Germany's 11810 Directory Assistance Service Speaks with a New Voice

MUNICH, Germany and GHENT, Belgium - Germany's voice-automated white and yellow pages directory service, 11810, launched a new and improved customized voice by varetis AG and ScanSoft, Inc. The new voice renders the transition from recorded speech to synthetically generated speech for callers.

The technological platform for 11810 is varetis' ADIS, which provides automated voice access to telephone directories of any size. ADIS automates complete databases - not just lists of frequently requested numbers - and works with a diverse range of database structures. For 11810, the switch to synthetic speech is assisted by a custom voice developed with RealSpeak™ 4.0 from SpeechWorks Solutions from ScanSoft. RealSpeak is ScanSoft's text-to-speech solution that turns text into speech output.
 
ScanSoft enables customers to select voice talents. ScanSoft can then turn this into a custom, synthesized text-to-speech voice based on its RealSpeak 4.0 tool.

11810 offers automated reverse searches and voice-automated yellow pages lookups, a service launched in October 2004 as part of the new Internet portal GoYellow.de. 11810's new voice also has automated directory assistance.