Voice Signal Develops Speech Solution for Nokia Smartphone
Voice Signal Technologies, the supplier of embedded speech technology to mobile phone OEMs, and Nokia, the mobile handset manufacturer, demonstrated Voice Signal's multilingual speech solution for Nokia's Series 60 smartphone platform.
Voice Signal's multilingual product utilizes new technology that can simultaneously understand multiple languages and accents in a single system that is no larger than today's one-language systems. Voice Signal's new product offers handset manufacturers the opportunity to provide speech technology in multiple languages without having to add any additional memory resources to their phones.
In addition, this new Series 60 multilingual solution provides consumers with features that improve the phones usability and safety in all environments. Users can look up or dial any name from thousands of names contained in their phone book by voice in any language or accent. The system also enables users to dial numbers and navigate phone menus by voice.
Moreover, since this system has both speech recognition and synthesized text-to-speech, users can control all these features on the phone without having to use their hands or look at the phone's display. This combination of speech recognition and text-to-speech makes it much more convenient and safer for the consumer to use their device.
Voice Signal's multilingual product is designed to address the reality of today's global handset market. Mobile phone users speak multiple languages and communicate with friends and colleagues all over the world. This presents a significant challenge to handset manufacturers who must ship cutting edge products that incorporate speech recognition and speech synthesis technology, in order to remain competitive. Since today's mobile phones have limited memory and processing power, it is not possible to ship each phone with a separate speech recognizer for each language that is spoken in a particular region, without adding significant resources.
Nokia's Series 60 Platform is a smartphone software package built on top of the Symbian OS Version 6.1. The Series 60 Platform offers handset manufacturers a standardized user interface for new hardware designs, while providing a range of applications and communications capabilities, including multimedia messaging (MMS).
"We believe that speech recognition technology can dramatically improve the usability of wireless devices, enabling users to take better advantage of the tremendous capabilities contained in the new Nokia Series 60 Platform," said Stewart Sims, Voice Signal's Executive Vice President of Marketing. "Voice Signal's new multilingual speech technology is a breakthrough that makes it easier and safer for people all over the world to be productive with their mobile devices." "Forum Nokia's support has been instrumental in enabling Voice Signal to deploy this breakthrough technology on the Series 60 Platform."