StoredIQ was a company founded for information lifecycle management (ILM) of unstructured data. Founded in 2001 as Deepfile in Austin, Texas by Jeff Erramouspe, Jeff Bone, Russell Turpin, Rudy Rouhana, Laura Arbilla and Brett Funderburg, the company changed its name in 2005 to StoredIQ. It continued to operate successfully for over a decade until it was acquired in 2012 by IBM. It now serves as a platform for IBM's information life cycle governance, big data governance and enterprise content management technologies. StoredIQ was awarded five patents by the USPTO. The first, originally filed in 2003, enabled unstructured data in file systems to be manipulated in a similar way to information stored in databases. Subsequent patents built upon the patented actionable file system with further enhancements specific to Enterprise Policy Management and expanding the reach of StoredIQ's management capability all the way to individual desktops. In 2008 StoredIQ was recognized as "Best in Compliance" by Network Products Guide. At the same time, StoredIQ was being recognized as a "Top 5 Provider" by the prestigious Socha-Gelbmann eDiscovery survey. There were takeover negotiations with EMC Corporation, initially a strategic investor in StoredIQ, however, the company rejected the approach, leaving EMC to acquire a competitor. The company published a whitepaper titled The Truth About Big Data. This promotion combined with StoredIQ's patented technology led to IBM selecting StoredIQ as the basis for some products.
BevQ
BevQ is a queue management mobile application developed by Faircode Technologies of Kochi, Kerala. It is provided by the Kerala State Beverages Corporation under Government of Kerala. == History == This app was released together by the Government of Kerala and the Kerala State Beverages Corporation in order to implement social distancing in the liquor stores Kerala in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic in Kerala and to reduce the congestion of people. The BevQ App was released by Faircode Technologies on 27 May 2020 on the Google Play Store. In January 2021, the app was withdrawn as bars had opened. In June 2021, there was a commitment from the Kerala CM that the App will be relaunched again. It has been reported that over 132,000 new users downloaded the app in the 48 hours after the announcement. == Achievements == The BEVQ app, which works only in the state of Kerala, beat all other Indian food and drink apps in 2020 to see the highest growth in year-on-year sessions, according to the State of Mobile 2021 report by App Annie. The app even beat the likes of Domino’s, which is used all across India. Around 300 government Liquor shops and 900 private liquor shops were enlisted in the platform. More than 200 million unique users registered in the platform. About 250,000 tokens were given out a day.
Boyfriend Maker
Boyfriend Maker was a dating sim, romance chatbot smartphone app for iOS (iPhone) and Android devices, developed by Japanese studio 36 You Games (styled as 36You) and distributed under the freemium business model. Boyfriend Maker incorporated advanced artificial intelligence chat technology a decade before products such as ChatGPT. According to the developer's website, Boyfriend Maker is an "app that lets you interact and chat with quirky virtual boyfriends". While each virtual boyfriend has certain unique characteristics, the various instances of the boyfriend are powered by a chat engine, that (at least within a language and market) can utilise vocabulary and knowledge acquired in a chat with one user in subsequent chats with other users. == Gameplay == Users gain experience points and in-game coins. Users can customize their virtual boyfriend's appearance by selecting items such as hair, clothing, face, and a necklace. == Apple delisting and reintroduction == In late November 2012, the original iOS Boyfriend Maker app was delisted from the Apple App Store due to "ribald" chat, according to the New York Times. Boyfriend Maker was removed by Apple due to "reports of references to violent sexual acts and pedophilia". Boyfriend Maker had an age rating of 4+, even though the chat bot "responds with often strange and explicit text unsuitable for young children". User-posted chat excerpts indicate that the virtual boyfriend would sometimes transition abruptly to sexual chat in response to a seemingly innocent question. In one user-posted example, in response to the question, "what kind of wedding cake will we have" the boyfriend responds, "a good sex ima be on top of u u gonna ride oon me bitin the pillow gurrl ima fuck da shit out of u". The developer's use of the SimSimi-created third-party chat engine may be responsible for the sexual text. As the virtual boyfriend converses with human users, the SimSimi chat engine acquires vocabulary from users of the game and applies this "learned" vocabulary in chats with other users. The chat engine might also employ lines harvested from human-human chat logs, song lyrics, movies or TV shows. In April 2013, a detuned and presumably tamer version of the app, titled Boyfriend Plus, was permitted on Apple's App Store.
