Virtual You

One application of the system might be an on-line help desk - a live voice projecting through a digital person would assist the user. The real support representative, while speaking, could leaf through documents with his or her head down. The web image would be the digital person looking at and "speaking" directly to the user.

Digital Personnel could also enhance e-commerce by providing a user-friendly presence. Product demonstration, promotion and celebrity representation interaction would be possible with on- line customers.

"We are excited about the acquisition of this technology and about our collaboration with JPL on future development," said Cristian Ivanescu, chairman and CEO of Graphco Technologies, Inc. "The Digital Personnel technology complements our market offerings for secure database and information-sharing systems for law enforcement, government and industry."

Industry experts said virtual people are a good idea, especially for e-commerce applications. But the technology is still in its infancy and could need a lot of refinement.

"The character should be engaging," said Norman Badler, a University of Pennsylvania computer science professor. "It should vary. If every time you open the Web page, the character does the same thing, you're going to hate it.

"People are fond of hating the Microsoft paper clip [a cartoon character that pops up on the screen to offer technical support in software such as Microsoft Word]. So the challenge with these Web-based characters is to provide human variety. . . . It's the kind of world where we don't have a lot of hard data on what people like."

The main advantage of this technology is that it produces very realistic animations of people speaking. Because it uses images of actual individuals, the Digital Personnel technology retains the full detail of the face, including subtle shading and shadowing. Because the technology is based on 2-D images versus 3-D modeling, it will enable individuals to create their Digital Personnel personae with a relatively simple enrollment process that takes just a few minutes of time.

Graphco Technologies, Inc., has acquired the exclusive worldwide rights to Digital Personnel, a patent pending technology that makes it possible to synthesize photo-realistic talking individuals for e-commerce and e-support. The license was originally issued by the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, to Digital Personnel, Inc., a subsidiary of UTEK Corp., Plant City, Fla. Digital Personnel, Inc., was acquired by Graphco Technologies, Inc., earlier this year from UTEK Corp. and Caltech. Graphco Technologies, Inc. develops and markets secure database and secure communications systems.