Speech Technology eWeekly - September 19, 2007

Features

The 2007 Implementation Awards

In our first installment of the Speech Industry Implementation Awards, we recognize companies that have garnered impressive results from their recent speech technology deployments. In addition to financial returns, this year's winners also recognized soft returns—such as productivity gains, improved efficiencies, and better customer satisfaction scores—from their speech technology deployments.

Web Site Seeks to Create an Online Speech Community

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories and Nuance Communications announced plans today to form an online community for the entire speech technology industry. Phase one of the effort will involve launch of the Web site www.speech-community.com next month.

EveryZing Makes Everything Searchable

EveryZing—a speech-to-text-based multimedia search and merchandising platform—announced earlier today a multitude of partnerships with Boston media firms Boston.com, 890 ESPN, boston.tv, and a variety of radio stations.

Speech Technology News

Microsoft Finds The First Client for Its Tellme Technology

Beginning today, U.S. wireless carrier Sprint-Nextel is offering customers a new Microsoft Web and local business search application using GPS and voice recognition technologies.

IBM's New Avatar Talks to the Deaf

An estimated 55,000 people in the United Kingdom use British Sign Language (BSL) to communicate, yet there are relatively few services and needs designed to accommodate them. With that in mind, IBM announced Friday the development of a new system, called SiSi (Say It Sign It), which automatically converts spoken text into BSL.

With EVA, the Office Is Just a Call Away

Excendia, a developer of speech-enabled unified communications and speech mobility solutions, recently signed a deal with IBM to include its Excendia Virtual Assistant (EVA) on IBM WebSphere Voice Server.

Sensory and CSR Team to Offer Speech-Powered Bluetooth Chip

Known for making embedded speech recognition chips and software, Sensory expanded its offerings today with the announcement that it will provide chips for wireless Bluetooth headsets manufactured by CSR.

The View from AVIOS

A New Read on Digital Talking Books

Speech technologies and new XML standards enhance access to educational texts.