Supposedly, 2001: A Space Odyssey author Arthur C. Clarke was visiting a friend at Bell Labs in 1961 when physicists John Larry Kelly and Louis Gerstman demonstrated the first computer to synthesize speech.
Clarke was so taken with the computer’s rendition of Daisy Bell, the author used it for HAL’s death scene in the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece. In the scene, HAL sings Daisy Bell as Dave is shutting him down for good…
Above is a case study for an IVR solution that was implemented by Plum for the Cummins Human Resources department. Our goal was to streamline the benefits enrollment process by helping the HR department eliminate paper forms, decrease the enrollment timeframe, and automate the entire process through the phone so that all employees could access a system to enroll in their company’s benefit plan.
The technical specifics
Cummins chose to deploy their IVR application via Plum’s hosted IVR network. With Plum’s fully managed IVR hosting service, Plum manages, monitors and maintains all the hardware, the IVR application and the VoiceXML software. Providing comprehensive system management includes supporting the telco connectivity and insuring 99.999% uptime.
The IVR system is able to interface with Oracle application software and an Oracle database.
Highlighted Features of the System
Easy to use and understand caller menu - Plum engineers designed and built the IVR application with user-friendly call interfaces in mind.
Ability to handle high call loads at peak periods - Plum hosted IVR provides the scalability that accommodates high call volumes.
High reliability - Plum’s hosted service is delivered on a carrier-grade infrastructure, housed in secure class-A data centers for maximum reliability.
Security - Plum provides for data exchange via secure HTTPS. The interface between Plum data centers may be secured through a combination of IP blocking and authentication and encryption using SSL. Other security mechanisms, such as virtual private networks, are also used as required.
In the late 1950s, computers were coming on the scene and changing the way people were thinking about all kinds of technologies, including text-to-speech.
Computers seemed like the sure-fire answer to the age-old question of how to create a brazen head—a brass or bronze head that “wizards” like Pope Sylvester II allegedly used in the Middle Ages (anyway…). Those computers were the predecessors of today’s IVR systems.
In 1961, physicists at Bell Labs made a big leap forward by using an IBM computer to synthesize speech. It could speak programmed phrases and even sing—it sang the song Daisy Bell…
Part 1: Voder
The first speech synthesizer was named Voder—he (we’ll just call him he, like his older brother HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey) made his appearance at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Most regard Voder as the first speech synthesizer that could electronically convert text to speech.
Speech synthesis or text-to-speech provides dynamic information stored in databases to callers in IVR systems—it’s a fundamental part of today’s IVR applications. Back in 1939, however, Voder’s creators were just getting started…
In Malaysia, people are unfortunately falling victim to a scam using interactive voice response (IVR) technology. Unfortunately, we at Plum Voice have seen this before. Actually not from a world away in the news but first hand in our own IVR systems. In America.
According to news coming out of the tiny peninsula nation, Malaysians are getting calls from an IVR system telling them they have outstanding credit at their bank and need to make a payment. The system provides a number for them to call, where associates in the scam wait to take their personal and banking information.
Supposedly, if the callers don’t have credit cards, the associates ask them to file a complaint with Bank Negara Malaysia (Malaysia’s Central Bank). The associates conveniently provide a phone number for the bank, where more associates wait to pry whatever personal information they can from the callers.
It’s a pretty elaborate scheme, but it’s based on a fairly simple first step. Using an IVR system, the criminals send out calls with recordings asking people to get in touch with customer service reps at such-and-such number. Then the scam begins.
For years, Plum has offered free demo accounts for potential customers to try out our IVR and survey products before they buy them.
With our demo developer accounts, programmers can write and run voice applications (if they know VoiceXML, the programming language of web-voice apps). We used to provide them with a dedicated local Boston phone number to test it out. They couldn’t make outbound calls with the dedicated number (like the Malaysian scam), but they could call in to see how their apps were working.
That’s where they took advantage. Criminals like the ones in Malaysia set up an IVR app that mimicked (not very well, fortunately) a banking IVR system.
