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The Conversational Interface pp 11–24Cite as

The Dawn of the Conversational Interface

Abstract

With a conversational interface, people can speak to their smartphones and other smart devices in a natural way in order to obtain information, access Web services, issue commands, and engage in general chat. This chapter presents some examples of conversational interfaces and reviews technological advances that have made conversational interfaces possible. Following this, there is an overview of the technologies that make up a conversational interface.

Keywords

  • Virtual personal assistant
  • Voice search
  • Smart watch
  • Social robot
  • Internet of Things
  • Wearables
  • Semantic Web
  • Artificial intelligence (AI)
  • Machine learning
  • Enterprise assistants
  • Chatbot

Good morning, Theodore. You have a meeting in five minutes. Do you want to try getting out of bed?

Samantha in the movie Her: Official Trailer

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Fig. 2.1
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Fig. 2.6

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2940021?hl=en. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  2. 2.

    http://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligence/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  3. 3.

    http://insidesearch.blogspot.com.es/2015/11/the-google-app-now-understands-you.html. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  4. 4.

    http://www.phonearena.com/news/A-modern-smartphone-or-a-vintage-supercomputer-which-is-more-powerful_id57149. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  5. 5.

    http://www.greenbot.com/article/2985727/google-apps/android-virtual-assistant-showdown-google-now-vs-cortana-vs-hound.html. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  6. 6.

    https://www.stonetemple.com/great-knowledge-box-showdown/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  7. 7.

    https://googleblog.blogspot.fr/2014/10/omg-mobile-voice-survey-reveals-teens.html. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  8. 8.

    http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/watson-oncology.html. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  9. 9.

    http://www.artificial-solutions.com/. Accessed February19, 2016.

  10. 10.

    https://www.chatbots.org/virtual_assistant/anna3/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  11. 11.

    http://www.nuance.com/company/news-room/press-releases/Jetstar.docx. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  12. 12.

    http://www.jetstar.com/au/en/customer-service. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  13. 13.

    http://www.nextit.com/alme/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  14. 14.

    http://thesoftwaresociety.com/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  15. 15.

    http://www.wired.com/2013/03/conversational-user-interface/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  16. 16.

    http://www.accelerationwatch.com/lui.html. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  17. 17.

    http://virtualagentchat.com/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  18. 18.

    http://www.tmaa.com/speechstrategynews.html. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  19. 19.

    http://citia.lt-innovate.eu/. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  20. 20.

    https://www.sla.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015_Buzzanga.pdf. Accessed February 19, 2016.

  21. 21.

    https://youtu.be/yxxRAHVtafI. Accessed 2 March 2016.

  22. 22.

    https://sites.google.com/site/hwinteractionlab/demos. Accessed March 2, 2016.

  23. 23.

    https://play.google.com/store. Accessed March 2, 2016.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing and Mathematics, Ulster University, Northern Ireland, UK

    Michael McTear

  2. ETSI Informática y Telecomunicación, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Zoraida Callejas

  3. Department of Computer Science, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    David Griol

Authors
  1. Michael McTear
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  2. Zoraida Callejas
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  3. David Griol
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Correspondence to Michael McTear .

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McTear, M., Callejas, Z., Griol, D. (2016). The Dawn of the Conversational Interface. In: The Conversational Interface. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32967-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32967-3_2

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