While the social media is abuzz with debates on the contest in the offing between Viki — the virtual personal assistant app set for release on Blackberry Z10 handsets by April-end— and iPhone’s Siri, the makers of Viki are working overtime to upgrade their patented software with added features.
“We are working on a client behaviour algorithm which will have a questionnaire to identify and list out individual user preferences, a feature that will be unique to Viki,” says B.R. Ramchand, vice-president (business relations) of Agrima Infotech, a Kochi-based start-up launched by a group of seven graduates from Sree Narayana Gurukulam College at Kadayirupu that developed the application. “It gives different responses in line with the individual preferences of different users.”
The advanced version of Viki will be released in a month’s time, says Ramchand. Viki was developed and patented by the team to control their creation Agrima, India’s first humanoid robot. But they wanted the software to be incorporated in a globalised platform and went ahead forging a tie-up with Blackberry for its latest handset, Z10.
Ramchand says their virtual personal assistant will serve on a single touch a host of necessities like real-time news, weather forecasts, current movies, sports scores, conversions and navigation.
Viki engages the user in friendly banter and helps schedule meetings; reminds the user of events and occasions; and carries out other jobs like sending mails, making social network posts, etc., based on voice command, making it hands-free. The assistant is designed to understand British and American English accents, says Ramchand.
While it is exclusive to Blackberry-Z10 at the moment, the team plans to deploy it across platforms such as Android depending on its commercial success.
