Automotive Mobile Audio Video

Industry-Leading RealSpeak Family Now Includes Compact SDK, Telephony SDK and PC SDK; ScanSoft Can Speech-Enable Nearly Any Device

or Application - With Nine Languages Immediately Available

ScanSoft, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSFT), a leading supplier of imaging, speech and language solutions, today announced the ScanSoft(R) RealSpeak(TM) Compact SDK, the industry's preeminent text-to-speech (TTS) solution for automotive and mobile applications. RealSpeak Compact allows developers to add human-sounding speech capabilities to applications developed for devices with small processing and memory capabilities, including those based upon Microsoft Windows(R) CE(R) and Linux(R). The system supports US English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Swedish languages, depending upon SDK configuration.

Until now, the limited resources of small-footprint devices relegated applications to formant technology for speech, which uses machine-generated sound to create words - utilizing less processing resources but resulting in machine-like speech. RealSpeak Compact is significant because it delivers to small-footprint devices the TTS quality previously reserved for high-end server and telephony applications. RealSpeak Compact is based upon sophisticated concatenative technology, which combines segments of real human speech to form new words and phrases. This approach is already the standard for phone-based unified messaging, interactive voice response and voice-portal applications.

"The proliferation of mobile devices and speech-enabled automotive applications provides ScanSoft with fertile opportunities for RealSpeak Compact," said Bill Meisel, president of TMA Associates, a speech industry market consulting firm. "By focusing on the right balance of quality and performance, ScanSoft is showing that they understand the formula for success in the mobile and automotive application space."

The RealSpeak Compact SDK extends ScanSoft's established leadership in TTS technology, joining the RealSpeak Telephony SDK and RealSpeak PC SDK. RealSpeak Telephony holds a more than 44% market share in the North American market for speech-enabled unified messaging, IVR and voice-portal applications, and is the voice for the official information portals of the 2002 FIFA World Cup(TM) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The RealSpeak PC SDK is the premier solution for speech-enabling any Microsoft Windows application, and is used in a range of office, game, accessibility and educational titles.

"Speech is becoming a standard way to interact with devices and applications, and RealSpeak is rapidly becoming the standard speech solution," said Robert Weideman, vice president of worldwide marketing at ScanSoft. "We believe that we have delivered the winning combination with RealSpeak - top-notch speech quality that is easy to integrate and practical to deploy."

RealSpeak Compact delivers high-quality speech with smaller disk and memory requirements than competing solutions. The system is ideal for adding speech to embedded device applications, bringing to mobile applications the same high quality sound, inflection, tone and pace previously available only on server-based systems. Text-to-speech is particularly important for small- and no-display devices, providing an effective way to deliver interactive prompts as well Web, email and wireless content.

The ScanSoft RealSpeak(TM) Compact SDK is used to speech-enable virtually any application, including:

-- Custom or commercial applications

-- Sales force automation and database applications

-- Email, calendar and personal contacts

-- Navigational systems and services

-- Web applications and content

-- Electronic forms (eForms)

-- Wireless communication devices

Pricing and Availability

The ScanSoft RealSpeak Compact SDK supports Microsoft SAPI as well as ScanSoft SpeechAPI (API for PC and devices) programming interfaces. Applications can be developed for Microsoft Windows CE, Microsoft Windows CE for Automotive and Linux operating systems, running on NEC(R) MIPS(R), Hitachi(R) SH3, SH4 and Intel(R) x86, StrongARM(R) and XScale(TM) chipsets. Supported languages include US English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Swedish. Specific configurations will vary.

Please visit www.ScanSoft.com/RealSpeak for live demonstrations and more information. Contact ScanSoft at 978.977.2000 for pricing and configuration details.

About ScanSoft RealSpeak SDKs

The ScanSoft family of RealSpeak SDKs can be used to speech-enable nearly any device or application - in nearly any language. They support a range of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Windows CE and Windows CE for Automotive, as well as Intel-based Linux systems. RealSpeak is available in up to 19 languages, depending upon platform, including US and UK English, German, French, Dutch & Belgian Dutch, Castilian and Mexican Spanish, Italian, European and Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Danish and Cantonese & Mandarin Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

# posted by Medical Information : 3:25 AM