to engage?  What do we expect from a home robot?  Is movement without robot hands or skills useful?    Is friendliness, which they push in their newsletter,  worth the high price?  Revealed that it uses an IOS 10+ App only to run, which is still not yet available. Newsletter includes a more extensive FAQ.  Look forward to seeing more operational tests.

AVA Does Customer Service

As part of a look and conversation regarding conversational agents for both engagement, loyalty and enhanced customer service for Autodesk.  Does such a solution have to look like a human?   Note below Watson services are being tested to model customer sentiment.   Videos at the link.  Thanks to Walter Riker. 

This Chatbot Is Trying Hard To Look And Feel Like Us    In FastCompany

Modeled on a real person and equipped with a virtual “nervous system,” Autodesk’s AVA is built to be a font of empathy, no matter how mean a customer gets.without the nicotine/content.
Among the attributes credited for Apple’s famous customer loyalty is a network of stores where curious or frustrated consumers can meet the company face-to-face.

The 3D design software maker Autodesk is trying to achieve something similar online with a help service that allows people to interact with what sure looks like an actual human. The company says that next year it will introduce a new version of its Autodesk Virtual Agent (AVA) avatar, with an exceedingly lifelike face, voice, and set of “emotions” provided by a New Zealand AI and effects startup called Soul Machines. Born in February as a roughly sketched avatar on a chat interface, AVA’s CGI makeover will turn her into a hyper-detailed, 3D-rendered character–what Soul Machines calls a digital human. ... " 

Building Branded Voice Experiences

Building Branded Voice Experiences  In Adage.

In 2017, more than 24.5 million voice-based devices will be sKnow   By Dan Cripe.  In Adage.
hipped to consumers -- effectively quadrupling from just 6.5 million in 2016. And as adoption continues to explode, the technology itself will continue to evolve and grow more advanced.

For advertisers, this is a huge opportunity. Voice-assistant technology unlocks a new form of "always-on" interaction between consumers and their favorite brands. It opens up an instant, hands-free and frictionless dialogue right in your own home, without having to keep a mobile device constantly at your side. As this technology becomes ubiquitous, brands will try to monetize their audiences through "voice-native" ad experiences.

But as with any new and emerging marketing channel, meeting the opportunity is easier said than done. .... " 

(Update) YouTube Back on Amazon Show

A surprise to me,  interesting details in the article.  Will be taking a look on our smart home Amazon Show.

YouTube is back on Amazon’s Echo Show
Along with added support for Vimeo and Dailymotion

by Chaim Gartenberg @cgartenberg on TheVerge

YouTube has returned to the Amazon Echo Show nearly two months after a Google and Amazon dispute saw the internet search giant pull support for its popular video service from Amazon’s hardware, according to a report from VoiceBot.ai.

Along with the return of YouTube, Amazon is also expanding video services on the Echo Show as well, with the company launching support forVimeo and Dailymotion. In a statement to The Verge, an Amazon spokesperson commented that “We’re excited to offer customers the capability to watch even more video content from sources such as Vimeo, YouTube, and Dailymotion on Echo Show. More video sources will be added over time.  .... " 

(Update)  There were early reports that the YouTube screen would only display in a 'ugly web wrapper'.  But to address this the wrapper can be removed using the voice command:  'Alexa Zoom In'.   Have not yet tried Vimeo and Dailymotion ....

Show does need more skills that utilize images and video ...

Lowes and Macy's Want to Help with the Smart Home

More retailers join into the outfitting of the smart home.

Lowe’s and Macy’s join rivals chasing smart home opportunity

by Tom Ryan   and Expert Comments in Retalwire

"Retailers have a finite period of time to convince customers that they are the destination for smart home devices."   -  Joan Treistman

Move over Best Buy and Amazon.com, Lowe’s and Macy’s want to also help consumers transform their homes with the Internet of Things (IoT).

Last week, Lowe’s announced it is opening 70 in-store shops dedicated to helping consumers discover and buy smart home devices.

The rollout follows the successful pilot of SmartSpot shops in three Lowe’s locations last fall operated by b8ta. The collaboration with the software retailer will continue. Described as “retail-as-a-service,” b8ta’s model relies on manufacturers paying a monthly subscription fee to be in the store.... " 

Alexa as the End of Smartphones?

