The influence of computers has grown recently to the point where they have become essential tools for many people, not only in their jobs but also in their leisure time. The technology, however, is becoming more advanced and more difficult to understand for the average user. For that reason, an important change in the interaction between humans and computers is necessary. Today the most common way of entering and displaying or printing data on the computer is based on the old WIMP paradigm (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers), which does not allow the user to interact naturally with the machine. The most natural way for humans to communicate is by speech. Innovative user interfaces are being developed with the ability to synthesize speech and recognize it also, with a representation of a 3-D synthetic character as a 》partner《 in the dialogue. These new interfaces are called Conversational User Interfaces, in which Avatars (for our purposes, 3-D speaking characters) play an important role.
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