High-tech option for students learning Chinese

TROY, NY - To learn Chinese in this room, talk to the floating panda head.

The Mandarin-speaking avatar zips around a 360-degree restaurant scene in an artificial intelligence-driven instruction program that looks like a giant video game. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students testing the technology move inside the 12-foot-high, wrap-around projection to order virtual bean curd from the panda waiter, chat with Beijing market sellers and practice tai chi by mirroring moves of a watchful mentor.

"Definitely less anxiety than messing it up with a real human being," says Rahul Divekar, a computer science graduate student working on the project. "So compared to that anxiety, this is a lot more easy."