In this live demonstration, Kevin Surace and Mark Campbell present Serengeti, General Magic’s second‑generation internet‑based virtual assistant. The demo begins with a voice‑only interaction where the system authenticates a user, reads email messages and voicemails, reports calendar appointments, adds a new meeting, and retrieves contact information (including a newly created entry for “Monica Lewinsky”). The voice interface is then mirrored in a standard web browser, showing the same email, voicemail (via RealAudio), calendar, and address‑book data, and allowing the creation of a new contact without any prior training. The presenters discuss the service‑as‑product model, potential pricing comparable to ISP plans, and distribution channels (cellular carriers, ISPs, and auto PCs). The session ends with a brief Q&A about productization and a thank‑you to the audience.
Chapters
Thank you, David. Thank you, Matt, the voice of KQED. One of my fantasies was to be introduced by Matt. Some of you may remember our demonstration last year of a concept product at the Internet Showcase in April. I'm happy to say that later this year, the middle of this year, that concept becomes a reality as we launch that service as we promised. The demonstration you're going to see in just a few seconds is that of an internet-based application we've codenamed Serengeti. And Serengeti is a second-generation virtual assistant that allows you to access all of your important information at any time from any location. And here to show you how it works are Kevin Surace and Mark Campbell.
Well, let's find the phone up here.
Aha.
So we're going to run right into, uh, into the demonstration right now and not, uh, not take any time at all, uh, to talk about this. I think it'll be really obvious what we're doing. We're going to demonstrate a voice user interface to our personal virtual assistant, and we're going to demonstrate the graphical user interface, the data access to that same information. This is really hard to do in this room because we have lots of echo and lots of audio coming through a wireless phone, but we're going to give it a shot, so bear with me here. Hey Google, Turn the mics, turn this mic. Yeah, you got it.
And I need the phone up.
Hello, welcome to Serengeti. Could I get your account number?
774-4477.
Thanks. Now tell me your passcode.
4477.
You have 3 new messages. This email is from Jim Campbell.
The subject is Dinner Inning. Read it.
I received your proposal today and I look forward to seeing you at dinner tonight.
Jim.
Here's the next message.
Voicemail received on January 26th at 9:32 AM.
Read it.
Hi, this is Kathleen. I just want to let you know that we're all set to meet with—
Read my final message.
Not that loud.
This is the last one. This email is from—
Read my first message.
Here's the first one.
Read my next message.
Here's the next message.
Delete it.
Are you sure?
Yes.
Okay, gone.
Read my appointments.
Let me check. January 28th.
You have a meeting at 1 o'clock PM regarding public relations meeting. And you have a meeting at 3 o'clock PM regarding conference call.
Do I have any appointments for March 12th?
Let me check. You don't have any appointments on March 12th. What else can I do for you?
Add an appointment.
Okay, on what date?
March 12th.
That's Thursday, March 12th, 1998.
Is that right?
Yepper.
That's Thursday, March the 12th, 1998.
Is that right?
Yes.
Okay, what time do you want to start?
11 o'clock.
That's 11 o'clock AM.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Okay, how long will it last?
1 hour. That's 1 hour.
Is that right?
Yep.
Okay, tell me what it's about.
Sales meeting. That's—
Sales meeting.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Okay, great. That's all I need. You're confirmed for your—
Sales meeting.
Appointment on—
Thursday, March 12th, 1998, 11:00 AM.
For—
1 hour.
What else can I do for you?
Look up Kevin Kramer.
Let me check.
Kevin Kramer.
The company name is—
Adventure Dynamics. The address is 161 South Spruce Avenue, South San Francisco, California.
Can you find Kathleen Page's work phone number? Let me check. Kathleen Page.
The work number is 408-345-2745.
Goodbye.
I hung up on her. We're going to go on to the graphical— I need this off.
Thank you.
We're going to run to the graphical user interface and show you the exact same information that's on the phone. is on the web, accessible via any browser. Go ahead, Mark.
Very quickly, you can see behind this window here the email that he listened to. You can hear the voicemail available using RealAudio. As Kevin was listening to his appointments, I was actually viewing the calendar from the web. Again, this is a standard browser, could be a net PC, using standard HTML, nothing fancy here, although you get rather complex views of your daily calendar information. You can also get address book information. Let's very quickly create a new contact in the Personal Information Manager here. And sort of like the Learn It and Howsby people, we chose that the Monica Lewinsky name is a good one to try out with pronunciations.
Do we have her home phone number, by the way?
I think we do. Let's pop that in here.
If this works, I want you to push 0 on that Iris thing.
So, uh, there we go. We've got Monica's entry now in the system. As you noticed, the system doesn't require any training at all, and he'll be able to refer to Monica right away. So let's see what happens.
Hello, welcome to Serengeti. Could I get your account number?
7744477.
Thanks. Now tell me your passcode.
4477.
You have 3 new messages.
Call Monica Lewinsky.
You want me to try the home number?
Yeah. Turn this up. Go ahead and turn it up now.
Okay.
I know she's there. Hang on.
She's not answering.
Well, it's possible— What was that? Well, so everyone knows, we'll go ahead and pull this up now.
So everyone knows, that is the number for the White House. We did test that earlier. They did answer. But they couldn't find Monica, unfortunately. So that's a very good example. That's a very good example, though, of us putting in a brand new contact that could have been from your ACT database or from Outlook or any other major PIM, instantly adding it, and even though it never heard me pronounce it before, instantly connecting us. That's all we have. Come see us later. Enjoy the cruise tonight.
There are 2 men in dark suits outside the door.
Yes, I bet there are.
Let me, let me ask a question. How does this become a product?
This is actually going to be sold as a service. It'll be sold through a variety of channels, which you'll see about mid-year. And, uh, you're going to ask me about pricing, so I'll just comment on it. Well, we haven't announced officially pricing yet. This is likely to be priced similar to ISP-like pricing. So this is going to be a very inexpensive kind of a service that gives you access to all your information— phone, web, either way. Even on a boat tonight, you'd have access to all your information.
Is this Is this predominantly something I buy with my cell phone, or do I go to an ISP to get—
what—
Maybe both, as a matter of fact. You might get it from your cellular phone carrier. You may use it on your cell phone or PCS phone. It might be bundled with your phone package, or you might get it from your ISP.
So any number of channels.
Any number of channels.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, David.
And we need it on our Auto PC is where we really need it.
Thanks.
Let the Microsoft people know. Thank you very much, everyone.
