About the Project

News at Seven is a fully automated approach to creating broadcast news developed at Northwestern University’s Intelligent Information Laboratory (InfoLab.) Starting with a set of user preferences, the system finds and edits relevant stories for broadcast presentation, uncovers relevant background visual materials (e.g., videos and still images), and augments the primary text using sources such as blogs found on the Web. Together, these resources are then used to drive a set of animated characters who reside in a virtual “news world” we have created for them. The result is a short Flash video that can be broadcast or deployed on the web.

News at Seven can be used to generate a variety of program styles or dynamics, with specific anchor activities and interactions covering not only “straight” news but also entertainment stories (in an “Access Hollywood” style), film reviews (paralleling Ebert and Roper), and even a Louis Black-inspired “angry rant” dynamic. The system employs a player/server model in which the player is implemented as a Flash movie embedded in a Web page with a server providing content using personalized RSS feeds.

News at Seven is really two systems: an information and media aggregator and a dynamic presentation platform. Its feature set reflects this dual nature. On the information aggregation side, it has functionality including collection of news and reviews based upon a topic of interest, automatic generation of queries for retrieveal of related opinion and relevant images and videos, and automated filtering of retrieved opinion and video. On the presentation side, the system processes text for pronunciation, generates speech, controls the avatar and simulated news room, programs the Flash Player, and scripts the final rich media presentation. The end result is a product that is robust, scalable and highly flexible.

About the Lab

News at Seven was developed at Northwestern Universityís Intelligent Information Laboratory (InfoLab). The InfoLab's mission is to bring users information relevant to the specific moment and task at hand. We construct systems that connect users with information, services, people, and community on the basis of the context of their in-the-moment activity. The InfoLab creates frictionless information technologies that proactively get people the right information, at the right time and in the right form.

About the People

Work on News at Seven is driven by Nate Nichols and Lisa Gandy, Computer Science graduate students at Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Laboratory (InfoLab). The work is directed by Kristian Hammond, Professor of Computer Science and Director of the InfoLab.