Sandiway Fong Working to Create a Bilingual, Bicultural 'Roboceptionist'

The computerized "Hala" will be able to translate not just language but nuance when dealing with multicultural visitors.
Researchers at the University of Arizona and Carnegie Mellon University are working to create a robot receptionist. What makes the effort novel is that the "roboceptionist" is bilingual and bicultural – a computer with a face and a natural language interface.
A three-year, $1 million grant from the Qatar National Research Foundation is funding basic advances in human-computer interaction. Majd Sakr, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, is the principal investigator on the grant.
Reid Simmons, a professor at Carnegie Mellon's...