Had never thought of it quite this way. overall a big challenge.  Mobile is still convenience.  Also not enough about the attentiveness of such systems.  Voice/conversation in intelligent dialog is still crude.

For Amazon, The Future Of Alexa Is About The End Of The Smartphone Era
With touch-screen devices like the Echo Show and Echo Spot, Amazon is trying to upend a decade of smartphones, notifications, and apps.    By Jared Newman in FastCOMpany

Picture a hypothetical future in which Amazon’s Alexa renders your smartphone unnecessary.

You tap the “good morning” button on your bedside Echo Spot, and it displays the day’s forecast as the blinds open and the bedroom lights fade on. Downstairs, the Echo Show in the kitchen displays a reminder about your doctor’s appointment at noon, and alerts you to a single urgent email: You’ll have to join a conference call as soon as you get into the office.

In the car, you press the “commute” button on the Alexa-enabled dashboard, which queues up your favorite music while steering you around a traffic jam, and after work, Alexa relays another reminder to your car, telling you to grab milk on the way back. At home, you swipe through a list of restaurants on the Echo Show to make a reservation for the weekend, check in on your folks via video chat, and finally sit down to relax. With one more buttonpress, the next episode of your favorite show starts playing on the Fire TV in the living room.

Far-fetched as it seems, this is the kind of scenario Amazon wants to create as its Alexa assistant migrates from smart speakers to touch screens. Instead of making users wade through a sea of apps to get things done, the goal is to create a new kind of computing that’s simpler and less distracting. And while voice will be the foundation, there may be plenty of times where you use Alexa without speaking at all.   

“The tenet that we believe in is that voice is a simplifier,” says Miriam Daniel, Amazon’s head of product management for Alexa. “And once you design voice actions, then go back to a touch action, you’ve actually removed a lot of friction because you’ve started at a different baseline.” .... ' 

Mentors, Mentees, Assistants

Perhaps obvious, but reasonable statement of the needs.  In the HBR.
Can a virtual assistant be a mentee?  We examined.  In the short term, no, the information exchange can be subtle, but longer term it can present structure for basic knowledge. 

 What Mentors Wish Their Mentees Knew
Vineet Chopra, MD, Sanjay Saint, MD

" ... The mentor-mentee relationship is a tango between a more senior person and a junior one. Just as in dance, coordination and orchestration between parties is necessary for grace and success. And while we and others have written about what makes the ideal mentor, comparatively less has attention has been given to the other partner. This gap is unfortunate because, like mentorship, menteeship requires specific behaviors — without which the mentee’s success may be threatened. In this article, we outline five habits of ideal mentees and provide anecdotes and views from our combined years of academic experience. While we focus on the relationship in academic medicine, the takeaways apply to most any field.  ... " 

Shopping Best Buy with Alexa

The rush for voice shopping continues to expand.   The capability of the supply chain will likely make the difference.  And the penetration of the infrastructure that provides the best voice experience for the type of goods involved.

Alexa will help you order gadgets and gear from Best Buy
Shop the big box store from home with a simple voice command 
Rob LeFebvre, @roblef in Engadget.

In an odd turn for retail cooperation, Best Buy is now available on Alexa, Amazon's voice-powered digital assistant. Starting today, you can learn about and order Best Buy's Deal of the Day sales just by saying, "Alexa, talk to Best Buy." Sure, it seems odd to have a competing service on Amazon's own devices, but as the blog post from Best Buy points out, the big box store has been selling Amazon Alexa devices in a special section in about 700 of its stores earlier this year. .... "

Popular Mechanic's Take on AI

 Popular Mechanics (founded 1902), read this magazine years ago, it is where I heard of predictions of completely automatic butler robots.  Available very soon.  Well that has yet to happen.   My Echo and Home do play music, open and close the garage door.   But no Butler skills.   Here is their current take on the state of AI.    Non Technical.   Seems like a much more sober take.   But can we trust it better today than I could back then?

Cortana Home Assistant Review

Extensive look at the just released Invoke Cortana home system to compete with the Alexa and Google Home examples,  I have tested Cortana in a business environment since its release.  Still waiting for some useful examples., even obvious examples for Windows help seem weak.  I would have expected some attentive assistance as well, are they still running shy of the paperclip failure?

