Personification Inc. - Press Releases

Personification captures web essentials for wireless devices

Toronto firm's technology delivers short, snappy summaries to busy mobile device users

TORONTO, Canada, Monday, October 2nd, 2000 - Personification Inc. announced today the release of two advanced technologies - TextSummary and PhoneSummary - that provide condensed versions of web pages, e-mails, reports, product reviews, news and any other form of text for mobile device users. By delivering concise summaries in text or audio form, the technologies overcome the limitations of small screen wireless devices.

"Wireless devices demand new models of information delivery and knowledge management," says Dr. Mark Chignell, CTO of Personification Inc. and head of the Interactive Media Lab at the University of Toronto. "TextSummary and PhoneSummary tackle the problem of limited screen space head on. With small screens being hard to read, TextSummary intelligently condenses web content, and that helps mobile device users save time, while ensuring that essential information is reliably conveyed," Chignell says.

TextSummary uses state-of-the-art algorithms to analyze a document's structure, grammar and keywords generating a coherent summary of the original - without compromising its meaning. PhoneSummary takes the data generated by TextSummary and converts it to voice. Any web content can be summarized and delivered in audio format through a telephone. Both technologies can be customized to meet clients' needs.

TextSummary and PhoneSummary can assist companies who have established a wireless presence to further streamline their content to enhance their user experience. Also, firms can reduce expenses on editorial staff and save time by using these technologies to produce condensed versions of articles, bulletins, or other information delivered to subscribers and clients.

Consumer benefits include receiving information in a more usable form. Instead of sifting through screen after screen of text, consumers accessing databases, product reviews or other content can receive versions tailored to meet the requirements of small screen spaces.

PhoneSummary offers the same convenience and productivity benefits as TextSummary. Companies that wish to offer interactive voice features can do so by adding PhoneSummary technology, which enables businesses to reach mobile device users who prefer audio, or do not have access to Internet-ready devices.

Future versions of TextSummary, scheduled for a mid-2001 release, will implement Personification's web-bot technology that automatically pulls text from web sites and summarizes it for personalized content delivery.

For more information about TextSummary and PhoneSummary contact: Nicole Anderson, Media Relations (416) 628-6220.

About Personification:

Personification Inc., founded in 1998 and headquartered in Toronto, provides companies with software solutions that are revolutionizing the way people access information through wireless devices. Personification's world-class development team is composed of some of the finest researchers in their fields, with expertise in artificial intelligence (AI), information retrieval, ergonomics, autonomous agents, and system design and architecture.

Personification's partners include Bell Canada and the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada. In addition, many software companies are licensing Personification technologies to add personalization and mobile content delivery features to their own products.
www.personification.com.

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