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Speech Technologies Guide
[ Go Right To The Speech
Technologies Roundup ]
Speech is referred to in the high-tech industry as the 'natural
interface,' for good reason. While most of us can type on a QWERTY
keyboard to some varying degree of skill level, few of us can do it in a
car, on a postage-stamp sized keyboard, with a bandaged thumb, while we're
cooking dinner, etc. Speech is the primary human form of communication
since the very first cave dweller pointed to a rock and said'well,
whatever the Neanderthal word for 'rock' was. (The first four-letter
word, of course, was invented when the same Neanderthal dropped said rock
on his or her foot.)
Various new methods for inputting information into computers and other
electronic devices have cropped up in recent years. Lately, one of the
most visible is the Palm OS's Graffiti, a fairly easily learned
collection of stylus strokes that form the letters of the alphabet. A
little practice will get a user up to speed quickly, though even the best
Graffiti inputter cannot enter as quickly as a speedy typist on a standard
keyboard. RIM's Blackberry unit uses a miniature keyboard designed so
the user can input letters with both thumbs, but again, though it's
quick, it's not as quick as it could be. The limitations of the size of
our human fingers and the increasing fuzziness of our eyesight as the
years creep past will forever put a limit on how small keyboards of all
kinds can become, be they PDA, laptop computer, cellular phone, standard
telephone, ATM machine, etc.
Speech recognition was once firmly lodged in the realm of science
fiction. Few science fiction fans can resist trying out speech recognition
demos without uttering the words, 'Hello, Computer' in a distinctly
Mr. Scott accent. The great departed science fiction humor writer Douglas
Adams had a recurring character in his 'Hitchhiker's Guide To The
Galaxy' series in the form of Eddie, the Onboard Computer, whose chatty,
sunny personality was eventually so annoying to the ship's crew they had
to invoke the computer's emergency backup personality, which proved
itself to be that of a stern school headmaster who tolerated no backtalk
from the ship's occupants. Finally, there is the godfather of all
fictional speech-enabled computers, the confused and ultimately homicidal
HAL-9000 from '2001: A Space Odyssey.'
While we've not quite yet achieved these visions of natural language
mixed with artificial intelligence, speech technologies are making leaps
and bounds at a rate of which the general public is barely aware. Speech
recognition is beginning to replace traditional 'please press one' IVR
systems in everything from banking to train schedules to airline
information toll-free lines. The technology has moved past its early days
of being able to recognize only one or two words at a time and has now
blossomed into natural language recognition, which allows the caller to
speak whole sentences at a time, while the system extracts the information
it needs from the caller's speech.
In the near future, we can expect to begin seeing all manner of
handheld computers and cell phones with speech interfaces, perhaps
entirely eliminating the need to press buttons or scribble on a tablet.
Less often will we see chronic cell phone-using bad drivers swerving
wildly across three lanes of traffic while trying to dial a friend's
number to impart some informational tidbit of earth-shaking importance,
such as the color of the pair of shoes he/she just purchased at the mall
(well'perhaps nothing will dissuade such people and it's the brain,
not the input method, that is the problem).
In any case, the editors of Customer Inter@ction Solutions'
collected information about many of the most forward-thinking speech
technology companies. On the following pages, we have provided our readers
with an alphabetical list of companies that offer these types of products.
You will notice that a number of companies have chosen to enhance their
listings and have provided the information about their products they would
like to share with Customer Inter@ction Solutions' ' readers.
We invite you to learn more about all of the companies, visit their Web
sites and contact us with any questions you may have.
Aculab
www.aculab.com
alexis communications inc.
www.alexis.com
APEX Voice Communications
www.apexvoice.com
Audium
www.audiumcorp.com
blueChip Technologies Limited
Stephen Anton, director of sales and marketing
stephen.anton@bluechiptechnologies.com
+44 (2890) 466460
www.bluechiptechnologies.com
Product: clear contact
Highly flexible, fully automatic call handling service for routine
customer requests, or by front-end filtering calls to automatically
identify high-value customers. Delivering exceptional efficiency in call
flow with friendly customer interfaces that responds logically to the
spoken word.
