THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Imagine a mobile app that guides you vocally when lost in an unknown place. The app VIKI, a virtual personal assistant, launched by Agrima Infotech Private Limited at Start-up Village, can be your aid when caught in a distress situation.
VIKI can provide direction to a destination, update you the latest cricket score, remind you of your engagements and in short the app can be anybody’s personal assistant that remind, alert and navigate one through its voice-sensitive features. The application is simple and has a voice interface making it possible to use one’s voice as input.
The user can send messages and mails, post something in social media, schedule meetings and operate any other applications. It also guides you to choose a fine restaurant, a movie, get updated with the news and weather forecast.
With an added feature called as buddy talk, one can simply talk or give instruction to VIKI for reminding your meetings, parties, appointments or even choosing films and prices of stock markets.
Agrima Infotech was started in 2011 by three computer engineering students at Sree Narayana Gurukulam, Kolencherry. The company incubated in the Startup Village following their research on robotics through the technology of artificial intelligence. The founders of the company are Anoop Balakrishnan (chief executive officer), Nikhil Dharman (chief technical officer) and Arun Ravi (vice-president, business operations).
According to Arun Ravi, the USP of the app is the voice interface. “One can easily give instructions to the app with their voice for any reminders or to watch movie clippings or any personal favourites”, he said.
He added that the app is aimed at those who are very busy with their jobs and may forget important events, meetings or even some entertainment options. “The user can be downloaded the app with a charge of $2.99 per year. At the moment, this app can work only in Blackberry phones. We are also planning to implement the app in other applications such as Windows and Android,” he added.