Friday, June 29, 2012:
i-Free Innovations, a Russian mobile applications and games developer and publisher, today announced that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology developed by a team led by engineer Vladimir Veselov, in cooperation with i-Free Innovations for its Everfriends Android-based virtual mobile assistant, has won the prestigiousTuring100“AI Machines Competition” held in Bletchley Park, London on June 23, 2012. Everfriends, which uses this technology, is now seen as a major rival to Siri from Apple.
|
|
The Turing100 Competition, which featured more than 150separate dialogs, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the birth of thefamous British mathematician and cryptographer, Alan Turing, and is considered the most important competition in the global AI industry, with the adjudicating board including30 experts, 25 “hidden” users and 5 elite chat bots.
Veselov said of his team’s win, "We are very happy with this success as recognition from the world's leading experts is very important for any developer. I believe that, in cooperation with i-Free,and based on our technology, we will be able to create extremely useful products that will be very much sought-after by people all over the world."
Veselov and his team spent more than 10 years developing the technology that was presented for the competition, and in November 2011, i-Free Innovations purchased this technology and continued to develop it, aiming to create a range of intellectual products: a series of Android-based virtual assistants able to compete with Siri.
The first product implementing this technology is theEverfriends virtual assistant, developed by i-Free.The application is currentlyavailable on Google Playwith over one million downloads to date with most users having awarded it the highest rating. It uses assistant visualization based on modern 3D technologies as well as making it possible to use API for the creation of services, and SDK for integrating a meaning recognition system for third-party applications.
VisionMobile, a leading market analysis and strategy firm for all things connected, recently performed a study of the virtual assistant market and remarked the following: "Everfriends is a good case study for VA business models."*
Kirill Petrov, Managing Director at i-Free Innovations, remarked of Everfriends: "While working on a range of Android-based products able to compete withSiri, we got to know the technology developed by Vladimir Veselov and purchased the property rights to it. Today, thanks to this technology, our virtual assistants not only help smartphone owners access a lot of different services, from calls to shopping, but can also to discuss various topics with them.”
i-Free Innovations continues the development of its products: in the near future the Everfriends range of virtual assistants will become even more practical and helpful in solving daily tasks. More specifically, the speech recognition and synthesis system will be significantly improved, the app’s performance and quality will increase, and user interfaces will become even easier to use, especially in terms of quick access to services.
|
