Fonix Solutions Powers Internet Device for Disabled Population

SALT LAKE CITY, UT and MINNEAPOLIS, MN -— Fonix Corporation (OTC BB: FONX), a provider of natural-user interface technology and voice solutions for wireless and mobile devices, and Serotek Corporation announced that Serotek has selected Fonix Speech Solutions for use with Freedom Box, an Internet accessibility product that unlocks the Internet for the blind or anyone unable to use standard point-and-click technology. Freedom Box allows a user to navigate the Internet by voice command - a step forward for the visually impaired or physically disabled. Fonix Text-To-Speech (TTS) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), embedded within the Freedom Box platform, allow users to take advantage of many of the Internet's services, such as sending and receiving email, shopping online, conducting online research, and accessing news and entertainment. "Fonix software has a remarkably small footprint, making it an ideal choice for the Freedom Box software platform," said Mike Calvo, CEO of Serotek Corporation. "The programming versatility from Fonix also plays an important role in our design of Freedom Box's Flexible User Interface, which will allow a user to blend voice operation with a variety of other accessibility tools, such as keyboards, computer mice and touch-screen peripherals, to create a customized interface best suited to the user." Fonix, now deploying its DECtalk TTS product, provides TTS functionality in embedded applications. Fonix technology speaks standard XML (eXtensible Markup Language) Web text in any of six Western languages. It also offers extensive user controls that enable it to adapt to a variety of real-world environments. On the voice recognition side, Fonix has developed a solution in Fonix ASR, which is available in U.S. English, U.K. English, French, German, and Swedish, and accommodates finite-state grammar, allowing complex speech input. "Working with Serotek on Freedom Box demonstrates how Fonix technologies play out in yet another accessibility market," said Kurt Flygare, vice president of sales for Fonix Corporation. "The natural sounding speech and near real-time response of Fonix TTS is ideal for those with disabilities. What's more, our status as the only provider of automatic speech recognition technology for Freedom Box users is a tribute to the overall reliability and accuracy of Fonix ASR."