Thanks as always for (almost) everyone’s support and kind words. I think we can crush outbound telemarketing if we all work together!

Many of you have suggested an app for Android/iPhone and I agree that it would be awesome if there were such a thing. I have researched it, and unfortunately the application side of the smartphone does not have access to the speaker and microphone during an active call. In other words, any robot app would not be able to “take over” the conversation and speak for you.

I should also note that the current robot runs on a pretty beefy telephone system capable of some advanced noise/silence detection and, in the future, speech recognition. I’m not sure it would be feasible to cram all of that into a smartphone app.

The real answer is to develop an app to initiate a conference into the robot’s via a regular telephone call. Basically, we need to have one button that leaves the talkpath open to the current call while dialing a second number. In 911 call centers, this is called “no hold conference” and they allow the 911 operator to continue speaking with the caller while conferencing in a second party. If we could get Apple and Google to support a no-hold-conference button that dials a programmable telephone number, then we can make it much easier to use.

I believe the best place for the robot is in the cloud. Fund the Kickstarter campaign so I can enhance him, add voices, dialects, and languages. And if he serves us well, he may even learn to understand English.

However, in the meantime, conference him in please!

Thank you all!

Roger