During the last three weeks, I’ve been away from home, from Chatbots.org and this forum.

Some of you started to send me emails indicating you’ve missed me. Feels good! Thanks for that…

Anyway, I’m back! Catching up now, answering emails, reading threads and digests. That will take a while…

During my first week of absence, I attended the AAAI conference: http://www.aaai.org. That was impressive, although many workshop where very academic, assuming present knowledge of recent AI models, and that was quite hard to understand even though I’ve an acedmic education which contained many models. I’ve shot a interesting movie of Simon, the robot which we earlier mentioned on Chatbots.org:
http://www.chatbots.org/conversational/agent/simon_the_robot_cleans_your_house_without_commands/

In the second week, I’ve attend the convention of the National Speakers Association of the US. Professional public speaking as a Futurist is my second business line (parallel to Chatbots.org). A total different atmosphere, and a lot of fun .
We also launched the new website of the Global Speakers Federation, which is based on Chatbots.org technology:
http://www.globalspeakers.net

And my third week was a spritual holiday. http://www.unitedpositivity.org. I’m not religious, but interested to feel energy flowing in a (my) human body. What I experienced myself how body synchronisation between two humans can boost personal experience of a dialogue. What would happen if a chatbot can synchronise bodies with their human counterparts? ie. when a chatbot responds to our movements, gazing and expressions as well?

Thanks to Dave and <a href=“http://www.chatbots.org/expert/victor_shulist/578/”>Victor<a> for moderating this forum. You are awesome!

In the next couple of weeks, we’ll upgrade our content management system to Expression Engine 2.0. We’ll also speed up some pages/section in the website. Additionaly we’ll simplify the chatbot-publication procedure, which is now too complicated for first-timers and should be as simple as the registration procedure!.

On the technology side, we’ll continue to work on our research tab.
On the content side, we’ll introduce many new articles soon.
On the organisation side, we’re working with various partners to launch new forums.

Look forward to work with you during the exciting period to come!

Erwin

Welcome back, Erwin. You have, indeed, been missed. Victor and I have tried our best to “hold down the fort” while you were away, and I’m pleased to announce that neither one of us caused in interstellar incident, but we’re (well, I’m) glad to see your return. It hasn’t been the same without you.

It sounds like you had some very profitable and enjoyable experiences during your hiatus. May they uplift your spirit for a long time to come.

During your absence, a lot of changes and improvements have been made on several projects here, as I’m sure you’ll see in the posts. Good things have been happening all around!

I’ll leave you now to peruse the threads. And again, glad to see you back.

[edit]
I was going to correct the link you made for Victor, but I can’t seem to be able to edit your posts. Oh well.
[/edit]

Great to see you back on here Erwin !  Yes, I have to agree with Dave, good things going on; Dave on his bot, Chuck, of course has been going non-stop, and I have made a lot of progress in terms of design and coding on my own bot engine.

It was interesting to see the frequency of updates to the site by the instant email feature.  Some days several messages, other times, a couple of days with nothing; I suppose July/August everyone is out there enjoying the sun.

So, once again, welcome, back, and it’s good to hear from you again!

Irwin, that was very useful information and insight covering the AAAI conference
and the artificial intelligence industry.  Sounds like there may’ve been an opportunity
at the AAAI conference to introduce an A.I. crowd pleaser. 

It might’ve been a blast to break out my talking A.I. Linux laptop, with GIANT text
easily read from a distance, and text to speech amplified through a portable stereo
boom box.  The A.I. Researchers may’ve enjoyed a break from the research theory
to see some A.I. actually in practice.

Welcome back Irwin, and thank you moderators.

Simon report:
http://www.chatbots.org/conversational/agent/my_personal_experience_with_simon_the_robot/