ScanSoft and Infinity Telecom Partner to Offer Speech Applications for Mobile Devices
Companies Leverage Embedded Speech Technology and Applications Expertise to Offer Dictionary Functionality on Mobile Devices
PEABODY, Mass., April 28, 2004 ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), the leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions, today announced a partnership with Infinity Telecom to develop embedded speech applications for mobile devices. Infinity has integrated ScanSoft's embedded text-to-speech (TTS) technologies into its mobile speech solutions to develop a suite of applications including SMS-to-voice, email reading and talking dictionaries for mobile handset manufacturers.
"ScanSoft's worldwide leadership position in speech technologies and applications, its broad language portfolio and its sales presence in major markets were the key reasons for Infinity to partner with ScanSoft," said Dr. Sy Moon, CEO of Infinity Telecom. "We believe there is a tremendous opportunity for us to deliver speech-enabled applications, powered by ScanSoft's technology, to our customers, especially in Korea and China."
According to Gartner, competition in the mobile handset market will intensify in 2004, as sales exceed half a billion units. ScanSoft and Infinity Telecom are developing a suite of embedded speech applications that can help mobile handset manufacturers differentiate their product offerings in this increasingly competitive market.
As the first application in this offering, ScanSoft and Infinity Telecom recently introduced a solution to enable talking dictionary functionality on mobile phones. Talking dictionaries are very popular tools in the Asia Pacific region, particularly for students who are eager to learn correct pronunciation of English words as well as understand their meaning. A user types in the English word and the correct pronunciation is read aloud in a native U.S. English voice. Using ScanSoft's RealSpeak™ Word solution, handset manufacturers can now add dictionary functionality to their mobile devices. Introduced in February, 2004, RealSpeak Word provides a highly natural-sounding English voice that can support a 60,000-word vocabulary in just 3MB of storage, far more efficient than competing dictionary solutions.
"The mobile handset market is incredibly competitive as manufacturers look for new services and applications to differentiate their products, attract new customers and generate new revenue," said Alan Schwartz, vice president at ScanSoft. "Using speech, manufacturers can simplify the interface between users and common mobile applications like text messaging, address book and calendar features. In addition, speech makes new applications like talking dictionaries available to mobile users, providing a high quality application on a single mobile device."
ScanSoft® Technologies Optimized for Mobile Devices
ScanSoft offers embedded speech recognition solutions in 18 languages and embedded TTS solutions in 22 languages. In addition, the company maintains a unique set of language lexicons to enable key applications for mobile devices. For example, ScanSoft has a lexicon for U.S. English names that contains over 500,000 entries, which allows for accurate recognition as well as playback of names for voice-activated dialing from a user's address books.
About Infinity Telecom
Infinity Telecom is the leading provider of speech solutions for handsets based in Korea and has deployed speech recognition in over 4.5 million units for Samsung in the Korean and Chinese market. For more information, visit http://www.infinity.co.kr/ or call +82-2-565-8808.
About SpeechWorks® Solutions from ScanSoft
SpeechWorks® Solutions from ScanSoft comprise network and embedded speech solutions, including natural language speech recognition, text-to-speech (TTS) and speaker verification solutions, as well as auto-attendant, directory assistance, turnkey vertical industry applications and other speech components. SpeechWorks solutions from ScanSoft help organizations redefine the way they exchange vital information with customers and employees over the telephone, and are used within automotive and embedded applications, including navigation systems, computer games, mobile devices, talking dictionaries, ATMs, applications for the visually impaired, and consumer electronic devices. For information, please visit http://www.scansoft.com/speech.
About ScanSoft, Inc.
ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT) is the leading supplier of speech and imaging solutions that are used to automate a wide range of manual processes - saving time, increasing worker productivity and improving customer service. For more information regarding ScanSoft products and technologies, please visit www.ScanSoft.com.
ScanSoft, RealSpeak and ScanSoft logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of ScanSoft, Inc. in the United States and other countries. SpeechWorks is a registered trademark of SpeechWorks International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other company or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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