Mindmeld
Latest
Smarter bots are coming to Facebook, Google and Amazon assistants
We keep hearing that robots are going to take our jobs, but a company called MindMeld is giving us an idea how with its "Deep-Domain Conversational AI Platform." It'll allow bots that can essentially replace customer service agents and even baristas by answering complicated voice or text queries over Google Assistant, Amazon Echo, Facebook Messenger and other popular platforms. Uniqlo, for one, will offer a Facebook bot that can answer questions about its products, services and retail locations with more detail than ever.
MindMeld: A beating of minds
Oh man how I wanted to love MindMeld. This US$3.99 app basically has one of the coolest premises ever. It listens to your conversations, interprets what you are saying, and pre-emptively pulls up web-based content as you talk. Bits and bobs tied to your conversation topics appear as if by magic, providing instant gratification contextually linked to the ongoing discussion. Or it would if it worked a damn, which sadly it does not...yet. MindMeld in its current state has several strikes going against it. First of all, you cannot use the app at all without a Facebook account. No matter if you're sitting in a meeting or listening to a lecture, the app requires Facebook access. An Expect Labs spokesperson told TUAW, "Right now, users can only access MindMeld by integrating with their Facebook accounts. Our plan is to introduce additional authentication methods in the future, since we know that not everyone has a Facebook account and/or wants to log in through it." Second, the language comprehension is laughably bad. It doesn't even start to approach Siri levels of accuracy. The screenshot at the top of this post was captured during a conversation about Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Pretty good actually. The app is slick and you can already get a sense of what the app should have been -- which is terrific. Unfortunately, it's let down by technology and overhead that doesn't function as a reasonable proof of concept.
iPad app listens to conversations, suggests topics
MindMeld from Expect Labs is a conversation tool for the iPad that listens to what you are saying and suggests relevant content. The app requires you to login with your Facebook account and find friends with whom you want to talk. You can add some friends and start a voice conversation using the VoIP features built into the app. When someone says something interesting, you can turn on the listening feature of the app. MindMeld will then parse the conversation and try to pick out relevant keywords from what everyone is saying. When it finds important conversation topics, the app will display matching results from Facebook and the internet. If you mention a restaurant, you will see restaurant reviews, for example. You can easily share this content with other members of the conversation. The app also keeps an ongoing record of what people said so you can look back at an earlier part of the conversation. The app is meant to help you find and share information and is not designed to send you targeted ads. You can watch the demo of the app below and let us know in the comments what you think. Is this technology cutting-edge or just plain creepy? [Via Springwise]
