Nuance Communications introduced Nuance Voice Search (NVS), a portfolio of speech solutions for automated directory assistance (DA). The solutions introduce a technology framework that gives callers, either from wireline or wireless phones, access to the information they need. Within this speech environment, NVS introduces newly created capabilities for automated DA with interpretative capabilities and new applications for business category search and advertiser-supported search.

The cornerstone of the solutions portfolio is a new speech solution, Nuance Voice Search can interpret a search request irrespective of ambiguity or incomplete information.

At the heart of the Nuance Voice Search solutions is the Nuance Super Search technology with recognition capabilities that are crafted specifically to the task of applying speech to Directory Assistance requests. The solutions recognize a broad range of words and phrases applied to tens of millions of listings, without requiring manually created vocabularies and grammar rules. Several key patent-pending technologies from Nuance deliver the performance of the Nuance Super Search including:

• Unsupervised Learning - Nuance Voice Search is the first solution to use Nuance's patent-pending Unsupervised Learning, an application of artificial intelligence capabilities. Using the new technology, NVS-based deployments can improve performance by learning from operator actions for manually routed calls, generating statistical rules.
• Disambiguation - Nuance Voice Search uses a patent-pending disambiguation engine to reduce the number of qualifying questions asked of callers before getting a desired listing.

The Nuance Voice Search solutions portfolio includes the following:

• NVS-Directory Assistance - Nuance Directory Assistance interprets a caller's query and delivers relevant and personalized information.
• NVS-Business Categories - This new application enables callers to conduct a "Yellow Pages" type search for businesses or points of interest by stating a search category - "Taxi in Boston, Massachusetts" or "Chinese Restaurant, Menlo Park, California." Callers can state their information requests using a variety of phrases or terms to search by city and state, and Nuance delivers a relevant list of options from which callers select a specific business. Nuance can also deliver additional information about the selected business, including hours of operation, driving directions, and opportunities for relevant advertising, such as coupons or discounts.
• NVS-Free DA - Nuance is equipped to deliver business results to advertiser-supported DA providers, such as 1-800-FREE411 from Jingle Networks and 1-800-YellowPages from AT&T. The new Nuance Free DA application automates business name or category searches with integration to advertising engines.