[May 30, 2000]

Lernout & Hauspie Ships L&H Voice Xpress Version 5

Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) announced the shipment of L&H Voice Xpress version 5, the newest offering in its family of award-winning continuous speech recognition products. The new version includes significantly improved accuracy and usability and support for e-mail, Internet browsing and chat applications. These features, and other enhancements are designed to make the product more intuitive and to meet general consumers' needs, helping to drive the use of continuous speech recognition among a broader audience of consumers.

As part of its accuracy enhancements, L&H Voice Xpress version 5 includes Nothing But Speech (NBS) Technology, a new disfluency filter that eliminates "ahh" and "umm", sounds users often make while speaking that can increase errors in dictation. The product also employs the award-winning L&H RealSpeak text-to-speech (TTS) engine to enable users to have text read back with a human sounding voice.

"By offering support for the industry's widest variety of applications and desktop utilities, and increasing product ease of use, version 5 of L&H Voice Xpress delivers the benefits of speech to a broader range and number of users than ever before," said Bill DeStefanis, Senior Director of Product Management, L&H PC Applications Division. "This product family, more so than any other speech product on the market today, demonstrates that a speech only interface is ready for mainstream computing."

There are four new products in the version 5 family suite -- L&H Voice Xpress Professional, Advanced, Standard and L&H Voice Xpress Mobile Professional, which enables mobile users to conveniently dictate with the Olympus DS-150 digital hand-held recorder while away from their computer.

L&H Voice Xpress Professional version 5 tightly integrates L&H Natural Language Technology (NLT) with Microsoft Word 2000/97 and '95, Microsoft Excel 2000/97, Microsoft PowerPoint 2000/97, Microsoft Outlook 98/2000 and Corel WordPerfect 9.

All of the products in the L&H Voice Xpress version 5 family include a variety of features to provide fast, easy, accurate dictation for users. These features include:

• Improved L&H XpressStart Technology -- allows users to start dictating with highly accurate results after training the software for only about 5 minutes.
• Nothing But Speech (NBS) Technology -- L&H Voice Xpress version 5 is the first speech recognition product to offer disfluency filter technology which eliminates the "ahh" and "umm" sounds that frequently cause errors among speech recognition users.
• L&H Xpress Cafe -- a new fun and casual interactive learning environment in which users can learn to use L&H Voice Xpress and become more productive at home or at the office.
• On Desktop Sample Commands -- provides a visual list of the most commonly used application-specific commands right on the desktop, helping to familiarize users with the ways in which they can say the various commands. The feature also allows users to add their own favorite commands to the list.
• L&H RealSpeak Technology -- L&H's award winning, human sounding text-to-speech reads on-screen text to help users while they are editing their documents.
• My Commands -- (formerly Personal Commands) allows users to employ voice only to place entire common sections of text and bitmaps (such as a signature) into a document. My Commands also includes a keystroke and desktop macro recorder that allows users to record keyboard or desktop activities and play the recording back by issuing a voice command.
• SayLinks for Microsoft Internet Explorer -- allows users to "click" page links just by speaking them.
• TalkingTools -- an improved version of the essential voice-powered tools that let users search the Internet, solve math problems, schedule appointments, track contacts and more using voice only. L&H Voice Xpress version 5 allows users to easily transfer information in the Voice AddressBook, Voice Scheduler, and Voice To-Do to and from Palm handheld computers.
• Chat 2 Chat -- the feature that instantly converts chat jargon and emoticons and includes a comprehensive suite of commands to control chat and Instant Message environments.

The L&H Voice Xpress family of products improve productivity by enabling users to dictate, edit and format documents on their PC using continuous speech. L&H Voice Xpress products allow users to create memos, e-mails, and spreadsheets - even chat on the Internet - by voice. All four new products in the version 5 family feature L&H Natural Language Technology (NLT), allowing users to employ natural conversational speech to navigate in and between applications and execute formatting and editing functions.

L&H Voice Xpress 5 family products are optimized for the Intel Pentium III, Intel Pentium II, Intel Pentium with MMX, Intel Celeron, AMD K6 -2, AMD K-3 with 3D and AMD Athlon processors. The products are designed for Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 second edition, Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 (with SP-4 or greater) operating systems. System requirements for L&H Voice Xpress version 5 family of products include 64 MB RAM for Windows 98 for Advanced, Professional, Mobile (128 MB RAM Recommended); 48 MB RAM for Windows 98 (Standard); 96 MB RAM for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000; 250 MB free disk space; VGA or better monitor; Creative Labs Sound Blaster16 compatible or sound board supporting 16-bit 22 KHz recording; CD-ROM drive for installation; speakers (for listening to TalkingText and Learning Application) and a Plantronics noise-canceling headset microphone (included).

The estimated prices of version 5 for L&H Voice Xpress Standard, L&H Voice Xpress Advanced, L&H Voice Xpress Professional and L&H Voice Xpress Mobile Professional are $49.99, $79.99, $149.99 and $229.99 respectively. Each product includes software on a CD-ROM, documentation, and a noise-canceling microphone.

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