The big picture - [News]

SINCE JUNE, people passing through the main railway station in Berlin have had the option of getting answers to some of travelers' most frequently asked questions from a robot. Deutsche Bahn's new customerservice agent, called Semmi (short for Socio- Empathetic Human- Machine Interaction), gets its smarts from artificial intelligence and its speaking voice from a cloud-based voice user interface. Semmi, which speaks German, English, and seven other languages, not only provides up-to-the-minute train arrival and departure schedules, but acts as a digital concierge, giving information about and directions to restaurants and other facilities inside and close to the station. Its debut came after its sibling, FRAnny, had a successful trial run earlier this year at Frankfurt Airport.