VIP News and Notes
Cheryl Platz's new book, Novel Effect's partnership with Jim Henson, Botmock's freemium play, DefinedCrowd + Speech Technology webinar, Matchbox.io mobile app
From time to time, we’ll publish a round-up of various news and notes from across the voice/AI landscape.
The Voice of Gaming is tomorrow: three-hour deep dive on conversational AI and modern gaming, including Tom Hewitson (CEO of Labworks.io and creator of the Voice Arcade), Chris Morrow (executive producer of Starfinder), and many more.
Cheryl Platz has gained a following as a designer and consultant who was involved in a number of the original Alexa innovations and Echo hardware devices working with Amazon.
She then went to Microsoft and continued to work on conversational interfaces, which eventually led her to her own consulting operation and a brand new book, Design Beyond Devices, which is out today.
You can purchase it here via Amazon, or here via her publisher, and read more about the work via her Medium post here.
Novel Effect is one of the original success stories coming out of the Alexa ecosystem and a company I frequently mention as a trailblazer with voice-driven storytelling.
Today, they announced a partnership with the Jim Henson Company to bring some of Jim Henson’s legendary characters and universes to not only Novel Effect’s mobile app starting in December, but also to voice-enabled TV and other hardware later in 2021.
In October, Botmock announced a brand-new free tier for their collaborative design and prototyping platform used by teams creating IVR, chatbots, and voice systems.
Botmock CEO Obaid Ahmed explains more here:
At Botmock, our mission is to help everyone create exceptional conversational experiences. Be it for voice, text, IVR, or any modality. To achieve this mission, we believe that every designer should have access to world-class tools to plan, ideate, prototype, and develop their conversational experiences.
So today, we are excited to announce that individuals and teams building and maintaining chatbots, IVRs, or voice experiences (as on Alexa and Google Assistant) can now access Botmock for free.
DefinedCrowd and the folks at Speech Technology are teaming up for a webinar next Tuesday (December 8): AI and the Power of Speech Technologies.
Panelists include personnel from DefinedCrowd, Voci, and SoundHound, and the webinar is moderated by LaShawn Fugate of Speech Technology.
You can register for this webinar here, and attendees are entered into a drawing for a free $100 Amazon gift card.
Matchbox.io, a leading developer of voice experiences for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, has brought its popular game Question Of The Day to a mobile app.
The app, which they call Socratix, allows the game to be taken on the go, while also syncing up to existing Alexa and Google Assistant accounts for continuity.
The app is available on iOS and Android and can be downloaded here.
Leading up to Project Voice 2021, the #1 event for voice tech and AI in America, Project Voice: Coast to Coast is bringing an in-person voice/AI briefing to small groups in 35 cities across the United States. Presented by Cerence.
If you want to get out of the house, we’d love to have you join us. Masks and social distancing will be enforced, and outdoor venues will be utilized.
San Francisco, CA - January 12
Salt Lake City, UT - February 8
New York City, NY - February 23
Philadelphia, PA - February 25
Project Voice 2021 - Chattanooga, TN - April 12-14
The Voice of Customer Service is a special two-day event all about how conversational AI is being deployed within modern customer service operations, including contact centers around the world.