VBook - Facebook Messenger Extension

VBook assists users who are disabled, giving them the opportunity to send a Facebook message by voice, rather than typing.

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Inspiration

In this day and age, Facebook Messaging is becoming more successful than ever. However, we currently do not speech to text capabilities, similar to how Apple iMessage does. For those who are disabled, we wanted to create a project in which user can speak their message to the friend, family member, or business representative, in order to assist with their needs.

What it does

It is an extension for Facebook Messenger, in which users can speak into a chat and send a message without typing. As well, we implemented a bot that accepts answers, and uses machine learning and collaborative filtering to give a response.

How we built it

We used ReactJS by Facebook for the Frontend, and Python for the Backend. We also implemented IBM Watson paired with Facebook Messenger API and Built-in NLP

Challenges we ran into

Given it was our first time using React, it was hard to get started and build the UI.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We delivered a full-scale user interface, with various features such as an About section. We were also able to connect a Python script with Facebook Messenger, having never used various libraries before.

What we learned

This was our first time every using ReactJS. it was very exciting to put together a website for our project, learning various UI principles. As well, we also never implemented an API before.

What's next for Vbook

We would love to implement speech to text from the reply side. As well, we hope to deploy this application to CarPlay, such as how Apple has iMessage in various vehicles.

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