SANTA CRUZ, California, September 20, 2002 - Reaffirming its position as the leading character automation technology, Haptek today announced the availability of its Generation-4 Character Automation software and development tools available for commercial applications.

Haptek’s Generation-4 software creates bona fide artificial actors - characters that can instantly, realistically perform a written script - what we’re seeing in the movies today with plots like that in "Simone" is actually possible using Haptek’s Generation-4 software technology. Haptek characters can turn a simple voice recording into an engaging full-body animation - this means, in essence, that these characters can automatically turn your radio into a television, or, as a much more economically relevant example - they can turn a wireless phone's voice signal into an engaging character performance with zero added bandwidth. This is particularly useful due to the bandwidth restrictions on today's wireless systems and the increased capacities of the newest cell phones, some of which also include cameras. Once a photo is taken with one of these new phones and transmitted to another phone, it is possible for Haptek's technology to bring that photo to life.

Although other companies make artificial characters and transmit "low bandwidth" signals to control those characters, only Haptek makes fully automated, spontaneously reacting characters. As a result, no other company's characters can autonomously create their own performance with anything approaching the realism, versatility, or appeal of Haptek's artificial actors.

How can an artificial character automatically perform like a person? Haptek's characters have Software Personalities, complete with reactive and non-reactive emotions that can be tuned to recreate all the basic personality types that we see in real people. Software Personalities are made up of mathematical models of behavior that let characters see, hear and react instantly and automatically in a natural, human-like manner. The ability of these characters to physically and emotionally behave like real humans - to be essentially "alive" on a user’s system - has made them useful to markets stretching from medicine to customer service.

This release announces the immediate availability of Haptek’s new Generation-4 SDK and associated tools for working with Haptek’s Generation-4 technology. With this release, Haptek forges far-ahead of its competition in creating the first truly "automated actors" for commercial use.

Here's what industry leaders are saying about Haptek’s new Generation-4 software:

COGNOS: "Cognos Web Services (http://www.cognos.com) has fully integrated an active Haptek character utilizing voice recognition for data entry, allowing the user to actually talk with the synthetic personality, while Cognos Business Intelligence software responds accordingly to the query and utilizes a text-to-speech system for the character’s response. The end result is a fully autonomous character that assists the user in the Cognos Web Services query system," Don Campbell, VP Product Innovation & Technology, Cognos, Inc.

MEDICAL LEARNING COMPANY: "Medical Learning Company, a Kurzweil Technologies Company, is incorporating Haptek’s Generation-4 software into it’s new knowledge-based medical training systems - thereby giving doctors and the medical community at large real-world interaction with patients in a simulated yet fully interactive experience," David Burkholder, Medical Learning Company (http://www.med-learn.com).

IMPARTA: "Imparta is committed to creating online learning simulations that offer the same immersive experience as our CD-based products. We conducted a very thorough examination of all the available technologies, from streaming video to various types of animated characters. Haptek is not only the leader in its field, but also offers the best tradeoff between bandwidth and quality available on the market today," said Richard Barkey, CEO, Imparta Ltd. (http://www.imparta.com)

For more information on Haptek’s Generation-4 commercial software - please contact Jack Wiley, Business Development, Haptek, Inc. at (831) 728-0770 or by email at jack@haptek.com.

Haptek, Inc.
P.O. Box 965
Freedom, California 95019-0965
(831) 728-0770


Haptek® PeoplePutty® and Haptek Generation-4® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Haptek, Inc. Intel® and Pentium® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. Cognos® Web Services® are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cognos, Inc. Med-Learn® is a registered trademark of Medical Learning Company, a Kurzweil Technologies Company Imparta® is a registered trademark of Imparta, Ltd.