IDI Press Release – January 15, 2001

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IDI is proud to announce a virtual dialogue with
Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg

January 15, 2001 — Dr. Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate and pioneer in the field of genetic research, shares his insight as one of the nation’s authorities on biological warfare in Interactive Drama’s “Conversations with Experts in Cyberspace” series of interactive programs on CD-ROM.  Profoundly disturbed by the prospect of terrorist groups using biological agents as weapons of mass destruction, Dr. Lederberg shares his thoughts and concerns on the subject to help educate the public about this serious potential threat.

All of the programs in this expert series embody speech recognition, digital video, and microprocessor technologies uniquely combined to allow users to interview experts who would otherwise not be accessible to them.  Users feel as if they are meeting and talking with the expert as they engage them in a two-way virtual dialogue.

In the “face-to-face” interview with Dr. Lederberg, the user can ask a wide range of questions about biological warfare, including:  Why should we be concerned about it?  What dilemmas does it pose? What are common biological agents? What is the U.S. doing about it? Are we prepared for an attack? How is the public being educated? and more.  The dynamic intelligent prompting method in every Virtual Conversations™ program displays a continuous stream of relevant, cogent questions for the user to ask.  There is enough information on the CD-ROM to conduct a meaningful, uninterrupted conversation with Dr. Lederberg for over an hour.

This program is one in a series being developed with a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Department of Defense.  The series will be distributed widely for educational purposes.

About IDI
IDI has been creating voice-activated interactive video simulations since 1984. The company's founders began this research and development at the National Library of Medicine’s Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications. Subsequent R&D has been funded by SBIR grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and DARPA.

The educational effectiveness of the method has been validated repeatedly in rigorous scientific experiments funded by these agencies. In 1991, IDI was awarded U.S. Patent No. 5,006,987 to protect this unique method of dialogue with a virtual human subject. Subsequently, IDI developed a dynamic, intelligent prompting system to help users conduct a focused and informative dialogue with Virtual Conversations™ characters. In 1997, U.S. Patent No. 5,730,603 was awarded to protect the intelligent prompting method. A third patent is pending.

For More Information Contact:

Marcia A. Zier
Interactive Drama Inc.
7900 Wisconsin Avenue Suite 200, Bethesda, MD 20814
Tel: 301.654.0676
FAX: 301.657.9174
Email: mzier@idrama.com