Speech Technology eWeekly - September 01, 2003

Q & A

Adi Sideman, CEO, Oddcast

Adi Sideman is CEO and founder of Oddcast, a company that provides a platform for businesses to create conversational characters for marketing and sales applications, learning and training applications, customer support and online advertising. Sideman will participate in the session "Speech and User Satisfaction" during Wednesday of SpeechTEK.

Raymond Gunn, President and CEO, Clarity Technologies

Having just closed its $11.3 million financing, Clarity Technologies president and CEO Raymond Gunn talked with NewsBlast about the impact this will have on his company.

Bob Clough, General Manager, Microsoft Speech Technologies

Bob Clough, general manager of Microsoft Speech Technologies, will serve as a panelist on the SpeechTEK session "Time is Money! Understanding the REAL Returns on Speech Deployments" on Thursday, Oct. 2 at 1:00 PM. One of the many questions this panel will analyze is "Why are companies still reluctant to make the initial investment in speech recognition technology to improve the results self-service offers?"

Dan Miller, partner & senior analyst, Zelos Group

Dan Miller, partner & senior analyst, is in charge of the voice applications program at Zelos Group. On Monday, September 29, Miller and Zelos Group will orchestrate Vox: Service Provider Edition at SpeechTEK. This program will focus on all aspects of speech applications.

Tim Moynihan, Director of Product Marketing, Intel

Tim Moynihan is the director of product marketing at Intel. In addition to participating in the "Capitalizing on Speech" keynote, during which five senior executives will share their views on speech, he will be detailing the Intel NetMerge Call Manager, which is being announced this week during SpeechTEK 2003.

Jim Tobias, President, Inclusive Technologies

Jim Tobias, president of Inclusive Technologies, has worked in the field of technology and disability for 25 years. During SpeechTEK, Tobias will present the tutorial "Introduction to Accessibility" on Tuesday, Sept. 30 at 8:30 AM.

Eric Giler, President, Brooktrout Technology

Eric Giler is president and founder of Brooktrout Technology, the company he has led since 1984. He will be participating in this afternoon's executive keynote session during SpeechTEK 2003. Among other items, this panel will discuss the integration speech into a companies current communications infrastructure.

Reza Nabavi, Senior Market Development Manager, Sun Microsystems

Reza Nabavi is a senior market development manager at Sun Microsystems for the Wireless Data Services market segment. In his current capacity, Nabavi concentrates on building strategic partnerships for Sun with enabling technology and infrastructure vendors in key sub-segments of this market. At SpeechTEK 2003, Nabavi will participate in a panel named "Leverage Your Web Investments Using Speech."

Alex Green, CEO, Fluency Voice Technology

Fluency Voice Technology Ltd. recently announced its acquisition of Vocalis Limited. CEO Alex Green visits with NewsBlast about the impact of the acquisition on the speech industry, how the companies plan to integrate and recent deployments by Fluency.

Speech Technology News

LumenVox's Speech Recognition Selected by enGenic

VANCOUVER, BC and SAN DIEGO, CA - enGenic will utilize LumenVox technology into its TeleFlow 2003 product.

Aculab Announces Development of Host Media Processing Resource

MILTON KEYNES, UK - Prosody S will be geared toward IVR or voicemail applications and is scheduled for release later this year.

ScanSoft and Comfort Launch Taxi Booking Service in Asia

PEABODY, MA and SINGAPORE - SpeedCall Taxi Booking Process Utilizes Speechify Text-to-Speech Software to confirm pick-Up locations.

Voice Signal Powers Speech Recognition to Motorola Handset

WOBURN, MA - The Motorola V60t Color handset utilizes speech recognition applications from Voice Signal to allow users to dial by speaking digits.

VoiceLogistics System Part of Enterprise-Wide Rollout

LONDON, ENGLAND and PRINCETON, NJ - England supermarket Somerfield deploys picking solution that includes Voxware products.

Voxware and Intek Maximize PETCO Warehouse Performance

PRINCETON, NJ & BELLEVUE, WA - The integration of VoiceLogistics & Warehouse Librarian enhances productivity and accuracy at PETCO's distribution center.

Craig E. Holmes Appointed Vice President, CFO of Intervoice

DALLAS, TX - Holmes bring more than 20 years of financial management experience with high-tech companies to Intervoice.

Intervoice Announces Availability of Telephony Software

DALLAS, TX - Telephony Interface Manager platform available to participants in the Microsoft Speech Server Beta program.

IVoice and Wizzard Software Collaborate on Voice Enabled E-mail Reader

MATAWAN, NJ - Unified Text-to-Speech E-mail Reader is a standalone solution that provides voice access to e-mail by telephone.

SDC Announces Version 4 of IntelliSPEECH

Call handling solution is powered by speech application technologies from Newfound Communications and Vocalocity.

