Company Launch SMS Service That Understands English and Provides Movies Information

Australian cinemas Village Cinemas, Greater Union and Birch, Carroll & Coyle cinemas recently launched an SMS movie enquiry and session time service that allows natural language processing (NLP) of requests sent in via text messaging.

Users of the service will be able to send in plain English requests via SMS to the number 1999-FILM (or 1999-3456) and receive the latest information on movie releases, session times and cinema information. For example, a user could send in "Whats on?", "What time is Wedding Crashers showing at Crown?", "Where can I see Wedding Crashers?" or "What is showing at Crown on Saturday?"

The service will then utilise information it already knows about the movies, theatres, dates and English syntax to make an accurate assessment of the user requests, and then return the results accordingly.

The 1999-FILM service is provided by START Corporation, a provider of SMS solutions for enterprise clients. The SMS natural language processing capability is based on START's TextWise SMS-NLP technology.

"As a pioneer in launching complex SMS services, we at START feel that we need to create a common industry standard so that consumers will find these types of SMS services easy-to-use and easy-to-remember. The pilot results show that the NLP input method returns recognition rates in excess of 90%, more than quadrupling its keyword-based counterpart," said Mr Michael Mak, CEO of START Corporation.

"The same technology can be easily deployed to book movie tickets, take pizza orders, make payments and take call-centre enquiries. For example, users can simply text in 'Book two tickets at 2pm' or 'Call me about my account'. The possibilities are limitless," said Mak.

The service has successfully completed a 6-month pilot, and is available to all Australian mobile subscribers.