Chatbot George gets a makeover

AT LAST, a chatbot you can actually chat to.

George, the winner of last year’s illustrious Loebner prize for most convincing conversational program, has been given voice-recognition software so that people can to talk to him rather than typing in text. The new George, which also sports a 3D animated body and a computer-generated voice – by UK firm Televirtual – was launched last week at a British Computer Society meeting in Norwich.

1. Loebner Prize - The Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the computer programs considered by the judges to be the most human-like.