Brooktrout Technology
www.brooktrout.com
Call Interactive
www.callit.com
Cambridge VoiceTech
Steve Brenner, senior vice
president for sales
sbrenner@cambridgevoice.com
703-995-5350
www.cambridgevoice.com
Products: Cambridge Voice Gateway, Cambridge Voice Studio
Award-winning, fully scalable VoiceXML deployment platform and development
environment for Windows. Cambridge VoiceTech provides high-port-density
commercial speech recognition solutions for call centers and the
enterprise market, as well as best-of-breed Windows-based VoiceXML
platforms and development tools for integrators and OEMs.
Computer Talk Technology, Inc.
www.computer-talk.com
Convedia
Alana Hulls
ahulls@convedia.com
604-918-6394
www.convedia.com
CMS-6000 Media Server
Convedia's CMS-6000 is a softswitch-compliant Media Server which enables
communication service providers to rapidly deliver innovative and
differentiated voice and video services over Internet Protocol (IP)
networks. The CMS-6000 supports MGCP, SIP and VoiceXML and offers up to
18,000 ports in a single shelf.
DAC Systems
www.dacsystems.com
Data-Tel Info Solutions
Todd Miller
toddmiller@datatel-info.com
614-895-8852
www.datatel-info.com
Product: xSELLerator 5.0
Data-Tel Info Solutions offers predictive dialing, inbound/outbound call
blending and IVR with skills-based routing. Data-Tel Info Solutions'
xSELLerator 5.0 is a cost-effective call center solution and can be
customized affordably to suit a company's needs.
Dictaphone
www.dictaphone.com
Edify
Ted Bray
ted.bray@edify.com
408-982-2000
www.edify.com
Product: Electronic Workforce 7.2
Electronic Workforce 7.2 provides a fully integrated Windows 2000 based
Interactive Voice self-service (IVR) system that allows customers to take
advantage of world-class speech-enabled applications from technology
partners including SpeechWorks. The SpeechWorks Integration provides
enhanced speech recognition capability, allowing customers to use speech
recognition technology from leading vendors including Nuance, Vocalis and
SpeechWorks. These vendor integrations enable users to address
applications such as Natural Language and Directed Menu Speech
Recognition.
Enablx, Inc.
Dan Ferrara
amakoujy@enablx.com
800-882-0044, ext. 202
www.enablx.com
Enablx is a technology service provider of on-site and off-site contact
center management solutions. Using the latest IVR, chat, e-mail, CTI, live
agent and fax-back technology, the company creates custom, self-service
applications that make it easy for customers to get the information they
need 24/7, all with no capital expense.
eStara, Inc.
Ben Finklea
ben.finklea@estara.com
503-207-6423
www.estara.com
Product: eStara Push to Talk
eStara Push to Talk gives business the power to talk with their online
customers through real-time PC-to-Phone or Phone-to-Phone connections over
the Internet. Push to Talk can be added to Web sites, e-mail and online
advertisements to improve online customer contact and close sales. Push to
Talk is a widely deployed Web voice customer contact tool, with customers
including J. Crew, Club Med and FirstUSA.
GM Voices, Inc.
www.gmvoices.com
iBasis
www.ibasis.net
Interlan
www.interlancompu.com
InternetSpeech
www.internetspeech.com
InterVoice-Brite, Inc.
www.intervoice-brite.com
LamarTech LLC
www.lamar-tech.com
Loquendo
Kathleen Wynne, sales
info@us.loquendo.com
415-615-0600
www.loquendo.com/us/
Product: VoxNauta Voice Platform ' Enterprise
VoxNauta is an open voice platform, that enables the quick creation and
easy management of custom voice services from existing HTML Web
applications, VoiceXML applications or prepackaged voice application
modules.
Loquendo - Vocal Technology and Services
Ornella Ambrois
marketing@loquendo.com
+39 011 7576850
www.loquendo.com
Product: VoxNauta
VoxNauta, the complete platform available in both carrier-grade and
enterprise configurations, incorporates world-class speech components,
easy-to-use service creation environment, vertical applications and
communication services. With VoxNauta customers can easily build and
deploy speech services using VoiceXML and HTML speech tags.
