NTT Basic Research Laboratory (BRL) is located in Atsugi in the suburb of Tokyo and was working on the development of dialogue systems between human and machine, including the representation of a face on a computer screen to make it more "human". The main innovation of the system that was under development in July 1998, was the fact that it used the human utterances before the human had finished his sentences to emit sounds, talk or modify its face expression. The communication with the computer thus looks more like a conversation between humans, as it is common for humans to interrupt each other or to approve with small utterances.