Also interesting there is no indication of its reported alliance with Alexa.  Following.  Some have suggested that Alexa could deal with the home side, and Invoke the business.  But it looks here that Invoke is taking the existing successful assistant approach, emphasizing music delivery.  The Invoke system can make calls, and is connected to Microsoft's Skype.

Harman Kardon Invoke review: Cortana isn’t too comfortable in the home yet    Microsoft needs to do some tweaking to make Cortana a better at-home assistant.

By Valentina Palladino in Ars Technica ...

First Review of MS Invoke Assistant

Well hardly a full service Butler, but we know that they mean.  Play music, order things and turn on the lights with your voice.  Breaking the existing infrastructures will tough without a real killer functionality, and I don't see mixing drinks emerging.   Smoother voice intelligence would be good.  Cost less than I was expecting, and I was already expecting better audio quality.    Have used Cortana from time to time under Windows,  and was never very impressed, but lets see what she does as part of a smart home.   Again I note that Harman-Kardon is part of Samsung, so lets see that than may imply longer term.

Review: What It's Like to Have Microsoft's Virtual Butler in Your Living Room  By Lisa Eadicicco in Time

Microsoft is out to prove that Amazon's Alexa and the Google Assistant aren't the only virtual concierges worth inviting into your home. After first teasing its Cortana-powered speaker last December, Harman Kardon's Invoke will finally launch on October 22 for $199. With Microsoft's Cortana butler built-in, the Invoke can recite the weather, control smart home devices and more, just like its Amazon and Google rivals.

Invoke's arrival along with similar high-end devices also marks a turning point for intelligent speakers. Potential buyers no longer need choose between high quality audio and having a smart assistant they can summon by voice. Early Internet-connected speakers, such as the first generation Echo and Google Home, provided good enough sound for casual listening. But audiophiles still turned to premium dedicated speakers to get superior sound. .... " 

China IQ Test for Assistants?

Am somewhat skeptical about such tests, its not raw 'IQ" , but rather how well a system provides value in context.  Still it will be interesting to see how such a system could be a starting point for assistance systems.  Aiming to take a look at this.   Measures are always important, but in specific useful contexts.

Now There's an IQ Test for Siri and Friends 
Technology Review   October 13, 2017

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing have developed an intelligence test that both machines and humans can take, and used it to rank intelligent assistants such as Google Assistant and Siri on the same scale used for humans. The test is based on the "standard intelligence model," in which systems must have a way of obtaining data from the outside world. They must be able to transform the data into a form they can process, they must be able to use this knowledge in an innovative way, and they must feed the resulting knowledge back into the outside world. The researchers found that even a six-year-old human outperforms the most advanced digital assistant, which according to this test is Google Assistant. However, machine intelligence is rapidly improving. In 2014, Google Assistant scored 26.4 on this test, compared with a score of 47.28 in the most recent test.  .... "

Seeking Voice Assistants in the Workplace

Now been involved in a number of brainstorm meetings addressing now virtual assistants can be used in the workplace.  Especially how voice can be used without disrupting a typical workplace.    Makes sense to use these for mundane topics.   Handsfree and non disruptive.   Probably with chatbot like feedback on alternatives.   Contact to talk this with me.  Here the first general example I have seen suggested:

In ComputerWeekly:
" ... Within the next three years, workers will be using Alexa-style devices to book time off, update their addresses, and file their expenses.

Voice recognition, powered by intelligent software bots, will take off as companies look to make their IT systems easier for employees to use, according to a specialist on the future of work. ... " 

Russian Voice Assistant

Russian Voice Assistant Alice Sounds as Natural as Developer Yandex Claims   By Brenda Stolyar in Digital Trend

It’s sometimes tough to remember the days when we didn’t have the convenience of a voice assistant. Whether it’s through your smartphone or a home device, it’s as though a new one is popping up everyday. In the U.S., this type of technology is always available for us in the English language, while that’s not always the case for other countries. This week, we have an international app that takes the concept of voice assistants and create its own.

Yandex — available for iOS and Android — is particularly known as a Russian search engine. Since it’s been around for quite some time, Yandex has also branched out into language translation, a real-time bidding platform, and antivirus software. Most recently, it also introduced its own voice assistant, Alice, and integrated the new feature into the Yandex app. While the app can be downloaded in Ukrainian and Turkish as well, Alice can only speak Russian at the moment.  .... "