PowerPoint presentations can be a snooze. But with graphics enlivened by Peedy the parrot or Robby the robot, your audience may skip their nap. Peedy and Robby are two of the 21 talking, animated characters brought to you by Right Seat Software's Vox Proxy PowerPoint add-on product. The 3-D characters can be inserted into presentations and made to respond to a speaker's voice commands and talk to the audience. Each of the cute, quirky animations has a distinct personality. They can point, bend over, bow, turn left and right, and jump across the screen.

With Vox Proxy's animated tutorials, help section, wizards, and pop-up windows, customizing slides can take less than 30 minutes. In April, the company launched Vox Proxy/CD Prep, which allows users to create self-starting CDs narrated by the royalty-free characters. Visit www.voxproxy.com.