LumenVox LLC
www.lumenvox.com
The Maxxar Corp.
www.maxxar.com
NetByTel
Juan DeAngulo
jdeangulo@netbytel.com
561-981-1945
www.netbytel.com
Product: NetByTel Connected
NetByTel Connected provides packaged voice self-service applications for
contact centers that want to improve customer service. Consumers can
easily use their voice to purchase products, make general inquiries and
get customer support by phone 24/7 without waiting on hold for a live
agent. Live agents are freed from simple, routine inquiries and can focus
on more complex customer interactions. Offered as a hosted service,
NetByTel is fast, easy and cost-effective to deploy, while minimizing risk
and investment, and leveraging existing e-commerce or back-end IT systems.
Nuance
www.nuance.com
Philips Speech Processing
www.speech.philips.com
Phonetic Systems
www.phoneticsystems.com
Prosodie Interactive
Kirk Cameron
sales@prosodiemail.com
866-334-4877
www.prosodieinteractive.com
Service: Speech-enabled Outsourced IVR Solutions
Prosodie Interactive's speech solutions offer unparalleled accuracy,
scalability and reliability for voice-driven applications via the
telephone. We have experience working with Nuance and SpeechWorks
technologies and can speech-enable any IVR application, resulting in
improved satisfaction and cost savings. Our services include digit
replacement, directed dialog and natural language speech implementations.
ScanSoft
www.scansoft.com
(Editor's note: in mid-December, ScanSoft announced that it acquired
substantially all the operating and technology assets of the Speech and
Language Technologies business of Lernout & Hauspie (L&H),
including the Dragon product line.)
Sound Advantage
Greg Stone
gstone@soundadvantage.com
949-476-1400
www.soundadvantage.com
Product: SANDi CRM
SANDi CRM is the best way to access your customer relationship management
database when out of your office. Using any phone, an individual can use
SANDi CRM to access and manage his or her calendar, contact records and
e-mail.
SpeechWorks International
Steve Chambers, VP of
worldwide marketing
steve_chambers@speechworks.com
617-428-4444
www.speechworks.com
Product: SpeechWorks' Speech2Go Version 1.0
SpeechWorks' Speech2Go is a continuous, speaker-independent speech
recognition engine that is designed specifically for embedded devices such
as mobile and automotive devices, handsets and cable set-top boxes. In
addition, Speech2Go will support distributed speech recognition (DSR)
solutions, combining local speech processing with remote access to a wide
range of network-based services, such as stock quotes, news, weather and
traffic reports, and e-mail ' all through natural voice commands.
Syntellect
www.syntellect.com
TEMIC Speech Processing
(Telefunken microelectronic
GmbH ' Germany)
www.starrec.com
TuVox
sales department
sales@tuvox.com
650-623-0210, ext.14
www.tuvox.com
Product: TuVox Customer Assistance System (CAS)
Automate technical support calls. TuVox CAS is specifically designed for
voice knowledge base applications with rapidly changing content. Powerful
tools provide a compelling caller experience and ensure quality. Plus, a
support team can easily enhance the content ' no speech experts needed.
Unveil Technologies
www.unveil.com
Verascape, Inc.
www.verascape.com
VeriSign Global Voice Registry
Dan Scott, senior marketing
advisor
dan@globalvoiceregistry.com
646-521-2917
www.globalvoiceregistry.com
Service: Global Voice Registry
The Global Voice Registry (GVR), a new telephony service focused on
customer care, uses voice dialing to enable consumers to call a business
simply by saying the name of the business. No phone numbers to remember or
dial. The GVR is easy-to-use since no set-up or programming is required.
Anyone can speak any company name and be connected on any phone.
VoiceGenie Technologies
www.voicegenie.com
Voice Web Services, LLC
Brian Graham, president
206-525-0310
www.voicewebservices.com
Product: VANGARD
VANGARD is a text reader that is a W3C VoiceXML application built for
voice-only navigation of text documents. A user can navigate the body of
many types of documents such as e-mail messages, attachments like PDF
documents, complete news articles and government documents all via the
human voice and using the telephone as a primary medium.
[ Return
To The February 2002 Table Of Contents ]
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