, Inc. Announces Licensing of its Parrot Intelligent Assistant Software to Creative Labs, Inc.
PR Newswire, Monday, March 23, 1998 at 09:20
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Associative Computing, Inc.
("ACI"), a leading developer of intelligent agents, speech I/O interfaces,
natural language processing, machine learning and other artificial
intelligence technology, today announced the licensing of its Parrot(TM)
intelligent assistant software to Creative Labs, Inc.
("Creative")(NASDAQ:CREAF).
Under the strategic license agreement, Creative shall have the exclusive
right to bundle Parrot with Creative's audio hardware. Parrot will be also
available from ACI on the retail market for the existing users of Creative's
audio hardware.
Parrot assists users by carrying out complex actions via simple voice,
keyboard, or mouse gesture commands. Acting on a single command, Parrot will
open and close programs, visit web sites, read documents, press releases or
e-mail, and perform a variety of useful tasks within any application in the
Windows(R) 95/NT environment.
Besides serving as a personal assistant, Parrot also entertains users
through its animated representation. Parrot flies from window to window on the
desktop, making comments on what users are doing, offering help, asking
questions, telling jokes, and singing songs. Users can customize the animated
character's behavior and responses, train him to recognize new commands, and
also teach him what to do when commands are recognized.
For its speech I/O interfaces, Parrot uses ACI's state-of-the art speech
utilities TextAssist(R) and VoiceAssist(R). Parrot also includes technology
components licensed from Creative and core speech technology components
licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products. N.V. ("L&H") (NASDAQ:LHSPF).
"Parrot is an important step forward in our mission to develop
full-fledged intelligent assistants with programmable and downloadable skills,
knowledge bases, and learning ability," said Jozsef Kiraly, ACI's President
and CEO. "By offering intelligent assistance to users working on their PCs,
Parrot significantly increases their productivity. At the same time, Parrot
provides users with a source of entertainment, making it more fun for them to
use their computers. We are very pleased to sign this strategic license
agreement with Creative, the acknowledged world leader of PC multimedia and
innovative new technologies."
W.H. Sim, Chairman of Creative, commented, "Creative has always played a
key role in driving and leading the development of PC hardware and software
technology. Creative's original "Talking Parrot" character as well as
Creative's TextAssist and VoiceAssist products are well known by millions of
Sound Blaster(R) users. Recent advances in hardware and artificial
intelligence technology are allowing developers to build intelligent software
agents that will revolutionize the way users interact with the computer. The
new version of Parrot that ACI has developed for Creative represents an
important step in this direction."
Creative is the world's leading provider of advanced multimedia solutions
for personal computer, including sound, graphics, communications and video
conferencing products. The company's Sound Blaster technology has been
accepted as the worldwide standard sound platform for PCs, and the company's
global distribution network is among the most extensive in the multimedia
industry. Creative is focused on enhancing the overall user experience by
providing powerful, enabling, high-value technology for the mass market.
For additional information, visit ACI's web site at www.mindmaker.com.
NOTE: Parrot, TextAssist, VoiceAssist and Sound Blaster are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Creative Technology Ltd. Windows is a registered
trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
SOURCE Associative Computing, Inc.
-0- 03/23/98
/CONTACT: Marina Cozac of Associative Computing, Inc., 408-467-0458, or
marketing@mindmaker.com/
/Web site: mindmaker.com |
