IBM's Watson to Power Bridge Crew VR Interactive Speech Experience

IBM’s Watson will power in-game voice command for Ubisoft’s upcoming release of Star Trek: Bridge Crew during an experimental Beta period later this summer following the game's launch on May 30. Bridge Crew provides players the first opportunity -- ever – to use their voice, in natural language, to interact with their virtual Starfleet crew members.

IBM's new “VR Speech Sandbox,” the software used to build this feature, is now available for all developers to adapt for their own virtual reality (VR) applications and services. The Sandbox combines IBM's Watson Unity SDK with two services, Watson Speech to Text and Watson Conversation. Developers now have the opportunity to build new and innovative user interfaces, leveraging the power of voice interaction in virtual reality. In-game speech experiences, built with IBM Watson for Star Trek: Bridge Crew will be available this summer in Beta for cross-platform play. The Watson and Star Trek:Bridge Crew partnership will allow players to give direct, interactive speech commands to virtual Starfleet shipmates. By infusing this new cognitive technology into the game, players will be able to seamlessly complete missions online, with AI characters and with human partners, without breaking immersion. The entire interaction is further enhanced with VR as the native gameplay experience.

“We have been eager to find the right way to use interactive speech to tap into the more immersive and interactive experiences that VR offers,” said David Votypka, Sr. Creative Director at Red Storm Entertainment, a Ubisoft Studio. “Watson gives Captains in Star Trek: Bridge Crew the ability to issue commands to non-player crew members in the same way they do with a human crew; by using their voice. IBM provides an easy to integrate solution that is cloud based, so it's light on code and performance while letting us remain fast on feature turnaround." IBM Watson’s capabilities are making the future of virtual and augmented reality possible. It offers natural language interaction versus keyword driven exchanges. Further, it supports the most popular VR developer tools with the Watson Unity SDK.“For the first time, Watson will power the technology that makes it possible for gamers and fans of Star Trek to interact with the crew," said Willie Tejada, Chief Developer Advocate, IBM. “We are only just seeing the impact of virtual and augmented reality, and IBM is committed to providing developers with the tools they need to innovate and be competitive in this AI and Cognitive era.” For more information visit Star Trek: Bridge Crew and IBM VR Speech Sandbox.