They sent out fishing spam posing as emails from several banks, but instead of giving a URL link, they provided a phone number (the dedicated Boston number) and asked them to call…immediately. When people from the emails called, the phony bank IVR started asking them for personal information. Thankfully, some of the people being scammed caught on and reported the fraud.
After Plum found out about it, we passed the information on to the FBI. Then we put a few things in place so it won’t happen again—
It’s been several years since Plum put these safeguards in place on our DIY developer hosting accounts. Since then, we’ve also incorporated them into our Plum Survey and QuickFuse products. So far, we’ve had no additional reports of fraud by others using our systems.
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They didn’t have IVR with notifications and alerts in the Dark Ages. In fact, they didn’t have much communication at all.
What we commonly call the Dark Ages (the Middle Ages, really) is the period in Europe following the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire—from around 500 to 1,500 A.D.
As Rome fell to invading Barbarian hordes, its infrastructure of roads and towns all but disappeared, and Europe entered a difficult age of economic hardship, isolation, violence and disease.
When the infrastructure disappeared, trade and travel diminished, towns shrunk and villages became isolated outposts. Europeans were living their entire lives in tiny hamlets with no news from the outside world, unless it came in the form of disease.
People of the time knew next to nothing about germs and the spread of disease. Open sewers ran down city streets, most people rarely bathed and the most common medical treatment was bloodletting—bleeding “bad blood” from already weakened patients so they just got worse.
Because of this, illnesses ravaged Europe repeatedly during the Middle Ages, including various plagues. Cholera, dysentery, influenza, measles, mumps—they all did their work. Leprosy was prevalent at the time, too. But the bubonic plague—the Black Death—was the worst, killing half of Europe’s population (an estimated 25 million people) in five short years in the middle of the 14th century.
During these epidemics, communication was slow and ineffectual. The diseases spread much faster than any warning system. If you were traveling, you might come across a house with a cross on the door or a city with the gates closed. That’s how you knew there was plague.
It’s almost impossible for us to imagine what it was like living then. Today, we know about events happening across the world while they’re still happening. We have IVR systems that notify emergency-response and medical personnel of trouble and can call us, too. When avian flu hit, we knew. It’s amazing, when you think about it.
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” -Aristotle
“The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”
-William Shakespeare
“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”
-George Sand
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.”
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
Valentine’s Day has rolled around once again. As the above quotes demonstrate, a well-thought-out Valentine or love letter can be the perfect gift. While one can always appreciate candy, flowers, dates and presents, there is nothing more romantic than receiving something heartfelt that took careful contemplation and construction.
An interactive voice response system could help everyone express his or her thoughts and feelings, not just today, but every day. An IVR system could act as a Valentine’s transmission service of sorts, enabling people to both transmit and receive amorous messages telephonically. In fact, Plum has developed a number of applications for marketing firms and big brands that deliver message by concatenating audio files recorded by celebrities.
We have also developed voice applications that let users call in, record their desired message using speech recognition software, and then schedule transmission, all with some simple database interfacing. In contrast to written notes, recipients hear messages in their loved one’s voice, regardless of whether they were down the street or around the world.
Users could receive a scheduled telephonic Valentine personally authored and spoken explicitly for them anywhere, at any time. Whether it was a sonnet, a poem, a story, or simply a love letter, this service would enable users to call in and record their musings, and then dispatch a phone call or even transcription to their loved ones. In this day and age of smart phones and social networks, a personally recorded message can be extremely romantic, and indeed may be exactly the gift someone was waiting for. Happy Valentine’s Day!
One of the Super Bowl commercials this year had a guy getting a call from his wife when he was working late one night, reminding him of their anniversary.
Obviously, he’d forgotten to make dinner reservations although he played it off. He jumped onto his smartphone and used Bing to find a restaurant.
Lucky for him it wasn’t Valentine’s Day. There’s no way he’d get reservations anywhere like that so quickly, spur-of-the-moment, the same night.