VoiceObjects Establishes New VUI Design Group

COLOGNE, GERMANY - Service unit to provide fresh input for technological developments specialized in Voice User Interface professional services.

Sakrament Releases Sacrament TTS Engine for PDAs

MINSK, BELARUS - Sakrament TTS Engine PDA Edition adds speech to applications while offering mobility features to PDA users.

Babel Announces Availability of BrightSpeech Studio

MONS, BELGIUM and STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - BrightSpeech Studio solution offers opportunities for software development companies looking to create audio prompts with synthetic speech for their products or services.

BrightSpeech Deployed in Visibridge VoiceXML Gateway Server

MONS, BELGIUM - Visibridge successfully integrates Babel Technologies' Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine BrightSpeech onto Visibridge VoiceXML Gateway Server.

ART Advanced Recognition Technologies Inc. Announces Embedded Solution

ATLANTA, GA - smARTspeak XGT provides text-to-speech functions in order to enable access to messaging, dialing and browsing applications.

CEC Systems Deploys Speech-enabled E-commerce Solution

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - Aberdeenshire company uses PanaVox Speech Technology to describe product details that are difficult to illustrate.

ScanSoft Speech Recognition Engine Selected By PEIKER

PEABODY, MA and GENT, BELGIUM - VoCon SF Speech Recognition Engine deployed in Bluetooth Hands-Free System for dealer-installed version of Chrysler Group's UConnect system.

Mpower Communications Forms Strategic Alliance with SpeechPhone

LOS ANGELES, CA and RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA - Partnership allows Mpower to offer voice recognition services along with e-mail and messaging.

Loquendo Selected by Sonant

Loquendo TTS to be integrated with Sonant's eCenter systems and marketed to systems at small-to-medium businesses and government agencies in the United States.

Comverse and Angel.com Form Partnership

WOODBURY, NY and McLEAN, VA - Solutions target small and medium enterprises to build, launch and manage their own VoiceXML applications.

Bell Canada Launches Voice Select

TORONTO, CANADA - Voice Select, a hosted contact center service for enterprise customers, deployed to assist businesses improve call center customer service.

Elan Speech Unveils New Elan Sayso Voice

NEW YORK, NY and TOULOUSE, FRANCE - Aaron brings Elan Sayso's offer to six voices for U.S. English; Italian added to multilingual offer.

ScanSoft selected by CARS-511 Consortium

PEABODY, MA - Speech-Enabled traffic information service migrating a porting of its hosted, speech-enabled traveler information service to a promise-based solution using ScanSoft software.

SPIRIT Announces 2400 bps vocoder for Digital Speech Communication

MOSCOW, RUSSIA - 2400 bps vocoder modification is designed to provide quality speech even on badly distorted channels.

Nortel Networks Announces Multimedia Services Product

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC - Media Application Server designed to allow service providers to take advantage of IP infrastructure and integrate multiple media into one service.

Datria Ticket Management 2.0 Selected by Cardinal Health

ENGLEWOOD, CO - Cardinal Health field technicians to use Datria Ticket Management 2.0 in order to communicate with backend systems.

Envox Worldwide and Metaphor Solutions Partner

NEW YORK, NY - Companies align hoping to develop, deploy and maintain speech solutions that improve customer satisfaction, lower operating costs and create new revenue opportunities.

Phonetic Systems Signs Value-Added Reseller Agreement with Gold Europe

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND and BILLERICA, MA - Through partnership, Gold Euorpe will resell Voice Search Engine and PhoneticOperator, to clients in the UK.

Christoph Mosing Appointed VP Professional Services of TuVox

LOS ALTOS, CA - Tasked with building voice application delivery and partner support team.

VOXit Mailer Version 3.0 Now Available

READING, ENGLAND - Domain Dynamics' application is designed for use with Windows Mobile using voice commands.

Jack Chamberlain Appointed Vice President Worldwide Sales of Viecore Inc.

UPPER SADDLE RIVER, NJ - Viecore realigns with intentions of a faster go-to-market strategy.

Kirusa Partners with HP on Multimodal Solutions for Wireless Providers

EDISON, NJ - Multimodal solutions will be on display during SpeechTEK at the HP booth.

Vocent Launches Confirmed Caller 2.0 Powered by Vocent DecisionMaker

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - Speech-driven, packaged application uses voice biometrics to securely automate authentication process in call center environments.

Audium and Holly Australia Partner

NEW YORK, NY - Audium's VoiceXML application software Audium 3 has been embedded in the Holly Voice Gateway.

Nuance Selects Syntellect as North American Master Distributor

PHOENIX, AZ - Under the agreement, Syntellect will provide resellers and integrators with technical support on Nuance products.

Genesys Named a Leader by Gartner

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Gartner's N.A. Contact Center Infrastructure Magic Quadrant, 2003 includes Genesys in the leader quadrant.

