Business news

My video cassette recorder finally stopped working last week. Even if I wanted to replace it, I’d have trouble doing so as Panasonic, one of the last remaining manufacturers, stopped VCR production earlier this year. Few consumers will mourn the passing of the VCR. Apart from their infuriating habit of chewing tapes, VCRs were notoriously difficult to program. The common sight of the VCR clock display flashing “12:00” became a symbol for just how little thought the consumer electronics industry gave to usability.

Don’t you wish your car was as intuitive to use as a smartphone?During the past decade, automotive manufacturers have added more and more electronics to take the hard work out of driving a car. But the proliferation of buttons, screens and lights, while reducing the physical effort required to drive a car, has also increased the risk of distractions.

Building a closer relationship with individual customers is now a key objective for many organizations. However, those customers are already one step ahead. A decade of overexposure to increasingly aggressive marketing tactics has made them understand the power they wield over businesses that want their data and wary of trusting brands. Instead of engaging directly with an organization users choose to connect with friends, and even strangers, online to crowd source opinion on purchasing decisions. But surprisingly, treat them right and they are still willing to share.

On 3rd May 2012 Creative Virtual participated as a Sponsor at LivePerson Aspire EMEA 2012 held at Vinopolis in London. The conference is a unique event designed to highlight the most innovative and groundbreaking developments from LivePerson and their partners and customers. Around 200 delegates attended this customer summit to take advantage of the keynote speakers, small group sessions and demonstrations of new ways to connect and engage with customers.

VirtuOz, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) for online marketing, sales, and support, announced today that VirtuOz’ Intelligent Virtual Agents have been recognized by three industry award programs in May 2012 alone, including the Best in Biz Awards EMEA, Silver Winner for Best New Service of the Year; The American Business Awards Finalist in the Relationship Management Solution Category for the second year in a row; and TiE50 Awards Finalist, where VirtuOz beat out over 2000 entrants. 

Would you trust health advice dispensed by a computer rather than a human physician? Despite the obvious challenges of using artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, researchers have long held that AI can give hard-pressed healthcare professionals a helping hand.

Tensator is committed to becoming the global leader in the management of the Customer Journey. With holographic projections of virtual boarding agents already greeting passengers at:
London Luton Airport, Birmingham Airport, Bristol Airport, Edinburgh Airport, Dubai Airport, and Frankfurt Airport, the global interest in sophisticatedly improved customer travel experience is growing.

What is the exact history of holographic airport announcers evolution?

Cara Santa Maria of the Huffington post interviews William Swartout, Director of Technology of USC/ICT about the application of virtual humans. Very funny!

Creative Virtual is excited to announce that they recently become the Chatbots.org Advanced Business Member with the most contribution points. Chatbots.org is a website set up and maintained by Erwin Van Lun and his team as an industrial catalyst to advance the industry of Intelligent Virtual Characters. In 2011, Chatbots.org launched their Advanced Membership Program which allows companies to become more visible on the site, complete an enhanced membership profile and have access to statistics on their profile including lead reporting. Contribution points are earned by individuals associated with the company for activities such as adding new virtual assistant listings, submitting items for the business news section and leaving comments in various areas around the site. All companies added to the site as being involved with Intelligent Virtual Characters in some capacity are included on the Companies page with Advanced Business Members appearing at the top of the list sorted by years of commitment and contribution points.

KANA Software, Inc., a global leader of customer service solutions used by more than 600 enterprises including half of the Global 100 and more than 200 government agencies, today announced it has completed its acquisition of privately held Trinicom, a provider of cloud-based web customer service (WCS) and customer interaction software. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Trinicom, based in the Netherlands, serves more than 200 predominantly mid-sized organizations in both the public and private sector, offering fast, efficient access to comprehensive and multi-channel WCS capabilities such as knowledge management, web self-service, social communities, live chat and virtual assistant technology, as well as call, campaign and email response management – all from a single on-demand cloud application.

The acquisition expands KANA’s customer and revenue base and strengthens its product portfolio. KANA will continue to support new and existing Trinicom customers, as well as accelerate the development of Trinicom core capabilities, and expand its market reach to mid-sized businesses globally.