Wildfire Communications

Last updated
Wildfire Communications, Inc
IndustryTelecommunications
FounderBill Warner
Rich Miner
Nick d'Arbeloff
Tony Lovell
FateAcquired by Orange S.A. in 2000
Headquarters
Waltham, MA

Wildfire Communications, Inc. was an American company founded in 1992 that developed and sold software and equipment to enhance telephone communications. It created a speech-based electronic secretary in October 1994, pioneering the field of intelligent software assistance accessed completely through the use of natural language. [1] Wildfire is referred to as an early version of Siri, having developed the patent for a "network based knowledgeable assistant" fundamental to voice based telephony. [2] [3]

Contents

Founding

Wildfire Communications was founded in 1992 by inventor Bill Warner, vice president of marketing Nick d'Arbeloff, director of engineering Rich Miner, and chief designer Tony Lovell. The company raised two rounds of venture capital funding in 1992 and 1993 to progress from ideas to development to product announcement. In October 1994 the company released its first product, a virtual assistant named "Wildfire." [4]

The Wildfire Assistant

Wildfire had an anthropomorphic voice user interface to let users speak commands over a telephone connection to route calls, handle messages, and perform related tasks. The natural voice prompts encouraged users to think of Wildfire as a real person, [5] a mindset reflected by writers and users commonly speaking of Wildfire as "she." [6] [7] This personification helped foster a quicker understanding of the role Wildfire performed: that of an executive assistant tasked with assisting mobile workers. [7] [8] Though users could also use touchtones to control Wildfire, the system's recorded voice prompts elicited them to speak their commands, reinforcing the interactive model of co-workers on a business call. In early 1996, conference calling and a rudimentary integration with voicemail systems was added to bolster Wildfire's value among corporate users. [9]

Company sale to Orange

In April 2000, Orange purchased Wildfire Communications for $142M. [10]

Orange continued to offer Wildfire to its wireless subscribers until 2005, when it decided to terminate the product due to insufficiently broad use. Orange customers passionate about Wildfire, particularly those with disabilities who found the speech interface empowering, complained with sufficient force to cause a month's delay in shut-off, but Orange did indeed kill the service in July, 2005. [11] [12]

Technological legacy

Wildfire directly influenced several widely used voice user interface-based systems through the work of Blade Kotelly, who moved from a position in usability testing at Wildfire Communications to become Creative Director of Interface Design for SpeechWorks, where he designed richly anthropomorphic systems for United Airlines, E-Trade and other clients. Kotelly wrote of the importance in his design philosophy of creating seemingly human personas for his applications, and said that Wildfire was the best persona he'd seen in a product. [13]

Wildfire has also been cited as "a really early version of Siri mostly geared for business execs" [14] and similarities have also been drawn between Wildfire's relaxed conversational style and that of the Apple assistant. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telephone</span> Telecommunications device

A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user. The term is derived from Ancient Greek: τῆλε, romanized: tēle, lit. 'far' and φωνή, together meaning distant voice. A common short form of the term is phone, which came into use early in the telephone's history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Screen reader</span> Assistive technology that converts text or images to speech or Braille

A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to people who are blind, and are useful to people who are visually impaired, illiterate, or have a learning disability. Screen readers are software applications that attempt to convey what people with normal eyesight see on a display to their users via non-visual means, like text-to-speech, sound icons, or a braille device. They do this by applying a wide variety of techniques that include, for example, interacting with dedicated accessibility APIs, using various operating system features, and employing hooking techniques.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge Navigator</span> Fictive computer

Coined in 1987, the term Knowledge Navigator described a future computing system and how people might use it to navigate worlds of knowledge. In a sense, the user is actually the “Knowledge Navigator,” though the term often refers to the system’s primary interface, a tablet computer. That part often stands for the whole system. The term is also the title of an Apple “vision video.” The concept was described by former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley and John A. Byrne in their book, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple.

“A future-generation Macintosh, which we should have early in the twenty-first century, might well be a wonderful fantasy machine called the Knowledge Navigator, a discoverer of worlds, a tool as galvanizing as the printing press. Individuals could use it to drive through libraries, museums, databases, or institutional archives. This tool wouldn't just take you to the doorstep of these great resources as sophisticated computers do now; it would invite you deep inside its secrets, interpreting and explaining—converting vast quantities of information into personalized and understandable knowledge.”

Conexant Systems, Inc. was an American-based software developer and fabless semiconductor company that developed technology for voice and audio processing, imaging and modems. The company began as a division of Rockwell International, before being spun off as a public company. Conexant itself then spun off several business units, creating independent public companies which included Skyworks Solutions and Mindspeed Technologies.

General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to "USB, software modems, small touchscreens, touchscreen controller ICs, ASICs, multimedia email, networked games, streaming TV, and early e-commerce notions." General Magic's main product was Magic Cap, the operating system used in 1994 by the Motorola Envoy and Sony's Magic Link PDA. It also introduced the programming language Telescript. After announcing it would cease operations in 2002, it was liquidated in 2004 with Paul Allen purchasing most of its patents.

A voice-user interface (VUI) enables spoken human interaction with computers, using speech recognition to understand spoken commands and answer questions, and typically text to speech to play a reply. A voice command device is a device controlled with a voice user interface.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poly Inc.</span> American multinational corporation

Poly Inc., formerly Polycom, is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Poly is a subsidiary of HP Inc.