Vocomo Releases Enhanced Vocomo Voice Response 1.1

NEW YORK, NY - Unified Dispatch Inc. uses Vocomo Voice Response for multiple deployments of UniBook, a voice-enabled taxi booking system.

Convedia Enters Into Reseller Agreements with BayPackets, Spectrel

Joint solution allows BayPackets to resell, market and support Convedia's CMS-6000 and CMS-1000 media servers.

Cepstral Receives Military Funding as Provider of Speech Synthesis Technology

PITTSBURGH, PA - Defense Advanced Research Project Agency and Stanford Research International selects Cepstral to provide voices for field translation.

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

NEW YORK, NY - Oddcast's [V]Host conversational characters will now have the ability to speak in 15 different languages.

Babel-Infovox Successfully Tested by BrightSpeech TTS

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - TOPCALL server product is ready for BrightSpeech, allowing companies to integrate, manage and archive communications from a single server.

Telelogue Secures Directory Assistance Patent

ISELIN, NJ - "Method and Apparatus for Automatically Processing a User's Communication" patent is related to searching of large databases.

LumenVox Partners With NeoSpeech in Order to Provide Text-to-Speech Engine

SAN DIEGO, CA and FREMONT, CA - Strategic partnership will allow LumenVox to work with NeoSpeech's VoiceTEXT technology as a value add for its Speech Driven Information System.

SafeAngel Enables Monitoring of 'At Risk' Individuals

MILTON KEYNES, ENGLAND - Tracking system uses telephony from NewVoice Media and Aculab.

OTG Solution Achieves Entrust Ready Status

OTTAWA, CANADA - E-Help Desk version 3.1 awarded by Endtrust Limited for compatibility and interoperability.

NeoSpeech Selected for Flagship Golf Application

FREMONT, CA - Speech-based interactive tool will be utilized to research links at golf destinations provided by media agency 2112.

Datria Ticket Management 2.0 Released

ENGLEWOOD, CO - Voice-enabled packaged application designed for companies with the need to share customer data and technical information in real time.

Elix Launches Study of Contact Centers

MONTREAL, QUEBEC - Study to include use of speech recognition and interactive voice recognition technology.

Fonix Joins Symbian Platinum Program

SALT LAKE CITY, UT - Fonix extends its text-to-speech and automatic speech recognition solutions to the Symbian OS ecosystem.

Convergys Selected to Provide IVR for Monster Government Solutions

CINCINNATI, OH - Under the outsourcing agreement, Convergys will provide the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system for Monster Government Solutions' new project with the United States government.

Phonetic Systems and V-Enable Partner

NEW YORK, NY - Companies will have the ability to market joint solutions or pair with leading systems integrators.

MacSpeech Releases ScriptPak for Word X

SALEM, NH - More than 150 commands added to MacSpeech's flagship product iListen.

VoiceXML Forum Adds New Leadership

PISCATAWAY, NJ - Board of Directors expanded with representatives from Hewlett-Packard, Nuance, VoiceGenie and West joining as sponsor members.

Elix Solution Chosen by Desjardins Group

MONTREAL, QUEBEC -Elix IVR platform selected for the implementation of Desjardins' AccèsD and VISA Desjardins voice system services.

North Bronx Healthcare Network Integrates Voicebrook's VoiceOver with Misys CPR

Improved billing accuracy and physician workflow cited at the New York City Health and Hospitals network.

VoiceGenie Appoints Gold Europe Value-Added Reseller in UK

TORONTO, CANADA and CARDIFF, ENGLAND - Gold Europe appointed to support demand for VoiceXML-based applications.

Brian Strachman and Jonathan Eisenzopf Join Intervoice

DALLAS, TX - Former industry analysts hired to support Intervoice's open-standards direction.

Edify Announces New Version of Edify 8.5

SANTA CLARA, CA - Updated version of platform provides full integration support for ScanSoft's SpeechPearl XML 1.0 and BBN's HARK Speech Recognition Engine.

Brooktrout Integrates Platform with Babel TTS

NEW YORK, NY - Also announces integrated solution with VoiceGenie and a new comprehensive development program during SpeechTEK.

Loquendo Teams Up with VoiceGenie

NEW YORK, NY - Announce alliance to deliver sophisticated voice-enabled services to enterprises and carriers worldwide.

Dimension Data Italia Integrates Aculab's Prosody Product Line with Envox 5

BOSTON, MA - System integrator to develop interactive voice response and contact center solutions with Envox 5 platform.

Babel Technologies TTS Deployed in Owasys Mobile Phone

MONS, BELGIUM - PocketBabil will provide text-to-speech for the blind and visually impared using a mobile phone.

Voice Architects Launches VUI Outsourcing Program

PORTLAND, OR - Managed VUI™ program is designed to help speech interface owners systematically identify improvement opportunities and set performance benchmarks.

