How Voice Is Transforming Gaming
VoiceSignals #5— Musings on Voice tech news
Games have always been about creating immersive experiences and it now looks like voice is becoming a core part of this experience. When you look at players competing in high-level esports teams there’s a lot of calling out targets, tracking enemy moves, making decisions on the fly about strategy, and all by using their voice. Great team communication and being able to set — in real-time — complicated strategies is the difference between having a chance at winning or landing in the lower ranks.
Jason Chen, co-founder of Midgame argues how voice technology is changing gaming. He examines game Skills for Alexa and tries out Yes, Sire which is a role-playing game where you make decisions about your army on the battlefield. While most games on Alexa are trivia-styled this is more a strategy game, with a very colorful story-telling process, that allows you to see in your mind both your army and the battlefield. Max Childs, from the game studio Volley, that created Yes, Sire believes we’re just at the beginning of this journey: “Voice enables a live multiplayer experience in a way that anyone from five years old to 85 years old can pick up immediately”.
As Jason Shen predicts “The voice games we have today are just an exciting and early indicator of where they might go, and something worth following.” He also predicts that voice will be used for software patches, tracking stats during gaming, and other voice-enabled tools. It makes sense; it’s more natural to ask for a tool than point and click. Meanwhile, Anna Prist, tech evangelist at Just AI, reminds us that game skills are the most popular of voice Skills and a good stepping stone for users to embrace technologies before we move-up to business Skills. She asks, Why games?, and responds “It’s simple — we love having fun. Entertaining content accustoms us to new interfaces, helps to break down barriers and embrace new technologies. It’s a kind of a training mode for children and adults — games teach us something new, they reinforce our skills, and model the world around us”. Games have always promoted development of the new technology, starting with some of the first PCs available to consumers, the Atari and Commodore. Gaming is getting much more fascinating and it seems game Skills are also picking up on the trend; which is significant considering they’re solely based on audio. There’s plenty to be anticipated.
So wanna play using your voice, today? How about starting with the award-winning Westworld The Maze based on the infamous HBO TV show. We luv it.
Impacting Happiness in the Home
Smart homes are a marvel of technological advancement. They take verbal commands, react to our every whim, and encase us in modern convenience around every digitally designated corner. During 2018, Alexa told upwards of 100 million jokes to her human companions last year. It proves one uplifting truth about our collective humanity: we crave happiness and seek a comedic connection from our AI partners.
Now imagine if Alexa not only told jokes on command but also when you don’t even think to ask. Let’s say you mumble your standard “Alexa, lights” command, but the tone of your voice is decidedly less happy than usual. If your AI is equipped with an Emotion AI detector, she will sense that your mood is down. And based on your past reactions to her quips, she should know which jokes you like the best (judging from the pitch and volume of your laughter, for example). Putting all this data together, Alexa’s emotional intelligence should deliver a zinger to try and cheer you up, even if you don’t request it explicitly. Read more >
AI Will Enhance Jobs, Not Replace Them
In breathless editorials, on television news programs, and on social media, there’s an increasing fervor over AI and its impact on the workforce. And yes, AI is transforming how work is done, which in some cases eliminates jobs that are no longer necessary. But that’s been happening since the start of the industrial revolution. Economies evolve as technology advances, and right now, we’re on the cusp of exponential advancement that will greatly enhance existing jobs, create new ones, and help an increasing number of people move from checking tasks to actively engaging at their jobs. Read more >
Wanna hear a joke? Let Alexa tell you one
Feeling bored or looking for something to pull your mind off work? Ask Alexa for a joke. She does have a humorous side. During 2018 she actually delivered over 100 million jokes to her users! That’s some serious joy delivering mechanism. But she can do more than that. She can rap, meow, high five, beam you up if you’re Spock, and respond to whether she’s part of the Matrix. Definitely worth wasting 10 minutes of your day. You never know what new thing you’ll learn. After all, procrastination is good for the soul. Read more >
Emotion AI for Voice and Conversational Apps
[Podcast] Seth Lugibihi from Voiciety discussed with Rana Gujral how emotion recognition and behavioral prediction can make conversational apps more empathetic. By processing speech and analyzing specific intonality signals we can deduce insights that can help resolve business problems like CSAT scores or rep performance, to name a few. Listen here >
Written by Vicki Kolovou for Behavioral Signals
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