Loquendo Integrates TTS Engine Within Oddcast's [V]Host Technology

NEW YORK, NY - Oddcast, a media technology company that develops conversational character products and Loquendo, a speech technology company, announced that Loquendo's multilingual Text-To-Speech (TTS) engine has been integrated within Oddcast's [V]Host technology. This announcement took place during SpeechTEK 2003. This choice gives Oddcast's [V]Host conversational characters the ability to speak in 15 different languages. Oddcast is now offering its growing base of over 500 international [V]Host customers a choice of over 25 male and female personas that speak the widest selection of the world's languages and country-specific dialects. Many of the customers that Oddcast serve market products both domestically and internationally. Oddcast has chosen Loquendo TTS because of the high levels of natural speech and reliability that the technology will provide existing and potential customers. The integration of Loquendo technology is also expanding the markets that Oddcast [V]Host characters can be sold into. Loquendo TTS is currently available in U.K. and U.S. English, Italian, Castilian Spanish, French, German, Brazilian, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Greek, Mexican, Chilean, Argentinean, Swedish, Catalan. These additional TTS languages will help to reinforce [V]Host as the industry standard for deploying interactive characters online. The relationship with Oddcast extends the use of the company's product beyond the telephone and into the browser. In addition, Loquendo is consistently adding new languages to its system, which will be integrated into the product as they are released. [V]Host, is a conversational character software tool that is used by companies to create life-like, animated, talking characters that intelligently interact with their users. They are fully customizable and communicate with customers and employees via online advertising campaigns, customer service applications, e-learning systems, mobile devices and many other technology driven platforms.