Evi (software)

Last updated

Evi (formerly True Knowledge)
Type of business Private
Type of site
Answer Engine
Available in English
Headquarters
Cambridge
,
England
Founder(s) William Tunstall-Pedoe
Industry Internet
Products Evi, Amazon Alexa
Parent Amazon.com, Inc.
URL evi.com
RegistrationYes
Launched7 November 2007;16 years ago (2007-11-07)
Current status Beta

Evi (formerly True Knowledge) is a technology company in Cambridge, England, founded by William Tunstall-Pedoe, [1] [2] [3] which specialises in knowledge base and semantic search engine software. Its first product was an answer engine that aimed to directly answer questions on any subject posed in plain English text, which is accomplished using a database of discrete facts. [4] [5] The True Knowledge Answer engine was launched for private beta testing and development on 7 November 2007. [6]

Contents

In January 2012 True Knowledge launched a major new product Evi (pronounced ee-vee), an artificial intelligence program which can be communicated with using natural language via an app on iPhone and Android. [3] [7] [8] [9]

The company changed its name from True Knowledge to Evi in June 2012. [10]

In October 2012, Evi was acquired by Amazon and is now part of the Amazon group of companies. [11] [12] The technology and team became a key part of Amazon Alexa assistant (debuting with the Amazon Echo). [13]

Core technology premise

The True Knowledge Answer Engine attempts to comprehend posed questions by disambiguating from all possible meanings of the words in the question to find the most likely meaning of the question being asked. It does this by drawing upon its database of knowledge of discrete facts. As these facts are stored in a form that the computer can understand, the answer engine attempts to produce an answer to what it comprehends to be the question by logically deducing from them. [5]

For example, if one were to type in "What is the birth date of George W. Bush?", True Knowledge would reason from the facts "George W. Bush is a president", "George W. Bush is a human being", "A president is a subclass of human being", "Date of creation is a more general form for birth date", and "the 6th of July is the date of creation for George W. Bush", to produce the simple answer, "the 6th of July". True Knowledge differs from competitors like Freebase and DBpedia in that they offer natural language access. Unlike the others however, users who post information to True Knowledge granted the company a "non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual licence to use such information to operate this website and for any other purposes". [14]

Knowledge accumulation and verification

Evi gathers information for its database in two ways: importing it from "credible" external databases (which for them includes Wikipedia) and from user submission following a consistent format and detailed process for input. [15] [16] True Knowledge strives to monitor this user submitted knowledge in multiple ways.

One method involves a system of checks and balances in some ways similar to Wikipedia's, allowing users to modify or "agree"/"disagree" with information presented by True Knowledge. The system itself also assesses submitted information due to the fact that the information is submitted as discrete facts that computers can understand. The system is able to reject any facts that are semantically incompatible with other approved knowledge. On 21 November 2008, True Knowledge announced on its official blog that over 100,000 facts had been added by beta users and as of August 2010, the True Knowledge database overall contained 283,511,156 facts about 9,237,091 things. [17] [18]

In November 2010, True Knowledge used some 300 million facts to calculate that Sunday, 11 April 1954, was the most boring day since 1900. [19] [20]

Financing

On 7 May 2007, True Knowledge Ltd. announced it would be "actively seeking investments following several years of internally-funded development". [4] Then, on 17 September 2007, Octopus Ventures, a British venture capitalist firm, announced its investment of more than $1.2 million into True Knowledge, the first significant investment into the company, allowing it to further develop its website and achieve critical milestones towards bringing the True Knowledge Answer Engine to market. [21] On 30 July 2008, True Knowledge announced it had raised another $4 million in a second round of funding from Octopus Ventures and other investors that would be used towards expanding its staff, developing new products, and moving towards a rollout within 12 months. [22] [23]

Evi app

Evi was launched to the public in January 2012 through the iTunes App Store and Android Marketplace (Now rebranded as Google Play). [7] [8] [9]

Evi is a cloud-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) which builds upon the core semantic search technology developed by the company and adds conversation, external APIs, location sensitivity and other features. [24] Users can talk to Evi via an iPhone and Android app. Voice is supported. The company calls this "conversational search". [2]

In May an update was released on both Android and iOS that introduced voice controls for phone, SMS, and Email. This was announced as the first phase of phone control updates which will add further functionality and deeper integration with device features.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ask.com</span> E-business

Ask.com is a question answering–focused e-business founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A9.com</span> Subsidiary of Amazon based in Palo Alto, California

A9.com was a former subsidiary of Amazon that developed search engine and search advertising technology. A9 was based in Palo Alto, California, with teams in Seattle, Bangalore, Beijing, Dublin, Iași, Munich and Tokyo. A9 has development efforts in areas of product search, cloud search, visual search, augmented reality, advertising technology and community question answering.

Answers.com, formerly known as WikiAnswers, is an Internet-based knowledge exchange. The Answers.com domain name was purchased by entrepreneurs Bill Gross and Henrik Jones at idealab in 1996. The domain name was acquired by NetShepard and subsequently sold to GuruNet and then AFCV Holdings. The website is now the primary product of the Answers Corporation. It has tens of millions of user-generated questions and answers, and provides a website where registered users can interact with one another.

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.

Lexxe is an internet search engine that applies Natural Language Processing in its semantic search technology. Founded in 2005 by Dr. Hong Liang Qiao, Lexxe is based in Sydney, Australia. Today, Lexxe's key focus is on sentiment search with the launch of a news sentiment search site at News & Moods (www.newsandmoods.com).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shazam (application)</span> Music identification application

Shazam is an application that can identify music based on a short sample played using the microphone on the device. It was created by London-based Shazam Entertainment, and has been owned by Apple Inc. since 2018. The software is available for Android, macOS, iOS, Wear OS, watchOS and as a Google Chrome extension.

