Speech Technology eWeekly - January 01, 2003

Features

Speech Technology Research Validates High Caller Satisfaction

A new custom research study commissioned by SpeechWorks International and conducted by Gartner Custom Research concludes that, overall, callers are satisfied with their experience using speech recognition technology.

Q & A

James Colby, Assistant Vice President of Marketing, Comverse Voice Solutions

AT&T Wireless recently announced the availability of voice activated dialing (VAD) for its subscribers. Comverse Voice Solutions was chosen as the technology provider that would power this service. In a Q&A with the editors of NewsBlast, James Colby, assistant VP of marketing at Comverse, discusses this deal and what it means to AT&T Wireless customers.

Sunil Nikhar, CEO, Ascent Computing Group

Sunil Nikhar is the CEO of Ascent Computing Group. In a Q&A with the editors of NewsBlast, Sunil speaks on Ascent's position in the marketplace, as well as what he thinks the future holds for speech technology services.

Brian Lichorowic, President and CEO, Audiopoint

Brian Lichorowic is the president and CEO of Audiopoint. In a Q&A with the editors of NewsBlast, Brian exaplins how his company, which was once on the brink of shutting down, has been winning customers. Brian also explains what the services Audiopoint has to offer and how the consumer can get their hands on it.

Jeanne Gokcen, President, FutureCom Technologies

According to Jeanne Gokcen, president of FutureCom Technologies Inc., "There is a clear ROI justification for incorporating speech technology..." In a Q&A with the editors of NewsBlast, Dr. Gokcen further explains her thoughts on the role of speech technology in the marketplace, as well as gives us a look into what is happening at FuturCom.

Peter Lawless, Vice President of Sales, and David Horowitz, Chief Scientist, Vox Generation

In November, 2002, the European Union awarded 6.8 million Euros to a UK-led consortium one of the largest-ever research grants for the development of human language technologies. Judith Markowitz spoke with Peter Lawless, VP of sales, and David Horowitz, chief scientist, of Vox Generation, the lead organization in that consortium for a Q&A with STM's NewsBlast.

Speech Technology News

Wildfire and Phonetic Systems Partner to Deliver Unified Communications

WALTHAM, MA - Wildfire Communications Inc. announced a jointmarketing relationship with Phonetic Systems.

IBM to Enable Mobile e-business for HTC's Handheld Devices

SHANGHAI, CHINA - IBM announced that High Tech Computer Corp. will enable select wireless devices, smartphones and wireless Pocket PCs with a range of IBM middleware and tools, including WebSphere Micro Environment and IBM Embedded Via Voice.

Enghouse Completes Tender Offer for Syntellect

MARKHAM, ONTARIO - Enghouse Systems Limited announced the successful completion of its tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of Syntellect Inc. at a price of $0.72 cash per share.

SpeechWorks' Technologies Support Multimodal Interface for Model U Concept SUV

BOSTON, MA - SpeechWorks International Inc. announced that it has collaborated with Ford Research for the design and implementation of a multimodal interface for the Model U concept SUV.

Babel to Offer TTS on Texas Instruments' OMAP Processing Platform

MONS, BELGIUM - Babel has made PocketBabil - its Text-to-speech technology - commercially available for Texas Instrument's OMAP wireless processing platform.

CanadianTelecommunications Provider Calls on Nuance

MENLO PARK, CA - Nuance announced that Bell Canada has teamed with Nuance to voice-enable its 310-BELL customer service line.

ScanSoft Added to Telematics Valley

PEABODY, MA - ScanSoft Inc. announced that it has joined Telematics Valley, an open forum designed to promote the acceptance and adoption of telematics solutions on a global scale.

Bruce Springsteen Concerts Inaugurate Artificial Intelligence System

MADRID, SPAIN - The American singer Bruce Springsteen's visit to Spain inaugurated a new technology for concert ticket sales.

Loquendo TTS Broadens its German Offering

TORINO, ITALY - Loquendo presents Stefan, the brand new German voice to accompany Ulrike, Loquendo's female German persona.

Ontimereminder.com Launches Service

LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO - With Onetimereminder.com customers can decide when, where and how they want to be reminded or woke up.

Emkay Releases Silicon Microphone

ITASCA, IL - Emkay Innovative Products introduces a surface mount microphonebased on semiconductor technology that is now available for general commercialpurchase.

VoiceObjects Factory 1.5 Now Supports IBM WebSphere Voice Response and Comverse Telago

COLOGNE, GERMANY - VoiceObjects AG is announcing the launch of a newversion of their Voice Application Server Platform, VoiceObjects Factory 1.5.

Kurzweil Educational Ships Kurzweil 3000 V 7.0

BEDFORD, MA - Kurzweil Educational Systems Inc. began shipping Version 7 of Kurzweil 3000(TM), the reading, writing and learning software for struggling students.

World Wide Web Consortium Issues VoiceXML 2.0 as a W3C Candidate Recommendation

The goal ofVoiceXML 2.0 is to bring the advantages of Web-based development and contentdelivery to interactive voice response applications.

Inktel Direct Expands Contact-Center Product Offering

MIAMI LAKES, FL - Inktel Direct announced it hasexpanded its contact-center product offering to include integrated voicerecognition, voice response and data-collection services for its corporateclients nationwide.

