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I have recently posted about CENode and how it might be used in IoT systems.
Since CENode is partially designed to communicate directly with humans (particularly those out and about or “in the field”) it makes sense for inputs and queries to be provided via voice in addition to or instead of a text interface. Whilst this has been explored in the browser (including in the previous Philips Hue control demo), it made sense to also try to leverage the Alexa voice service to interact with a CENode instance.
In a previous note I discussed CENode and briefly mentioned its potential for use in interacting with the Internet of Things. I thought I’d add a practical example of how it might be used for this and for ’tasking’ other systems.
I have a few Philips Hue bulbs at home, and the Hue Bridge that enables interaction with the bulbs exposes a nice RESTful API. My aim was to get CENode to use this API to control my lights.
Whilst working on the ITA Project - a collaborative research programme between the UK MoD and the US Army Research Laboratory - over the last few years, one of my primary areas has been to research around controlled natural languages, and working with Cardiff University and IBM UK’s Emerging Technology team to develop CENode.
As part of the project - before I joined - researchers at IBM developed the CEStore, which aims to provide tools for working with ITA Controlled English. Controlled English (CE) is a subset of the English language which is structured in a way that attempts to remove ambiguity from statements, enabling machines to understand ‘English’ inputs.