Natural-language user interface is a type of computer human interface where linguistic phenomena such as verbs, phrases and clauses act as UI controls for creating, selecting and modifying data in software applications.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bump (application)</span> Discontinued file sharing app

Bump was an iOS and Android mobile app that enabled smartphone users to transfer contact information, photos and files between devices. In 2011, it was #8 on Apple's list of all-time most popular free iPhone apps, and by February 2013 it had been downloaded 125 million times. Its developer, Bump Technologies, shut down the service and discontinued the app on January 31, 2014, after being acquired by Google for Google Photos and Android Camera.

A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on desktop computers, and web applications which run in mobile web browsers rather than directly on the mobile device.

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">Google Knowledge Graph</span> Knowledge base used by Google to enhance its search engines results

The Google Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base from which Google serves relevant information in an infobox beside its search results. This allows the user to see the answer in a glance, as an instant answer. The data is generated automatically from a variety of sources, covering places, people, businesses, and more.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Now</span> Intelligent personal assistant

Google Now was a feature of Google Search of the Google app for Android and iOS. Google Now proactively delivered information to users to predict information they might need in the form of informational cards. Google Now branding is no longer used, but the functionality continues in the Google app and its discover tab.

Dialogflow is a natural language understanding platform used to design and integrate a conversational user interface into mobile apps, web applications, devices, bots, interactive voice response systems and related uses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SILVIA</span>

Symbolically Isolated Linguistically Variable Intelligence Algorithms (SILVIA), is a core platform technology developed by Cognitive Code. SILVIA was developed, and designed to recognize and interpret speech, text, and interact with applications and operating systems, all while interacting with a user. The technology can be run and operate via cloud, a mobile application, a part of network, or via server.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News360</span> Personalized news aggregation app for smartphones, tablets and the web

News360 was a personalized news aggregation app for smartphones, tablets and the web. It attempted to learn a user's interests by analyzing their interaction with news stories on the app and using semantic analysis and natural language processing to create an Interest Graph and construct a unique feed of relevant content for each user. The app claims an audience of more than 4 million users.

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

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

Semantic queries allow for queries and analytics of associative and contextual nature. Semantic queries enable the retrieval of both explicitly and implicitly derived information based on syntactic, semantic and structural information contained in data. They are designed to deliver precise results or to answer more fuzzy and wide open questions through pattern matching and digital reasoning.

References

  1. ↑ MediaGuardian 100 2009 The Guardian (newspaper). 13 July 2009
  2. 1 2 A billion facts mean Evi has the answers Archived 3 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine Cambridge News (newspaper). 19 February 2012
  3. 1 2 New Virtual Helper Challenges Siri Archived 4 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Technology Review (MIT). Rachel Metz. 27 January 2012
  4. 1 2 Cambridge AI specialist seeks funding for latest exciting venture. 7 May 2007. True Knowledge. Retrieved 2 Dec. 2008
  5. 1 2 Technology. True Knowledge. Retrieved 2 Dec. 2008
  6. ↑ True Knowledge launches open beta. 7 November 2007. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2 Dec. 2008
  7. 1 2 Apple iPhone Siri, meet competitor Evi, from True Knowledge. Alternative to iPhone 4S. Global Post. Richard Orange. 24 January 2012
  8. 1 2 Hands-On: Evi App Brings Siri-Like Smarts to iOS and Android 24 January 2012. Wired.
  9. 1 2 Evi arrives in town to go toe-to-toe with Siri 23 Jan 2012. Techcrunch
  10. ↑ Mike Butcher (14 June 2012). "Siri's Nemesis Evi Relaunches, Recruits Berkowitz From Wolfram Alpha, Opens US Office" . Retrieved 16 June 2012.
  11. ↑ "Evi - an Amazon Company".
  12. ↑ Why US tech giants are buying British AI start-ups CNBC 5 February 2016 Arjun Karpal
  13. ↑ The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo Bloomberg 19 April 2016 Joshua Brustein.
  14. ↑ "legal" . Retrieved 5 January 2009.
  15. ↑ True Knowledge: The Natural Language Question Answering Wikipedia for Facts Semantic Focus. 26 February 2008.
  16. ↑ Bradley, Phil. True Knowledge - Questions Search Engine. 22 Sep. 2008. Phil Bradley's Weblog. Retrieved 2 Dec. 2008
  17. ↑ Franklin, Nick. Over 100,000 User Added Facts Have Gone In! Archived 22 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine 21 Nov. 2008. True Knowledge. Retrieved 2 Dec. 2008
  18. ↑ "[true knowledge]™ - home". Archived from the original on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 11 December 2008.
  19. ↑ Stephen Adams (26 November 2010). "Computer identifies the most boring day in history". The Daily Telegraph . Archived from the original on 27 November 2010. Retrieved 30 November 2010.
  20. ↑ "April 11, 1954 was most boring day in history". The Times of India . 26 November 2010. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 29 November 2010.
  21. ↑ Octopus Ventures invests over half a million pounds (>$1m) in the development of True Knowledge. 17 Sep. 2007 True Knowledge. Retrieved 2 Dec. 2008
  22. ↑ True Knowledge Reaches New Funding Milestone. 30 July 2008. True Knowledge. Retrieved 2 Dec. 2008
  23. ↑ True Knowledge API lies at the heart of real business model ZDNet. 13 April 2009.
  24. ↑ Evi Evi Launch video by True Knowledge
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.