VocaLabs Announces Customer Satisfaction Benchmarks

EDEN PRAIRIE, MN - Vocal Laboratories announced a set of new benchmarks for measuring the quality of customer service.

VocaLabs Adds Rick Rappe as Vice President of Sales

EDEN PRAIRIE, MN - Vocal Laboratories announced that veteran Rick Rappe has joined the company as Vice President of Sales.

Cellcom and NSC Declare Cooperation

ISRAEL - After more than 12 months of testing, Cellcom has decided to implement NSC ASR technology as its speech recognition engine.

Wesleyan University Selects Parlance

MEDFORD, MA - Parlance Corporation announced thatWesleyan University has implemented its NameConnector Servicecampus-wide.

Nuance Delivers Text-to-Speech Software Down Under

MENLO PARK, CA and SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Nuance unveiled the Australian English version of its Nuance Vocalizer 2.0 TTS software.

New Development from Loquendo C@fé

TORINO, ITALY - Loquendo has implemented some new developments for the Loquendo C@fé community: applications can now be developed and loaded in the new VoiceXML 2.0 standard.

University of Kansas Selects Phonetic Systems for Speech-enabled Directory Assistance

TEMPE, AZ - Phonetic Systems announced that the University of Kansas has chosen PhoneticOperator to voice-enable the university's main phone directory of 37,000 records across five campuses.

Washington State DOT Launches 511 System

BASKING RIDGE, NJ, MENLO PARK, CA and PORTLAND, OR - In November of 2000, Governor Gary Locke announced Washington's intention to provide a 511 phone system, allowing drivers across the state to get information on current weather, congestion and road conditions.

UnifiedVoice Announces UDocs

GAITHERSBURG, MD - UnifiedVoice has developed UDocs, a new technology for automatically fitting dictation by a doctor, lawyer or executive into a document format selected by the person during dictation.

VoiceVault Achieves Certification

DUBLIN, IRELAND - VoiceVault announces that it has achieved an accredited certification under EU Directive 1999/93/EC on Electronic Signatures using a biometric technology.

Loquendo TTS Reaches China

TORINO, ITALY - Linlin is Loquendo TTS' new female persona for the Mandarin Chinese language.

Lexicle Announces Cara

YORK, ENGLAND - Lexicle introdues "Cara", an animated 3D interactive financial sales person.

Bakcell Selects CTware's StarVAS

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - CTware Ltd. announced that Bakcell, Azerbaijan's mobile operator, has selected CTware's Star*VAS Voice and Messaging Platform for running its Holiday Greeting solutions and other value-added services.

LDC Telephone Speech Collection Project

The Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvanianeeds participants for FISHER, a new telephone speechstudy to be conducted in the Early Winter 2002-2003.

Aspect Communications Announces Siebel 7 Validation

SAN JOSE, CA - Aspect Communications Corporation announced that the integration between the Aspect Contact Server version 5.1 and Siebel 7 has been successfully validated by Siebel Systems.

Orange Deploys VoiceXML Services in Ivory Coast

RAMONVILLE, FRANCE - Idylic announces that Orange Ivory Coast has deployed VoiceXML service using Idylic's VoiceXML platform.

Nuance Speech Software Drives TU-KA Cellular's New Voice Portal

MENLO PARK, CA and TOKYO - Nuance announced that its speech recognition software is enabling a new voice portal service from TU-KA Group, a division of KDDI Corporation.

Changes Made in the Elix Executive Team

MONTREAL, QUEBEC - Elix announcesFrançois Rainville's nomination as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Rainville announced thenomination of François Rodrigue as president of the company.

TTS Modern Language Learning with Softease

TOULOUSE, FRANCE - Softease has chosen Elan text to speech to enable students of different ages to hear and learn foreign languages, using Textease Language Packs.

IBM Tops U.S. Patent List for Tenth Consecutive Year

ARMONK, NY - IBM generated the most U.S. patents in2002, according tofigures released by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Porting from Dialogic Hardware to PIKA Hardware Made Easier

OTTAWA, CANADA - PIKA Technologies Inc. announces availability of its Dialogic Porting JumpStart Kit.

MAAF Assurances Group Reads Email Using Elan Sayso

TOULOUSE, FRANCE - MAAF Assurance's employees can check their mailbox from any telephone and share information in real time.

Next IVR Launched to Provide VoiceXML Applications

EXETER, NH - Next IVR commenced operations with a goal to deliver customer value by providing VoiceXML solutions for next generation voice applications.

Sakrament Launched Sakrament TTS Engine v2.5

MINSK, BELARUS - Sakrament company announced the new release of its Sakrament TTS Engine, that introduces new female voices called Vika and Oksana.

Digital Dictation Productivity Sparks Extended Rollout at Irwin Mitchell

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - Productivity and client-care improvements resulting from SRC's WinScribe-based digital dictation system at UK law firm Irwin Mitchell have convinced the firm to extend their investment in the system to a further 195 users during the next two months.

Wizzard Software Delivers Transcription Master

PITTSBURGH, PA - Wizzard Software announced the release of it's new Transcription Master software application and a first customer license of the product.