Chant Keeps the World Talking with Latest Tool Set

LOS ANGELES, CA - Chant Inc., a vendor of speech technology components and tools, announced availability of a new tool set for developing software that speaks and listens. The utilities, collectively known as Developer Workbench, are tools for managing speech recognition grammars, lexicons, profiles and text markup for speech synthesis. Developer Workbench consists of four tools: GrammarKit, LexiconKit, ProfileKit and VoiceMarkupKit needed by developers who deploy voice-enabled applications and web sites. GrammarKit is used for creating and managing speech recognition grammars—recognition contexts for speech recognition. LexiconKit is used for creating and managing speech engine lexicons—collections of words the speech recognition engine understands and word pronunciations used by text-to-speech synthesizers for reproducing speech. ProfileKit is used for creating and managing recognition profiles—critical information about end-user speaking patterns that enhance recognition accuracy. VoiceMarkupKit is used for tagging text to tailor how speech synthesizers reproduce speech. "Developers no longer have to write custom software to test their applications," said John Earle, president and founder of Chant Inc. "With Developer Workbench, the tools provide an effective way to create, edit, and deploy the grammars, lexicons, profiles, and text markup necessary to enhance speech recognition accuracy and improve the playback quality of speech synthesis. This should accelerate the development cycle and enhance the quality of software that speaks and listens," emphasizes Earle, "which is critical to broadening the adoption of voice-enabled solutions."