April 1999
PC/104 SERIES
parvus Corporation
396 W. Ironwood Drive
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
P: 801-483-1533
F: 801-483-1523
Web: www.parvus.com
Embedded systems are used in many CTI and non-CTI applications, from cellular phones
and PDAs to vending machines, field testing equipment, and aircraft systems. CTI
developers and manufacturers are interested embedded systems for usage in speech
recognition applications, as well as for high-density or small-size telecommunications
devices. For these readers, there are new things happening at parvus Corporation that
should be interesting, and many of these new things revolve around parvus's PC/104 single
board computer products.
Through continued use by a multitude of vendors, the PC/104 form factor has been a de
facto standard for embedded systems since 1987, even though the formal specification was
not published until 1992. When compared with the standard PC form factor, the PC/104 form
factor has a reduced size (3.6 inches by 3.8 inches) and a self-stacking bus, which
results in significantly less cost and bulk for embedded applications. Other differences
include the use of male/female pin connectors in place of the standard PC edge connectors,
and decreased power requirements.
However, the PC/104 form factor is fully compatible with standard PC architecture, as
well as with PC hardware and software. Much like the CompactPCI form factor, PC/104
leverages the robust hardware and software development environment of the standard PC
architecture for a specific application: embedded computing. This means that products
designed around the PC/104 specification can be less expensive, and perhaps more robust,
than applications designed using alternate architectures, such as VME.
The newest PC/104 module from parvus Corporation is the Scalable CPU II, a
credit-card-sized CPU that ranges from a low-end version running at 486MHz and including
1MB RAM all the way up to a Pentium 200MHz with 64 MB RAM. The Scalable CPU II includes
interfaces for all standard desktop computer features (e.g., VGA/SVGA, IDE, PS/2 mouse,
keyboard) and is designed for industrial applications and environments.
Some other recent announcements in the PC/104 line include:
PC/104 Quad Motherboard - This motherboard is well-suited for applications where space
is of prime consideration. Less than 2 inches high, the Quad Motherboard is capable of
holding four PC/104 form factor cards, with two on each side of the board. There is also a
fifth PC/104 connection, which allows a second Motherboard to be mounted.
Shock Rocks - Intended to minimize potential damage in mobile, shipboard, and other
demanding PC/104 embedded applications, the Shock Rocks PC/104 vibration isolators attach
to the outer edge of PC/104 railed cage cards, isolating all points of contact.
PC/104 VGA to NTSC Converter board - This handy little card allows for conversion of a
standard PC VGA signal (640x480 resolution) to an NTSC video signal, making it possible to
display VGA signals on a standard television monitor.
Octal Serial board - This is a universal 8-port serial I/O module designed for use in
PC/104 systems. The Octal board provides embedded computer systems with 8 independent,
asynchronous serial ports, supporting transfer rates from 200 to 500K baud.
These and other recent releases by parvus Corporation demonstrate their continued
development of PC/104-related hardware and single board computers. With the growing
interest in hand-held communications devices to keep people connected from anywhere, at
anytime, embedded systems are set to play an increasingly important role in the field of
CTI, and parvus Corporation's PC/104 product line represents a wide variety of resources
for development.
AudioMining Technology
Dragon Systems
320 Nevada Street
Newton, MA 02460
www.dragonsys.com
A quick visit to the news section of Dragon Systems' Web site will reveal how much has
been happening at the company recently. The first few months of 1999 have seen a slew of
press releases, and Dragon's speech recognition technology is finding its way into
multiple applications: call centers, medical environments, contact management, as well as
general purpose mobile applications.
Speech recognition is definitely beginning to make its mark throughout the computing
industry. Even with all the news, however, one recent release from Dragon really stands
out as being of interest to readers of CTI, especially those involved in the call center
industry. Dragon recently announced its AudioMining technology, and shortly afterward they
announced that, in conjunction with Oracle Corporation (www.oracle.com),
AudioMining would be available with Oracle 8i. This last announcement broadened the
potential applications of AudioMining so that it will include telecommunications
providers, ISPs, and Web developers.
So what exactly does Dragon's AudioMining technology do? AudioMining technology
converts audio data into searchable text by creating a keyword index of spoken words from
within a recording. This means that a call center manager can search through hundreds of
hours of saved calls simply by typing in a keyword, rather than having to listen to each
recording individually.
At a recent demonstration of the AudioMining technology given by Dragon Systems for CTI�
editors, the technician entered the words "sound card" to replicate a situation
where a help desk manager might want to find out why calls having to do with sound card
problems seemed to be taking so long to resolve. The AudioMining technology immediately
began searching the database and pinpointed all occurrences of "sound card" in
the logged conversations. The audio search screen then marks each instance where the
speech recognition engine "thinks" it hears the entered text. A user is then
able to tab through the conversation by hitting only these marked occurrences, saving many
hours of tedious listening.