Ayoba
Ayoba is an African communication platform developed in South Africa. It is owned by Progressive Tech Holdings in Mauritius and managed by SIMFY Africa. Launched on May 4, 2019, as of April 2024, it has over 35 million active users. == History == Ayoba was first published on Google Play in February 2019. Its first marketing campaign and brand launch took place in Cameroon on May 4, 2019. In June 2019, the platform introduced its first eight channels. In November 2019, the platform reached one million active users, which increased to two million by June 2020. Subsequently, ayoba expanded its services, including the launch of games for Android in February 2020, Momo (Mobile Money) in Cameroon in May 2020, and MicroApps in May 2020. It also launched music and voice and video calling features in 12 territories in August 2020. The first version of ayoba for iOS was released in September 2020. In December of the same year, games and Messaging 2.0 were launched on the platform. In November 2020, it won Best Mobile Application at the African Digital Awards. In 2021, it won OTT Brand of the Year at the Marketing World Awards in Ghana. In December 2022, it received Top Innovative Technology and Telecom Product of the Year at the National Communications Awards in December 2022. In June 2023 ayoba partnered with BoomPlay and as of April 2024, it had 35 million monthly active users. Ayoba has partnered with Jumia Ghana to offer exclusive deals to users. Ayoba users can get a 10% discount on selected Jumia purchases through the app, with no data charges for MTN users. This partnership aims to make online shopping more affordable and accessible by integrating Jumia's offers into the ayoba app. Ayoba supports over 35 million users across Africa and provides services in 22 languages. To access the deals, users can download the ayoba app from the Google Play Store, iOS Store, or the official website. == Platform features == Chat, Call and Share: ayoba enables instant messaging, voice notes, picture sharing, and file sharing with contacts, even if they do not have the app installed. The app supports voice and video calls on both Android and iOS, as well as group chats, help channel and SMS continuity (non ayoba users receive messages as SMS, their responses appear in the ayoba app). Music: ayoba offers a free music player with daily updates on international and African music. Users can find playlists for different genres. Games: ayoba provides a selection of interactive games, including action, adventure, and children's games available on both Android and iOS. Mobile Money Transfers: In certain territories, ayoba supports mobile money transfers using MTN Mobile Money (MoMo) for transactions within the app. MicroApps: ayoba features individual MicroApps within the platform that offer content and services, including streaming channels, podcasts, and specialized apps. The availability of these apps may vary by country. == Operations == ayoba primarily focuses on the following territories: Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Uganda, Republic of Congo, Benin, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Senegal, Togo, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Sudan, South Sudan, and Liberia. The company operates from its offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa. David Gillaranz served as the CEO from 2019 to 2021, and Burak Akinci has been the CEO since 2021.
NetMiner
NetMiner is an all-in-one software platform for analyzing and visualizing complex network data, based on Social Network Analysis (SNA). Originally released in 2001, it supports research and education in a wide range of domains through interactive and visual data exploration. This tool allows researchers to explore their network data visually and interactively, and helps them to detect underlying patterns and structures of the network. It has also been recognized for its comprehensive features and user-friendly interface in comparative reviews of SNA software packages. == Features == === Integrated Data Environment === NetMiner supports unified management of diverse data types—including network (nodes and links), tabular, and unstructured text data—within a single platform. This enables users to perform the entire analysis workflow seamlessly without switching between tools. NetMiner also supports a wide range of analytical methods, allowing users to derive new insights by combining multiple approaches. Analytical results can be saved and reused across