The HP Palmtop Tour
- Merlin, an interactive, talking tour guide can fly around, gesture and speak
with speech synthesis. He is completely choreographed with the background Flash-based
animation, gesturing and speaking on cue as animation plays behind him. A user
can also make requests of Merlin via speech recognition including asking him for
today's date (as above), having Merlin sing a song or recite the specs of the
palmtop. Via ActiveX, Java script and cookie based control, Merlin will refer
to you by name (as above), customize the tour based on whether you have been there
before and give specific responses based on being double clicked or dragged around
the screen. He represents a new push into conversational user interfaces. We have
experimented with extending the Palmtop Tour to have Merlin incorporate intelligence
and a natural conversational discourse with users. See my Siggraph
Panel on Web Based Virtual Characters for additional information. Credits
to Steve DiPaola, Ali Ebtekar.
Best viewed in 16-bit color or higher, using Netscape Communicator 3.0
or greater.
Portfolio images and other materials copyright © 1997 Steve
DiPaola - All rights reserved.