Of course, this is a speaker-independent form of speech recognition, since the speaker
has not spent any time training the technology to understand his/her voice. As a result,
there is a higher percentage of error than there would be in a dictation application, such
as Dragon's Naturally Speaking product. However, in the demonstration that we saw, the
AudioMining technology was remarkably effective in pinpointing the appropriate language.
Additionally, the audio search screen rates the occurrences on the likelihood that they
are in fact the word that was given, and a user can choose to look only at those instances
that meet a certain threshold of certainty.
The more recent announcement of integration with Oracle 8i expands the possible uses of
Dragon's AudioMining technology, making it useful for Internet databases, telephony
services, and other applications. With the increasing amount of multimedia material
available to computer users of all kinds - video, audio, and text - accessing this
information could prove to be an insurmountable task. However, with the AudioMining
technology from Dragon Systems, it should be no more difficult than the standard
"Control F" search in a Word document. We found the demonstration of Dragon's
AudioMining technology an exciting new application for speech recognition, and if your
business would benefit from being able to search audio databases easily and quickly, you
should definitely check it out.
One Touch Internet Screenphone
Alcatel
1225 North Alma Road
Richardson, TX 05081
Phone: 972-996-5986; Fax: 972-996-6943
Web: www.alcatel.com
Web access for all - That is the promise of Alcatel's One Touch Internet Screenphone,
and for anyone who has seen this product up close, it is a promise that isn't too hard to
believe. The Internet Screenphone is a small Internet access device that takes up less
space than a typical standalone fax machine, but it allows users to access the Internet
and e-mail without requiring the purchase of a desktop or laptop PC. In other words, all
you need to access the Internet is the Alcatel Screenphone and a dial-up access provider.
If it sounds like Alcatel is going after a completely different market than the
standard Internet user, that is exactly what they are doing. Ease of use is perhaps the
key feature of the Internet Screenphone. Users gain Web access through a familiar-looking,
telephone-like device, and the "One Touch" buttons allow quick, intuitive access
to such features as e-mail, Web browsing, online directories, and even enhanced voice mail
functions.
For an alternative access device, the list of features on the Internet Screenphone is
impressive. The screen is 7.6" wide - certainly smaller than the average computer
screen, but much larger than current handheld access devices. Additionally, the screen is
able to handle standard HTML sites and Java applets, greatly expanding its usefulness when
compared to smaller, handheld devices. The Internet Screenphone allows users to send and
receive e-mail messages, and it can even handle some attachments, such as .WAV and .GIF
files. The Screenphone also comes with an internal 33.6K modem, and Alcatel has plans to
upgrade this to a 56K modem. There is even a fax option, available with the VAS Pack
Unified Messaging System (UMS), a package that allows service providers (Alcatel or
another provider) to offer the residential customer easy-to-use enhanced
telecommunications services.
About the only feature that is missing from the first release of the One Touch Internet
Screenphone is a port that would allow the Internet Screenphone to connect to a printer or
a PC. However, users can e-mail files they wish to save or print to their regular PCs, and
Alcatel has suggested that a printer port may be an option in future models.
The Internet Screenphone is clearly designed to appeal to non-technical users who may
or may not be familiar with the Internet through PC use, but who probably do not want to
invest the money necessary to buy a home PC for Web access. The only thing standing
between these users and the benefits of Internet and e-mail access is the price of the
access device. After a demonstration of the Internet Screenphone, we at CTI�
feel that this device will also be appealing to users who already have home PCs available.
By integrating Web access with standard phone service, Alcatel has designed a product that
is likely to be employed by users of all kinds.
Imagine taking the Internet Screenphone with you when you go on vacation to your
cottage in the woods, or when you decide to visit your relatives for a week or so. The
increasing use of e-mail as a form of communication means that more and more people are
going to want to be able to check their messages when they are away from home, and yet not
all of these people have the need for a full-fledged laptop. The Internet Screenphone
provides an inexpensive alternative for such users. With a projected price tag of about
$300, Alcatel's Internet Screenphone should bring the Web within reach for a much greater
number of people than the desktop PC. Alcatel plans to announce general availability of
the Internet Screenphone by the third quarter of 1999.
CommBuilders
EMIEN LLC
100 South Shore Drive
East Haven, CT 06512
Web: www.emien.com
Events may conspire to advance a novel messaging technology. And what are these events?
The year 2000 and - coincidentally (millennial fervor notwithstanding) - the ascendancy of
packet-based telephony. That leaves one other question: What's the novel messaging
technology? A type of packet-based unified messaging. But more about that in a moment.