workflows(Add to Dataset) Graph and Network Analysis: Includes Centrality, Community Detection, Blockmodeling, and Similarity Measures. Machine learning: Provides algorithms for regression, classification, clustering, ensemble modeling and XAI(Explainable AI) Graph Neural Networks (GNNs): Supports models such as GraphSAGE, GCN, and GAT to learn from both node attributes and graph structure. Natural language processing (NLP): Uses pretrained deep learning models to analyze unstructured text, including named entity recognition and keyword extraction. Text mining and Text network analysis: Supports construction of word co-occurrence networks and topic modeling using LDA, BERTopic, enabling identification of thematic patterns and semantic structures in text data. Data Visualization: Offers advanced network visualization features, supporting multiple layout algorithms. Analytical outcomes such as centrality or community detection can be directly reflected in the network map via node size, color, and position, enhancing intuitive understanding. === AI Assistant === NetMiner integrates with external large language models such as OpenAI GPT and Google Gemini to interpret complex analysis results in natural language, summarize key findings, and suggest next steps for exploration. === Workflow and Usability === Designed to follow the structure of real-world data analysis workflows, NetMiner adopts a hierarchical data organization (Project → Workspace → Dataset → Data Item). Its web-based user interface improves clarity and reduces complexity. NetMiner 5 supports Windows 10 or higher and macOS 11 or later with M1 chip. Both academic and commercial licenses are available. == Extension == NetMiner Extension is small program to extend the functionality of NetMiner. In other words, it enables you to customize NetMiner according to your needs. By adding ‘NetMiner Extension’, you can expand your research. === Web Data Collection === NetMiner allows users to collect data from services such as YouTube, OpenAlex, Springer, and KCI via Open APIs. Collected data is automatically preprocessed and transformed to fit NetMiner’s internal structure, requiring no additional coding or external tools. SNS Data Collector: It collects social media data from YouTube, which has a large number of social media users worldwide. Biblio Data Collector: It collects the bibliographic data from Springer, OpenAlex, and KCI essential for research trend analysis. == File formats == === NetMiner data file format === .NMF === Importable/exportable formats === Plain text data: .TXT, .CSV Microsoft Excel data: .XLS, .XLSX Unstructured text data: .TXT, .CSV, .XLS(X) ※ NetMiner 4 only NetMiner 2 data: .NTF UCINet data: .DL, .DAT Pajek data: .NET, .VEC, .CLU, .PER StOCNET data file: .DAT Graph Modelling Language data: .GML(importing only) Related software UCINET Pajek Gephi StoCNET == Data structure == === Hierarchy of NetMiner data structure === NetMiner 5 supports not only graph data composed of nodes and links, but also tabular and unstructured data without fixed schema or identifiers. This enables users to easily import a wide variety of raw and unstructured data suitable for machine learning applications. Within a single workspace, users can manage node sets, link sets, and structured/unstructured data simultaneously. Multiple graph layers under a node set can be organized in a tree structure, allowing for intuitive understanding of the data currently being analyzed. == Release history == The first version of NetMiner was released on Dec 21, 2001. There have been five major updates from 2001. === NetMiner 5 === Released on June 9, 2025. NetMiner 5 retains the core features and no-code concept of NetMiner 4, but has evolved by integrating cutting-edge AI technologies. AI Assistant, Personal Analytics Tutor Support for Graph, Structured, and Unstructured Data Graph Analytics / Social Network Analysis Machine Learning(M/L) & XAI Graph Machine Learning(GML): Graph Neural Network Text Mining: Natural Language Processing(NLP), Text Network, Topic Modeling Data Visualization === NetMiner 4 (2011) === Latest version is 4.5.1. Introduced Python scripting, encrypted NMF format, semantic analysis tools (word cloud, topic modeling), and Extension - Data Collector. === NetMiner 3 (2007) === Enhanced scalability, integrated analysis-visualization modules, and DB import from Oracle, MS SQL. === NetMiner 2 (2003) === Improved statistical and network measures, visualization algorithms, and external data import modules.