Intervoice Announces Release of Software-based Platform

CHICAGO, IL - Omvia Voice Framework capable of operating within SALT and VoiceXML standards, as well as Intervoice IQTalk.

Intel Announces Two Standards-based Software Building Blocks

NEW YORK, NY - Intel NetMerge Call Manager is key element of the speech server reference architecture that has been jointly developed by Microsoft and Intel.

Vocollect's Talkman Nearly Flawless for Alberta Distribution Center

PITTSBURGH, PA - Accuracy rate of 99.99% achieved and maintained at third-party logistics provider Connect Logistics Services.

Pronexus Expands Value Added Distributor Program to Japanese Market

OTTAWA, CANADA - Addition of Proton Ltd. addresses growing demand for IP telephony with VBVoice's VoIP capabilities.

Elan Speech Releases Speechissimo

TOULOUSE, FRANCE - Speechissimo provides Text-to-Speech option for MAC OS X users in a variety of languages.

Aculab and SkunkWorks Form Alliance

MILTON KEYNES, ENGLAND - Partnership will allow Skunkworks to enhance development and support for Whirlwind.

LumenVox and VoiceVantage Announce Partnership

SAN DIEGO, CA and CHICAGO, IL - LumenVox will work with VoiceVantage's VoiceCheck Telephony and Web technologies as a value add for LumenVox's Speech Driven Information System.

BEA Launches Developer Extensibility Program

SAN JOSE, CA - More than 30 partners have joined the program committing to building controls and extensions for BEA WebLogic Workshop across various markets.

Epson and Fonix Announce New Speech Platform

SALT LAKE CITY, UT and TOKYO, JAPAN - Speech platform features speech recognition and text-to-speech capabilities that will allow interaction with embedded systems using natural interfaces.

Sensory Releases New Biometric Chip

SANTA CLARA, CA - SVC-64 IC will be available for sampling during fourth quarter 2003 and is a cost sensitive security application.

Doctors Hospital to Deploy Speech-Activated Paging from Amcom

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - DocLink Meet-Me Paging system is scheduled for November installation will allow paging without operator assistance.

SandCherry Forms Alliances

NEW YORK - In addition to announcing partnerships with seven companies, SandCherry makes AppDev™ VXML available.

LumenVox to Announce Version 4.0

SAN DIEGO, CA - Demonstrations will be available in booth 217 during SpeechTEK.

TuVox Announces TuVox Release 3.0 CVR

LOS ALTOS, CA - TuVox 3.0 assists developers build applications containing thousands of speech dialogs.

UbiCall Communications Launches Voxplorer Receptionist 2.0

NEW YORK, NY - Voxplorer Receptionist 2.0 is a multilingual speech activated automated attendant. It will be on display at SpeechTEK in booth #210.

LocusDialog and VoiceGenie Partner on Auto-Attendant and Call-Routing Solutions

MONTREAL and TORONTO, CANADA - VoiceGenie's platform and LocusDialog's open standards-based solution combine to develop voice-enabled capabilities targeted toward the enterprise market.

Rhetorical and Telisma form Partnership

PARIS, FRANCE and EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - European companies team in a technical and commercial alliance with plans to deploy voice services across the region.

Clarity Technologies to Provide CVC Technology to Motorola

Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector will use CVC technology support on its mobile MPC5200 embedded processor.

Avaya and ScanSoft Develops Speech Service for Qantas Airways

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA and PEABODY, MA - Australian Airline Introduces Qantas Voice to manage calls directed toward its frequent flyer program.

iVoices IVR Installed by Housing Authority in Decatur, Ga.

MATAWAN, NJ - Application will allow applicants for housing to call in and discover their position on waiting lists.

AT&T Introduces AT&T VoiceTone Service

Carrier grade, automation solution integrates conversational speech technology with a full suite of contact center networking services.

Nickelodeon Network Chooses NeoSpeech

FREMONT, CA - The N, a nighttime network for teens owned by Nickelodeon, chose NeoSpeech's Text-to-Speech (TTS) product VoiceText™.

Sensory Now Shipping Its RSC-4x Family of Integrated Circuits

SANTA CLARA, CA - Integrated Circuits provide single chip solution for general purpose embedded controller applications as well as speech and music synthesis.

Vocomo Partners with The Voice User Interface Company to Launch New Service

CUPERTINO, CA - 'IVR Expert Review' created to offer IVR developers a way to confirm they deploy efficient, effective and easy to use IVR applications.

Idylic Launches Voice Portal in Senegal

PARIS, FRANCE - Mobile operator Sonatel Mobiles deploys Idylic's VoiceXML Gateway solution Phonic Telecom platform.

Nortel Networks Releases MPS 500 Platform

LONDON, ENGLAND - MPS 500 designed to provide medium-sized contact centers and small serive providers a carrier-class solution for IVR applications.