First, we should quickly remind our readers that last month, we presented a rationale
for jettisoning old, non-Y2K-compliant voice mail systems, and replacing them with unified
messaging systems. The idea was that if you had a choice between an "upgrade"
that would leave you more or less where you started, and setting up to something more
capable, you might well skip the upgrade (assuming one was even available) and embrace the
more capable system.
Which is to say, according to this rationale, having the year 2000 just ahead may give
unified messaging a boost. So far, so obvious. But now, we'd like to replay this rationale
with a twist, and the twist is about packets.
VOICE-PACKET UNIFIED MESSAGING
The advantages of packet switching are well documented. From the deployment of multimedia
communications to lower infrastructure costs, packet switching has arrived. Now, unified
messaging based on voice-packet technology is being offered to displace traditional
record-and-store voice mail systems. According to EMIEN, the company offering the
solution, it can be accomplished at a significantly lower cost than that associated with
current unified messaging systems.
As we've indicated, this is an issue of some urgency. Of the 750,000 or so voice mail
servers deployed in North America, estimates suggest that 80 percent are not
Y2K-compliant. Soon, the market will have to decide - does it want to replace current
voice mail systems with other voice mail systems, or does it want to replace them with
unified messaging systems?
What will break the tendency to do nothing? Sheer desperation? A yielding to the urge
to do something, anything, as December 31 approaches? Not necessarily.
A PARADIGM SHIFT
The impetus may prove to be something more deliberate, a level-headed decision to embrace
a technology paradigm shift brought on by Internet telephony. This paradigm shift may
introduce a new category of product that incorporates voice-packet technology, enabling
unprecedented benefits across the entire voice-management and messaging spectrum.
Collectively, these products may serve as the natural replacement for an existing class of
infrastructure, an infrastructure that has served us well through the circuit-switched
era, but which may prove to be, well, balky, in the new packet-based era of voice
communications.
An example of the new paradigm is provided by EMIEN, which, in support of the Sun
Microsystems UltraSPARC and Solaris 7 servers, has introduced CommBuilders. These
CommBuilders consist of two Java technology-based tools that support Internet telephony
messaging. The first of these tools, the J-IVR tool, is an object-oriented technology, an
IVR built specifically for packet voice messaging and management. Significantly, the J-IVR
tool does not depend on DSP boards.
The second CommBuilder tool may be used where VoIP devices are not deployed. This tool,
the J-VPI Tool 2.0 (Voice Packet Interconnect), is a "software-only" solution, a
centralized packet engine. It can transform voice and fax traffic from traditional
circuit-switched networks into IP packets, and (conversely) transform IP packets back into
standard signals for outbound circuit-switched transmission. J-VPI tool also doesn't rely
DSP boards for circuit-to-packet conversion.
Combined, the J-VPI and J-IVR tools can be placed at any point along circuit-switched
networks, providing transparent PSTN-to-IP conversion, and network-based call management
and messaging. (A third tool, the J-SRT, brings speech recognition technology into the
mix. According to EMIEN, the tool can accommodate both caller accent variation and varying
acoustic environments, such as noisy mobile phones or hands-free use.)
THE COMMBUILDER TOOLS AT WORK
However a circuit call is converted to voice-packets (DTMF prompts, end-user greetings,
etc.), the J-IVR tool may stream the voice-packets to a local or remote mail server or
object database for retrieval via a TUI or GUI. According to EMIEN, the J-IVR is not just
a voice-message generator. Voice-packets can be streamed to any device that can manage
voice packets - call centers, H.323 clients, wireless devices, WebPhones, etc.
The J-IVR tool never actually records a message in the traditional sense. Rather, it
acts as a software switch that manages voice packets received from an existing VoIP
device, a voice-packet network, or the J-VPI. The J-IVR then directs and/or stores the
call/message to whatever legacy communication server or packet-ready device the end-user
has deployed.
If a directory services layer is added to control the J-IVR, the result is a form of
network-based unified messaging. At this point, the service deployment schemes are almost
endless, from voice-packet call control, to find-me/follow-me services.
The tools can be deployed on Sun's UltraSPARC 5 workstations, for as few as a hundred
end users, or on high-end Sun Enterprise servers, for hundreds of thousands. Proprietary
applications are unnecessary. Instead, it is possible to use off-the-shelf Sun
applications and hardware. The CommBuilder tools do not mandate the removal of existing
voice mail servers; in fact, the solution can work in conjunction with existing voice mail
servers, particularly for Telco service providers. Where a PBX is deployed, the
CommBuilder tools may replace the existing voice mail system (but again, not necessarily),
taking full control of the PBX's messaging functions. |
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