Be My Eyes
Be My Eyes is a Danish mobile app that aims to help blind and visually impaired people to recognize objects and manage everyday situations. An online community of sighted volunteers receive photos or videos from randomly assigned affected individuals and assist via live chat. In 2023, the company launched Be My AI, an AI-based interface to help blind and visually impaired users describe images. The app is currently available for Android, iOS, and Windows. == History == === Founding and early years === The app was developed and marketed by Hans Jørgen Wiberg. He had demonstrated that although there are video chat software such as Skype and FaceTime, none is tailored for the visually impaired. For development, he joined forces with the Danish Association of the Blind, and other organizations. The app was first presented at an event for start-up companies in 2012 and first released in 2015. A version for Android was released in 2017, in addition to the iOS version. Praise was given for easy use of the app. The lack of sufficient data protection, which makes it possible to pass on data to third parties, was criticized. === Recent developments === The company has raised over $650,000, including funding from Silicon Valley, Microsoft, and other angel investors. In February 2020, $2.8 million in Series A funding was raised, allowing the company to further develop its business model while keeping visual support services free for visually impaired users. The investment allows the company to further develop its unique "purpose and profit" business model while keeping the visual support service free and unlimited for all visually impaired users. === User base and accessibility === Over 9.3 million volunteers and 900,000 blind or visually impaired people use the app. == Features == === Human-based assistance === A visually impaired person starts a live stream showing their view from their cellphone camera. They are assigned, through a phone call or chat, a random volunteer who speaks the same language and who is in the same time zone. This allows the volunteer to describe an object and assist the visually impaired person, such as guiding the person to move their camera, read instructions, or clean up a spill. Through speech synthesis, content can be read out loud. This process encourages a more independent life for blind and visually impaired people. === Be My AI === In March of 2023, Be My Eyes launched Be My AI, an AI-based virtual assistant. Be My AI is accessible through the Be My Eyes app, and is based on OpenAI's GPT-4 large language model. Through the interface, the app allows blind and visually impaired users to send images from a variety of devices to be described. The app allows users to then follow up with questions to further tailor the image description. Blind users report using Be My AI for a variety of tasks, including reading menus, identifying clothing, and describing people. The Be My AI interface is available on Android, iOS, and Windows. Within a few weeks of the interface's roll out, the company reported that it had been used one million times, and it was named among Time's best inventions of 2023. Be My AI is part of a growing number of AI-based apps and devices designed to help blind and visually impaired individuals. == Partnerships == === Microsoft === In November 2023, Be My Eyes entered a partnership with Microsoft to share data to help improve accessibility-focused AI models. === Meta === In 2024, Be My Eyes integrated with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, a wearable product developed by Meta and EssilorLuxottica. The partnership enabled users to receive hands-free, real-time visual descriptions and volunteer assistance by using voice commands through the smart glasses. === Hilton === In October 2024, Hilton partnered with Be My Eyes to provide live video assistance for blind and low-vision guests. The free service connects travelers to a Hilton team member that can guide them through tasks like adjusting thermostats, opening window shades, or navigating hotel amenities. This collaboration progressed from a prior arrangement where Hilton helped train Be My Eyes' GPT-4 powered AI model to better recognize objects and layouts in hotel rooms. === Tesco === In October 2025, retailer Tesco announced its partnership with Be My Eyes to launch a six-month pilot aimed at improving in-store accessibility in the UK. The initiative was launched on World Sight Day, 9 October, enabling Be My Eyes users to connect directly with Tesco staff via the app for personalised visual assistance while shopping, Euronewsweek reported. == Awards == Nordic Startup Awards for "Best Social Entrepreneurial Tech Startup" in Denmark 2021 Apple Design Award for best social impact
Verbot
The Verbot (short for Verbal-Robot) was a chatbot program and artificial intelligence software development kit (SDK) designed for Windows and web platforms. == Early beginning == The origin of verbot traces back to Michael Mauldin's research during his time as a graduate student and post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. The creative foundation also stems from Peter Plantec's work in personality psychology and art direction. === Historic outline === In 1994, Michael Loren Mauldin, founder of Lycos, Inc., developed a prototype chatbot, Julia, which competed in the internationally known Turing test, for the coveted Loebner Prize. The Turing test matches computer scientist judges against machines to see if they can distinguish a computer from a real human. Julia was refined and developed, and in 1997, Dr. Mauldin and Peter Plantec, a clinical psychologist and animator, formed Virtual Personalities, Inc. (now Conversive, Inc.) in order to create a virtual human interface that would incorporate real-time animation as well as speech and natural language processing. The initial release, a stand-alone virtual person called