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鈥檚 particular interests, from world affairs to celebrity gossip.
For example, one video shows a while another shows a more opinionated (both wmv files).
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鈥淭he start point for News at Seven is a set of preferences for what the report should be about,鈥� 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. 鈥淭he stories are edited for length, and changed to make them more colloquial and suited to speech,鈥� says Hammond.
Active voice
For example, information contained within brackets is turned into something that can be read aloud. Where possible, sentences are also changed from the passive to the active voice. 鈥淎n offer was made by George Bush鈥︹�� would become 鈥淕eorge Bush made an offer鈥︹��
The next step is to extract further key terms from these reports and use these to search for supplementary images and videos on sites like YouTube and Google Video. Technorati and Google Blog Search are also used find opinionated blog posts related to the topic of the broadcast. 鈥淭he software looks for words and phrases indicative of emotional impact,鈥� Hammond explains.
Finally, the software generates a script from the collated material. Text-to-speech software then lets computer animated characters 鈥� taken from the shoot-em-up computer game Half Life 鈥� take on the role of news anchors, with the pictures and videos shown on a screen behind them.
Other characters are used, as interviewees, presenting material taken from blogs posts. This is treated slightly differently 鈥� emphasis is added to these characters鈥� synthesised speech to get a more personal message across.
Personalised news
By the end of the year, Hammond and colleagues plan to use the system to produce a daily news round-up featuring three or so stories. 鈥淲e are also hoping to be able to offer personalised bulletins by then too,鈥� he says.
Paul Clough, who works on automated information retrieval at Sheffield University, UK, says News at Seven is an ambitious combination, or 鈥渕ash-up鈥�, of information from different resources.
Clough points out that this can provide more interesting ways of accessing original information. Although he does not believe News at Seven will steal viewers from regular TV networks just yet, he says the 鈥渂ulletins look very good and could even appeal to people that don鈥檛 use the web鈥�.
He adds that computer generated news bulletins be a feature of next generation television.
