Software that automatically generates timely video news bulletins, presented by computer-animated characters, could revolutionise current affairs broadcasting, researchers say.
The system, called News at Seven, can produce reports tailored to a person's particular interests, from world affairs to celebrity gossip.
For example, one video shows a bulletin about attempts to corroborate North Korea's controversial nuclear test while another shows a more opinionated celebrity-focused report (both wmv files).
"The start point for News at Seven is a set of preferences for what the report should be about," explains Kristian Hammond at Northwestern University, Illinois, US, who developed the system with graduate students Nathan Nichols and Sara Owsley.
Using keywords entered by the user, the program selects news site RSS feeds and specific stories to focus on. "The stories are edited for length, and changed to make them more colloquial and suited to speech," says Hammond in the New Scientist.
0 comments:
Post a Comment