Speech technologies provider Loquendo (News - Alert), a Telecom Italia company headquartered in Turin, Italy has announced the addition of new voices and languages to its TTS, text to speech offering as well as new key features.

 

The latest version of Loquendo’s TTS offering includes Australian English and the introduction of Alan, a new male voice as well as Dmitri, a new male Russian voice.

 

With these latest additions, Loquendo now offers a total of 27 languages and 65 voices, including: Russian, Australian English, U.S. and U.K. English, Mandarin Chinese, French, Canadian French, American Spanish, Mexican, and many more.

 

Officials with Loquendo said the addition of Australian English allows the company to offer speech solutions for clients in a region that is “demonstrating particular dynamism and interest in speech.”

Dmitri now joins Olga, a female Russian voice, to complete the company’s offerings for partners in the Russian speaking world.

 

Loquendo has also released Loquendo TTS version 7.8 which includes new support for the International Phonetic Alphabet, also known as “IPA” so users can insert transcriptions written in IPA directly into their prompts, and Loquendo TTS will read them “perfectly and seamlessly.”

 

The latest version also includes support for the Pronunciation Lexicon Specification or “PLS” 1.0, a W3C (News - Alert) Recommendation standard which allows prompt designers to specify pronunciation information within a VoiceXML document.

 

In addition, the company has released a new version of TTS Director, the company’s prompt design tool and has added a choice of nine robotic effects and a new “whispering” effect for its range of possible sound effects.