If you’ve ever waited a little too long to make reservations for the big night before, or maybe just picked up a last-minute date so it wasn’t just you and the dog again, you know all about this.
You start off calling the places you might actually want to go, but they of course don’t have anything open. Then you try the old stand-bys that aren’t the coolest thing ever but are okay. No dice. Then you slowly work your way down to whatever place has something open. Meanwhile, the last spots are filling up by the minute.
Those nights usually end up being the more special Valentine’s Days (read sarcasm here) where your spouse or date or whatever is really impressed (again, sarcasm).
But what about doing this a little differently? Well, first of all, we should all try not to forget Valentine’s Day so this never comes up. But what if you do, and you’re driving home from work when you realize it? Uh-oh.
An IVR system linked to a restaurant database would be the answer to your prayers. While driving, you could get your reservations done with a single phone call. You might not get your favorite restaurant, but you’d probably get something better than you would otherwise. At least you wouldn’t get the hairy eyeball when you got home.
Kiss me. Be Mine. XOXO. I ♥ you. As the omnipresent Necco candy hearts remind us, it’s once again that time of year. Love is in the air as February 14th looms.
According to Wikipedia, Valentine’s Day is traditionally a day on which lovers express their affection for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery and sending greeting cards. First associated with romantic affection in part due to Chaucer’s associations with courtly love, modern Valentine’s Day is celebrated with gifts, lavish or economical, and often times dates.
Children have it easy exchanging thematic and topical Valentine’s Day cards with each other, in addition to indulging in candy and other sweet treats.
Speaking from experience, there’s nothing worse than that moment you realize you’ve forgotten Valentine’s Day. Every restaurant is already booked, the florist is completely wiped of any passable flower arrangements, and it’s far too late to run to the mall to try to piece together what appears to be a thoughtful gift.
An IVR system would offer the perfect solution. Instead of experiencing that sinking feeling in your stomach while your loved one looks on disappointed, an interactive voice response system could be a one-stop Valentine’s Day shop. An IVR could integrate with all types of stores, restaurants and florists. Subscribers could call and do all their V-Day planning telephonically and on-the-go.
Users could call in and speak or type what they were looking for using DTMF and speech-recognition functionality. From there the IVR system could connect users with restaurants, enabling them to hear about special menus and reserve tables, connect with florists to reserve those hard-to-find Birds of Paradise bouquets and even connect with stores to ensure that perfect gift is in stock.
Instead of having to admit to your significant other that you forgot to do any planning for what could be the most romantic night of the year, an IVR system would quickly and easily solve all problems with nominal effort. If that isn’t romantic, I don’t know what is. You will be thanked later, guaranteed!
Bang! Clang! Glurpp! Kapow! Slosh! Spla-a-t! No you’re not watching old Batman fight scenes; that’s the sound of your pipes acquiescing to the cold and bursting around your house.
There’s nothing more disconcerting than returning home to find six inches of standing water seeping into your carpet, floor and furniture. That actually happened to a friend of mine recently.
For most of the country, this winter has been a doozy, with 49 out of 50 states (including Hawaii) having had snow on the ground at some point. Each time the country gets walloped by snow it seems that an arctic cold front follows, bringing almost unimaginably cold temperatures in the negative teens and twenties. This bitter cold is shaping up to be more than just slightly bothersome, plummeting inside temperatures and resulting in massive headaches for those encountering bursting or leaking pipes.
As I helped my friend water-vaccum and sift through his soiled belongings, I began to think about potential soultions that could help people curb or even avoid this hazard. An IVR system would offer the perfect answer.
An interactive voice response system that linked to thermostats would allow people to remotely control and monitor their thermostat, increasing and decreasing the temperature as necessary. With an IVR system like this, users could simply integrate their thermostat with a remote IVR database. They could then call in, hear about real-time temperature conditions in their house, and make adjustments as necessary.
This sort of system would be advantageous in both cold and hot weather conditions, as no one wants to return to a sauna any more than they want to return to a freezer. Another way IVR is solving problems remotely and on-the-go!
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