Voice portals are the voice equivalent of web portals, giving access to information through spoken commands and voice responses. Ideally a voice portal could be an access point for any type of information, services, or transactions found on the Internet. Common uses include movie time listings and stock trading. In telecommunications circles, voice portals may be referred to as interactive voice response (IVR) systems, but this term also includes DTMF services. With the emergence of conversational assistants such as Apple's Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, and Samsung's Bixby, Voice Portals can now be accessed through mobile devices and Far Field voice smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual assistant</span> Software agent

A virtual assistant (VA) is a software agent that can perform a range of tasks or services for a user based on user input such as commands or questions, including verbal ones. Such technologies often incorporate chatbot capabilities to simulate human conversation, such as via online chat, to facilitate interaction with their users. The interaction may be via text, graphical interface, or voice - as some virtual assistants are able to interpret human speech and respond via synthesized voices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siri</span> Software-based personal assistant from Apple Inc.

Siri is the digital assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, audioOS, and visionOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Internet services. With continued use, it adapts to users' individual language usages, searches, and preferences, returning individualized results.

Dragon Dictation started as speech recognition application for Apple's iOS platforms, including iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The app provided automatic speech-to-text capabilities. It was developed by Nuance Communications, and released in December 2009 as a free app. It is now commonly found licensed in vehicle infotainment systems and healthcare equipment.

Vlingo was a speech recognition software company co-founded by speech-to-text pioneers Mike Phillips and John Nguyen in 2006. It was best known for its intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator, also named Vlingo, which functioned as a personal assistant application for Symbian, Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and other smartphones. Vlingo was acquired by speech recognition giant Nuance Communications in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sensory, Inc.</span>

Sensory, Inc. is an American company which develops software AI technologies for speech, sound and vision. It is based in Santa Clara, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cortana (virtual assistant)</span> Discontinued personal assistant by Microsoft

Cortana was a virtual assistant developed by Microsoft that used the Bing search engine to perform tasks such as setting reminders and answering questions for users.

One Voice Technologies was an Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Natural Language Processing (NLP) company founded in 1998 and based in San Diego, CA. One Voice was the developer of IVAN, an intelligent personal assistant, which commercially launched in 1999. Some of the customers for One Voice Technologies are Telefonos de Mexico, S.A.B. de C.V. (TELMEX), Intel Corporation, the Government of India, Fry's Electronics, Inland Cellular, and Nex-Tec Wireless.

Michael Phillips is the CEO and co-founder of Sense Labs and a pioneer in machine learning, including mobile speech recognition and text-to-speech technology.

Alice is a Russian intelligent personal assistant for Android, iOS and Windows operating systems and Yandex's own devices developed by Yandex. Alice was officially introduced on 10 October 2017. Aside from common tasks, such as internet search or weather forecasts, it can also run applications and chit-chat. Alice is also the virtual assistant used for the Yandex Station smart speaker.

A conversational user interface (CUI) is a user interface for computers that emulates a conversation with a real human. Historically, computers have relied on text-based user interfaces and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to translate the user's desired action into commands the computer understands. While an effective mechanism of completing computing actions, there is a learning curve for the user associated with GUI. Instead, CUIs provide opportunity for the user to communicate with the computer in their natural language rather than in a syntax specific commands.

Virtual assistants are software technology that assist users complete various tasks. Well known virtual assistants include Amazon Alexa, and Siri, produced by Apple. Other companies, such as Google and Microsoft, also have virtual assistants. There are privacy issues concerning what information can go to the third party corporations that operate virtual assistants and how this data can potentially be used.

References

  1. ↑ Rifkin, Glenn (9 October 1994). "Interface; A Phone That Plays Secretary for Travelers". New York Times.
  2. ↑ "More Proof That Siri Is Intended to Be A Google Killer". Forbes. Archived from the original on November 6, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Network based knowledgeable assistant". USPTO.
  4. ↑ Rifkin, Glenn (October 9, 1994). "A Phone that Plays Secretary for Travelers". The New York Times.
  5. ↑ Michalski, Jerry (October 19, 1994). "Platforms for Communication" (PDF). Release 1.0. Retrieved Oct 22, 2013.
  6. ↑ Hafner, Katie (February 27, 1995). "Have Your Agent Call My Agent". Newsweek.
  7. 1 2 Rao, Rajiv M. (January 16, 1995). "Invisible Secretary". Fortune.
  8. ↑ Wildstrom, Steven H. (April 24, 1995). "This 'Secretary' Really Listens". Business Week. Archived from the original on June 19, 2014.
  9. ↑ Thyfault, Mary (March 4, 1996). "Wildfire to add features to Assistant". InformationWeek. Retrieved Oct 22, 2013.
  10. ↑ "Wildfire ignites, then extinguishes". edn.com. EDN Network.
  11. ↑ Tim, Richardson (July 5, 2005). "Orange kills Wildfire – finally". The Register.
  12. ↑ Tim, Richardson (May 19, 2005). "Orange postpones Wildfire closure". The Register.
  13. ↑ Dahl, Deborah (January 1, 2006). "Point/Counter Point on Personas". Speech Tech Magazine.
  14. ↑ Jackson, Eric (November 4, 2011). "More Proof That Siri Is Intended to Be A Google Killer". Forbes.
  15. ↑ Smith, Tim (October 12, 2011). "Siri vs. Wildfire".
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