NCR and ScanSoft Enter into Global Agreement
DAYTON, OH - NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) announced a global agreement with ScanSoft Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) to embed ScanSoft's RealSpeak Solo™ text-to-speech (TTS) engine within NCR's APTRA™ Edge and APTRA™ Advance NDC self-service software. The agreement provides the tools for financial institutions to improve automated teller machine (ATM) access for visually impaired banking customers.
By incorporating ScanSoft's RealSpeak Solo TTS engine within its ATM units, NCR ATMs can deliver access and service to visually impaired and blind users. Using RealSpeak Solo, NCR ATMs can convert text into speech. By inserting personal headphones into the ATM audio jack and swiping a bank card, users can conduct individual financial transactions and have on-screen displays, such as account balance, account fund transfers and other personal information, read back to them in a synthetic voice. "NCR's APTRA is the leading multivendor ATM software solution in the industry today. The use of RealSpeak Solo, is another reason why our customers get so much value from APTRA," said Andrew Orent, vice president of NCR's Financial Solutions Division, Americas region. "Our partnership with ScanSoft enables us to provide the most natural-sounding TTS solution on the market today. APTRA's robust, proven capabilities are being used by more than 70 percent of all multivendor projects worldwide." "ScanSoft has a long history of working with financial services institutions and organizations to provide assistive technology for new products," said Alan Schwartz, general manager of Embedded Speech Solutions at ScanSoft. "We are pleased we can combine this expertise to create a compelling user interface so that visually impaired users can reap the benefits of self-service banking."