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About Pandorabots
March 24, 2003
http://www.pandorabots.com is a software
robot (also known as a bot) hosting service. From any browser, you may create
and publish your own robots to anyone via the web. We believe that our
technology yields the fastest bots available on the Internet. The bots are based
on AIML and spring entirely from the work of Dr. Richard Wallace and the
A.L.I.C.E. and AIML free software community based at http://www.alicebot.org.
There is no charge for using this site. We gladly accept any inquiries for custom versions of this site for particular applications. Send mail to info@pandorabots.com with questions.
No one has yet discovered the true potential of virtual personalities and bots, and our mission is to design tools which will help Bots achieve greater relevance in both the commercial and personal sectors. Capabilities such as voice recognition, text to speech synthesis, invoking programs on remote or local machines, content development tools, e-commerce and cartoon animations are under development to help you bring your bot to virtual life.
You should expect numerous changes to this site, so please save your bot creations on your own machine using the "file save" facility of your browser. (Your bot's knowledge is typically stored in a file called update.aiml and is available via the "edit" link, which is itself available from the "Botmaster control" link.)
Rudimentary documentation now exists throughout the site – see also the Help link on the navigation bar for more extensive documentation. The Bots hosted here conform in most respects to the bot specifications given at http://www.alicebot.org.
Coming Soon
Future enhancements will include:
- The ability to publish robots with specific names
- Documentation ("how to" books)
- Tools for creating content for the non-programmer
- Tools to support music, graphics and background screens
About Oddcast VHostTM
Oddcast Inc.'s VHost™ platform (see http://vhost.oddcast.com) allows non-programmers to effortlessly publish flash-based interactive characters onto web sites, Intranets and mobile devices without resorting to proprietary plug-ins and does not require a broadband connection.
Recently added Text To Speech capabilities have made the VHost platform uniquely suited to the needs of bot developers. A speaking virtual character (called a 'VHost') provides a much-needed visual embodiment to an otherwise faceless bot.
An integration of Oddcast and Pandorabots technology now allows Pandorabots users to easily add a VHost to their bot. Oddcast has made available to Pandorabots users several VHosts that you may publish your Bots with at no cost. These free VHost characters are for demonstration purposes and may be used for up to 500 text to speech streams per month.* In order to increase the number of available text to speech streams to 5,000 per month, or to design your own VHost characters, you can purchase a VHost SitePal account.
Your own VHost SitePal account will allow you to completely customize your Pandorabot – face, hair, eyes, voice, clothing – and bring your imagination to life.*One text to speech stream is used for each spoken chatbot response. Limit applies on a per botmaster basis.
Charge Customers to View Your Bot
Our Subscription Service makes it possible to charge people to view your bot. Simply click on the Subscription link on the Botmaster Page, and only the email addresses you input will be able to access your bot once it's published.
You can then charge people to be "added" to the list. How much you want to charge is up to you. The more intelligent and knowledgeable your bot is, the more people will want to pay to access it!
The easiest way to receive money from customers is through the service www.paypal.com. Other ways include checks, cash, and credit cards. Please note, however, that receiving money via credit card is difficult unless you have a special merchant bank account.
Note: Pandorabots will be adding more services in the future. We expect future services to be compatible with the Subscription services, yet we make no guarantees or warranties of any type.