Sylvie, was beta-tested to the public. This release was well received, and finally, after several versions, the production release (deemed version 3) of the Verbally Enhanced Software Robot, or Verbot, was deployed in fall 2000. The grandfather of all Verbots is Rog-O-Matic, which, although it could not talk, could and did explore a virtual world. Julia has been active on the internet in one form or another since 1989. A close cousin of Julia is Lycos, a robot that explores the World Wide Web and answers questions about it. Sylvie was the first Verbot with a face and a voice. Sylvie was the first Virtual Human with advanced, flexible interfacing capability. === Beginnings === The Virtual Personalities story goes back to 1978, where Mauldin was attending Rice University. Fascinated by the idea of ELIZA, he proceeded to write a program called "PET" for his 8 kilobyte Commodore PET Computer. PET included simple induction as a way to post new information, for example: Subject: I like my friend (later) Subject: I like food. PET: I have heard that food is your friend. Meanwhile, Plantec was separately designing a personality for "Entity", a theoretical virtual human that would interact comfortably with humans without pretending to be one. At that time the technology was not advanced enough to realize Entity. Mauldin got so involved with this that he majored in Computer Science and minored in Linguistics. === Rogue === In the late seventies and early eighties, a popular computer game at universities was Rogue, an implementation of Dungeons and Dragons where the player would descend 26 levels in a randomly created dungeon, fighting monsters, gathering treasure, and searching for the elusive "Amulet of Yendor". Mauldin was one of four grad students who devoted a large amount of time to building a program called "Rog-O-Matic" capable of retrieving the amulet and emerging victorious from the dungeon. === TinyMUD === In 1989, when James Aspnes at Carnegie Mellon created the first TinyMUD (a descendant of MUD and AberMUD), Mauldin was one of the first to create a computer player that would explore the text-based world of TinyMUD. But his first robot, Gloria, gradually accreted more and more linguistic ability, to the point that it could pass the "unsuspecting" Turing test. In this version of the test, the human has no reason to suspect that one of the other occupants of the room is controlled by a computer, and so is more polite and asks fewer probing questions. The second generation of Mauldin's TinyMUD robots was Julia, created on Jan. 8, 1990. Julia slowly developed into a more and more capable conversational agent, and assumed useful duties in the TinyMUD world, including tour guide, information assistant, note-taker, and message-relayer. She could even play the card game hearts along with the other human players. In 1991, Julia attended the first Loebner Prize contest in Boston, Massachusetts. Although she only finished third, she was ranked by one judge as more human than one of the human confederates, winning a coveted certificate of humanness in the world's first restricted Turing test. Julia continued to log in to various TinyMUD's and TinyMucks for the next seven years, and chatted with hundreds of people a month over the internet. === Lycos === Julia's job was to explore a virtual world consisting of pages of textual descriptions, with links between them, and to construct an internal map of that world and answer questions about it (including path information such as the shortest route from one room to another, and matching information, such as which rooms contained a certain kind of object or textual description). It was therefore only a very short cognitive leap from Julia to Lycos, another robotic agent that explores a virtual world made of hyperlinked pages of text, and which answers questions about those pages. Sylvie was born and her abilities were expanded greatly to include interfacing with computers and control systems via her serial ports. === Sylvie === Sylvie was the first intelligent animated virtual human. She was designed both as a conversation agent and as a virtual human interface that would form a bridge between the two. She became more popular as a conversation agent, but her designers believe she serves as a prototype for future virtual human interface design that will help us all cope with the increasing complexity of technology. As an aside, Plantec noticed that a large number of Sylvies have been sold in Southeast Asia. Upon investigation, he found out that students had discovered a "test" mode that would allow them to type in English sentences that Sylvie would pronounce in her somewhat stylized English. == Ownership == In 1997, Dr. Mauldin and Peter Plantec formed Virtual Personalities, Inc. to create Natural Language Processing solutions for companies. In 2001 Virtual Personalities, Inc. became Conversive, Inc. to reflect the focus on providing Customer Service and Marketing to the Enterprise Market. In late 2012 Avaya, Inc. acquired Conversive's assets including Verbots. == Verbot versions == The Verbot 4 version was created and released in 2004. In 2005 Version 4.1 of the Verbot Software was released with many feature enhancements and bug fixes, including built-in support for embedding C# code in outputs and conditionals. In early 2006 Conversive launched Verbots Online allowing Verbot 4 users to upload their knowledge and show off their bots to the world. In 2009 Version 5 was released, completely free and fully featured. In early 2012 the last version of Verbot, 5.0.1.2, was released to the general public with support for Windows 7. Later in 2012 Verbots Online completely shut down. == Verbots today == Verbots.com, its community of users, and its forums no longer exist, but the software and users can still be found. There has been no active development since the early 2012 release of Verbot 5.0.1.2.