Advanced Technology Laboratories The Sprint Essistant: Interactive Services Through a Natural UI James Schumacher [email protected] January 2002 Sprint

Advanced Technology LaboratoriesAdvanced Technology Laboratories

The Sprint Essistant:The Sprint Essistant:Interactive Services Through a Natural UIInteractive Services Through a Natural UI

James [email protected]

January 2002

Sprint Advanced Technology LaboratoriesBurlingame, California


The Sprint EssistantThe Sprint Essistant

A federated system of loosely coupled services made cohesive through an innovative multi-modal interface. Leveraging such components as animated agents and Text to Speech engines, the Essistant enables the user to make a personalized connection to the services.


What is the Essistant?What is the Essistant?

Not the desktop Ubiquitous computing Smart House / Smart Space Pervasive Computing Speech & Transparent User Interfaces


LAN as ClientLAN as Client

Federated Services Backend Services feed the LAN LAN as intermediary LAN Services function autonomously


The LAN & ConnectivityThe LAN & Connectivity

“Broadband is five years away.” Long live narrowband (DSL & Cable) Down rates average ~400kb/s Leveraging “Always On” Fat Content Over Skinny Pipes Keep Data Flowing. Maximize the use of narrowband.


Fat Content over Skinny Pipes

Assumptions:• Typical broadband connectivity is 0.3 -1.5 Mbps.

• BW bottlenecked pipes not necessarily at the last mile.

• Multimedia content (mostly video) is emerging.

• High percentage of multimedia content is stored.

• Most of multimedia content is currently encoded/delivered at a constant bitrate.

• Broadcast quality content > 1.5Mbps

Can this content be sent over a slow pipe?


Fat Content over Skinny Pipes

LAN utilization of fat content:• Active Prefetched media• Video-on-demand• Purchase of multi-media (Music, DVDs, etc)• Rich media web sites pre-cached.


Services of the EssistantServices of the Essistant

Fat Content download manager Various content agents (news, traffic, etc) Room control (lights, thermostat, security) Entertainment system (set-top box, VCR) Chatter-bots (e.g ALICE) Robots


Essistant User InterfaceEssistant User Interface

Speech Recognition Animated Characters Text-to-Speech response Face recognition / Motion Detectors Other sensors (e.g thermostat, microphone)


Essistant SampleEssistant Sample


Enabling TechnologiesEnabling Technologies

Connectivity & Bandwidth Processing Power Speech Recognition Text-To-Speech Real-Time Animation Face Recognition Robots Artificial Intelligence


Enabling Technology: BandwidthEnabling Technology: Bandwidth

“Broadband is five years away” What to do with 100mb? Not just faster web pages Entertainment, Cable TV, VOD. Telephony and VoIP


Enabling Tech: Mobile BandwidthEnabling Tech: Mobile Bandwidth

Network is always with you Mobile, G3 connectivity Connectivity to home LAN from anywhere


Generic ArchitectureGeneric Architecture

Home User

Mobile User

User-Network

User-Network

User-Agent

User-AgentNet-Agent

Intelligent Agent

Agent Preference

database

AIDatabases

Network Provider

Prefs


Enabling Tech: Artificial IntelligenceEnabling Tech: Artificial Intelligence

Speech Recognition Natural Language Processing Chatter-Bots (ALICE) Profiling, and auto preferences Semantic Web & Ontologies Inference Engines (e.g Cycorp)


Use of AI to predict user requirementsUse of AI to predict user requirements

Wide availability of AI engines. AI capabilities have increased, cost has decreased

significantly. Ideally suited to alter the form of interfaces to the

network based on user requirements and user input.

Advanced form of user profiling and personalization.

AI predictions may alter the network usage and its patterns considerably.


Current Trends: Personalized Interactive Services

Goal:• Development of a distributed network and client-aware

interactive system which integrates and delivers personalized content and services to users in a seamless manner through agent technology and network-based user information.

Adds value by:• Personalizing content.• Personalizing interaction.• Seamlessly introducing new services.• Allowing accessibility by different devices/networks

(PCS, broadband, etc.).• Providing for targeted advertisement.


Enabling Technology: Animation & 3DEnabling Technology: Animation & 3D

Three dimensional displays Three dimensional cameras Dynamic real-time animation


Live 3D capture technologiesLive 3D capture technologies

Z-Cam


3D Display Technology3D Display Technology

Stereoscopic monitors Multi-planar monitors


Robotics and Physical PresenceRobotics and Physical Presence

Capabilities of robots have increased at a much lower cost

Virtual Presence• Virtual Telecommuter• Human/Robot remote collaboration (POP

troubleshooting…)• Users can have a physical presence


Robotics and Physical Presence (cont’d)Robotics and Physical Presence (cont’d)


MPEG-4 ApplicabilityMPEG-4 Applicability

Emerging international standard for delivery of multimedia traffic.

Provides:• Delivery of all known media types over any transport

mechanism (IP, ATM, RTP, MPEG-2 Transport Stream, etc.).

• Scene coherency and synchronization.• Scalability due to bandwidth (BW) or client device

limitations.• Interactivity with 3D objects and object-based

compression and delivery.• Encode-once/use-everywhere content.


High-Level ArchitectureHigh-Level ArchitectureAgent Client

MPEG4/Anim

Sprint Controller

Data path

Voice/Face Recognition

Profile Manager

Interaction Engine

MPEG-4 Server component w profiler

Animation Engine (Server)

w profiler

Client SideServer Side

AI engine

Signalling path

Text-to-SpeechServer

Content Databases Backend

Service 1 Service 2

AAABilling

Service Control

MPEG-4 Player


Current StatusCurrent Status

Prototype of a network to user interface. Platform for test of intent interpretation

technologies. Open user-end platform for quick addition

of novel services. Ongoing Integration with MPEG-4

infrastructure.


A Glimpse of a Possible Future…A Glimpse of a Possible Future…

VoDVoD


Economic ModelsEconomic Models

Flat-Rate Pricing currently in use Usage-Based Pricing? Service-Based Pricing? On-Demand Self-Enrollment for Services Models for Revenue Sharing in “wall-

garden” networks with multiple service providers


ConclusionsConclusions

Several technological advances enable the next wave of services based on:• New UIs• Network Intelligence• Advanced personalization• User anticipation

Advanced Services not very far out Business Models not clear yet


That’s all folks!

James Schumacher [email protected]

Documents

Advanced Technology Laboratories The Sprint Essistant: Interactive Services Through a Natural UI James Schumacher [email protected] January 2002 Sprint