Intelligent, Chatty Machines

A new company called Cognitive Code has built software that it believes will let everyday gadgets talk with humans. At the Techcrunch40 conference in San Francisco on Monday, the startup unveiled a developer’s studio with a set of algorithms that convert strings of words into concepts and formulate a wordy response. The developer’s studio could let businesses, such as cell-phone manufacturers and toy makers, use the technology to add conversational abilities to a product.