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Robo-reporters spit out results stories

Faster than a mouse-click...

Tags: thomson, robo-reporters

By Greg Sandoval

Published: 23 August 2006 09:15 BST

Computers are churning out lightening-quick results stories for Thomson Financial, a business-information provider.

Against a backdrop where consumers of financial news are always clamouring for speedy information to help them with stock deals, and corporations the world over are fixed on automation, Thomson says computer scribes can spit out a profits story in 0.3 seconds after the results have been made public.

Most human reporters can't create a blank Microsoft Word document that fast.

To determine how a company fared in a quarter, the computer takes the current financial figures and automatically compares them with the data of previous years, according to a company representative. Moreover, computers make far fewer mistakes than humans, Thompson told the Financial Times.

Greg Sandoval writes for CNET News.com

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