LINE TECHPULSE 2020: Key Takeaways from LINE Taiwan's Annual Developer Conference
At LINE TAIWAN TECHPULSE 2020, held at the Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei, LINE announced that its VKS container platform is now live in Taiwan, making it easier for systems to absorb sudden traffic spikes. LINE also revealed where LINE CLOVA is headed next. CLOVA is an intelligent personal assistant for Android and iOS developed by Naver Corporation and LINE Corporation.
ILING WuProduct Marketing Manager
LINE recently held LINE TAIWAN TECHPULSE 2020, its Taiwan developer conference, at the Nangang Exhibition Center. The company announced that its VKS container platform is now fully deployed in Taiwan, making it easier for systems to handle sudden traffic surges. It also shared the future direction of LINE CLOVA.
CLOVA is an intelligent personal assistant for Android and iOS, developed by Naver Corporation and LINE Corporation.
The pandemic drove a sharp rise in LINE's digital services
This year, the pandemic reshaped daily habits, and usage of LINE's services swung dramatically. Worldwide, the number of Official Accounts grew 140% from March to April, and video calls grew 235% from February to May. When Taiwan's CPBL (Chinese Professional Baseball League) played behind closed doors for a time, fans moved online: CPBL views on LINE TODAY rose 74% year over year this season, with view counts up nearly 300%. On LINE Travel, a boom in domestic tourism led partners to add more local tickets and experiences, and sales soared over the September and October long weekends, up 2,483% from the same period last year.
LINE CLOVA's strategy: 4 technologies, 3 products, 2 AI solutions
LINE officially unveiled its plans for LINE CLOVA in Taiwan. It will focus on four AI technologies: NLU (natural language understanding), Face (facial recognition), OCR (optical character recognition), and STT (speech-to-text). On top of these, it is building three commercial AI products: CLOVA Chatbot, CLOVA Face, and CLOVA OCR. By combining those products, it offers two AI solutions: LINE eKYC and LINE AiCall. They are easier for users, and they spare businesses the burden of building everything in-house while boosting efficiency.
3 products: CLOVA Chatbot, CLOVA Face, CLOVA OCR
CLOVA Chatbot
CLOVA Chatbot Photo by LINE
More than 44 services worldwide run on CLOVA Chatbot. Together they have built up a Q&A database of 1 million entries, served over 100 million users, and logged a conservatively estimated 1.7 billion user conversations. That wealth of data has made NLU the core of LINE's AI development.
CLOVA Chatbot
LINE also offers Chatbot builder, a platform that cuts training costs for developers and lets businesses build AI chatbots faster and more flexibly. It also connects easily to services and platforms outside LINE.
CLOVA Chatbot
LINE's official Japanese website also shows CLOVA Chatbot answering more accurately than competing products.
CLOVA Face
CLOVA Face Photo by LINE
CLOVA Face has four functions that work in stages. It first detects faces in an image, then reads facial features and expressions for internal calibration, and then uses the extracted features to identify and match. It can go further and read finer details from a face, including age, gender, and current mood. At this conference, facial recognition checked in more than a thousand attendees in no time.
CLOVA OCR
CLOVA OCR Photo by LINE
CLOVA OCR combines OCR (optical character recognition) with AI. Using OCR together with data augmentation, it delivers more accurate recognition results. LINE has developed several OCR products: general OCR, with very high character-level accuracy; specialized OCR, built for specific layouts and formats; and OCR Builder, which pairs a simple interface with AI-driven logic.
2 solutions: LINE eKYC and LINE AiCall
LINE eKYC
LINE eKYC combines two LINE CLOVA AI technologies, CLOVA OCR (character recognition) and CLOVA Face (facial recognition), to complete identity verification online with both security and convenience.
Users can apply for documents online: when requesting a residence card or tax certificate through a LINE Official Account, they verify their identity by taking photos, and the documents are delivered to their home.
https://clova.line.me/line-ekyc/
LINE Pay: verify your identity easily on your smartphone through facial recognition and optical character recognition.
LINE AiCall
LINE AiCall, an AI reservation service, combines STT and NLU. Officially launched at this year's LINE developer conference in Japan, it uses AI phone booking to help restaurants cope with staff shortages.
LINE AiCall relies on a single NEST model (Neural End-to-end Speech Transcriber) to turn casual everyday speech, or even long sentences, into digital text. Computer systems can then analyze it and decide on an appropriate response.
Responses still require large amounts of training data, however, so LINE will start with pilots with local businesses and is also looking for partners.
Conclusion
The pandemic has pushed every industry toward AI. CLOVA Chatbot, CLOVA Face, and CLOVA OCR all aim to move more of daily life online and reduce crowding, while eKYC and AiCall tackle staff shortages and identity verification.
OakMega also hopes to combine more features to support more of consumers' everyday needs. With LINE so widely used in Taiwan, we can help every user get things done, big or small.
[References]
OakMega: the Social CRM built for marketers
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