In New Zealand, approximately 195,000 children require mental health support, yet traditional care faces severe resource constraints and observer effects. CHATBOX is an interactive companion robot designed to deliver continuous, personalized, and non-judgmental emotional assistance. Powered by an edge-computing architecture (Jetson Nano) integrated with Large Language Models (GPT-4o mini), speech-to-text, emotion recognition, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), CHATBOX maintains contextual continuity across sessions. Its hardware features expressive mechanisms (eyes, eyebrows, ears, neck, arms) to foster emotional engagement. A live stream monitoring system provides real-time emotional insights to caregivers. Evaluated with 10 participants aged 10–16, the system demonstrated strong user acceptance, with participants highlighting its comforting, engaging, and cute presence.
This publication proposes a definition and a classification of agile software development approaches and analyses ten software development methods that can be characterized as being "agile" against the defined criterion.
P. Abrahamsson, O. Salo, Jussi Ronkainen et al.· arXiv.org· 727 citations· ⚡54
The study shows that agile practices improve both informal and formal communication, but indicates that, in larger development situations involving multiple external stakeholders, a mismatch of adequate communication mechanisms can sometimes even hinder the communication.
M. Pikkarainen, Jukka Haikara, O. Salo et al.· Empirical Software Engineeri...· 401 citations· ⚡48
The results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context.
Nicolò Paternoster, Carmine Giardino, M. Unterkalmsteiner et al.· Information and Software Tec...· 394 citations· ⚡54
The perception of the impact of agile methods is predominantly positive, and several challenge areas were discovered, but based on this study, agile methods are here to stay.
M. Laanti, O. Salo, P. Abrahamsson· Information and Software Tec...· 260 citations· ⚡20
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MIT News · Artificial Intelligence· news.mit.eduOct 8, 2026
Jennifer Neville did not want to go into computer science—but that’s exactly where she landed. Neville discusses the starts and stops that led to her professional sweet spot and her work identifying “surprising failures” making it hard for AI to handle complexity. The post What AI gets wrong and what failure teaches us appeared first on Microsoft Research.
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