REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 15, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Versant Corporation (Nasdaq:VSNT), an industry leader in specialized data management software, is pleased to announce a license agreement with North Side Inc, a progressive MMO game developer located in Canada. North Side Inc. is licensing the Versant Object Database as the central repository for its breakthrough natural language processing (NLP) system, a centerpiece in the massive multiplayer game Bot Colony(TM).
"We are excited about the new license agreement with North Side and their commitment to use the Versant object database to fulfill the needs for a high performance, scalable, content repository for its NLP system," said David Ingersoll, Vice President, Sales at Versant. "NLP is a great showcase for complex, hierarchical data structures utilizing Versant's scalable database solution to solve the mission critical implementation and performance issues North Side was facing using MySQL."
Bot Colony(TM) -- Breakthrough Natural Language Processing for Online Games
What makes Bot Colony unique is its positioning as the first conversation game ever. The player converses with the game's characters in English to solve a mystery and conduct missions. While there have been other games before where the player speaks with the characters to some extent (Starship Titanic, Seaman, Facade), the answers were prepared in advance.
Bot Colony leverages breakthroughs in Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence to provide highly relevant, factually correct answers and the ability to ask relevant questions and to make relevant comments. These answers are generated dynamically, based on the storyline of the game.
This NLP component is extremely intensive in terms of its CPU requirements, requiring access to vast amounts of data for linguistic processing and reasoning. The system database contains both linguistic data and a large store of world knowledge, represented as formal axioms.
North Side became interested in Versant when it ran into a programming bottleneck, consisting of serialization and de-serialization of data with MySQL.
"The serialization and de-serialization of data with MySQL was performed by one person acting as database administrator, who was responsible for defining the database schema, adding new tables, etc. As language R&D goes on, there is large pent-up demand to add many new data structures and support new applications, and having to go through one person to do that meant serious delays in the project. We decided it was not viable to continue working in this manner. The ability to bypass splitting application objects into records and reconstitute them again when they're read in and used by the application was very attractive to the company, which decided to explore Versant as a solution," said Eugene Joseph, North Side Inc. CEO. "The first tests with Versant have shown that it is roughly 10 times faster than MySQL when measured on complex objects. North Side is currently designing a new application for Versant that requires accessing very large data sets in real-time."
About North Side Inc. North Side has been conducting R&D in natural language understanding since 2002, with an application in virtual crewmember training (team trainers where some of the human trainees don't exist and are replaced by intelligent agents who speak on their behalf). The decision to unveil this technology through a videogame was made in 2007. The technology powering Bot Colony(TM) has applications that go beyond gaming: it holds the key for a radically different e-commerce experience, where a consumer will simply speak to his/her computer to buy travel and banking products, seek information, or access customer support.
About Versant Versant Corporation (Nasdaq:VSNT) is an industry leader in database management software, helping software developers to create unique applications handling complex information and high performance / high availability requirements. Versant customers cut hardware costs, speed and simplify development, and significantly reduce administration costs. Versant's solutions are deployed in a wide array of industries, including telecommunications, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, and defense. With over 50,000 installations, Versant has been a highly reliable partner for Global 2000 companies such as Ericsson, Verizon, Sagem, US Government, and Financial Times. For more information, call 650-232-2400 or visit www.versant.com.