'Tell me a joke." A small audience sits in front of a big screen waiting for a response to pop up. A short pause - then some type flickers up onscreen. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" A slight groan from the audience. A reply is dutifully typed up. "I don't know - why did the chicken cross the road?" Another pause. Up on screen, more type appears. "Because it was stapled to the elephant."

Full Guardian story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1068337,00.html

A German computer program has chatted its way to first place in the Loebner Prize for human-like communication.

British hope, Jabberwacky, came joint third in the competition to find the computer with the most human-like chat.

Full BBC News story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3206876.stm

A computer program designed to talk like a human is preparing for its biggest test in its bid to be truly "intelligent".

Jabberwacky lives on a computer hard drive, tells jokes, uses slang, sometimes swears and can be quite a confrontational conversationalist.

Full BBC News story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3116780.stm

Rollo Carpenter said: "Jabberwacky is different. It learns. Constant feedback from real people makes it come to life. Every day some people believe they are connected to a human, asking questions like 'How do you type so fast?' and 'How much do you get paid for doing this?'"

"Jabberwacky now has more than a million entries in its database. I believe that, with 10 million, it will appear human to most people most of the time, and will have a genuine role as a companion or conversational partner to humans."

Full Press Release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/9/prweb80252.htm