Blood donors feedback 90% confidence in NBS speech recognition trial

SpeechStorm, (www.speechstorm.com) has today revealed that the National Blood Service (NBS) has successfully trialed its automated speech recognition solution efficiently guiding thousands of blood donors to make an appointment or handle a general enquiry.
Partnering with outsourced contact centre provider, Teleperformance, SpeechStorm implemented its call routing product (Information Line) and Questionnaire Builder to randomly select callers across the National Blood Service's hundreds of thousands of donors to gather their views and opinions of the new speech recognition service. Callers were also offered an opportunity to participate in a short, automated speech-based, survey to give feedback on their experience of the speech service. The survey produced very positive results. 89% confirmed that they found the system easy to use and 90% said they would be confident to use the speech recognition service again. click heading for more]

LumenVox Deploys At General Motors

San Diego-based LUmenVox, a provider of speech recognition software, announced this morning that it has successfully implemented the firm's speech recongition software in a General Motors product. According to LumenVox, its product has been implemented as part of a speech-enabled, in-car voice dialing systems for GM's ChevyStar product, in Venezuela, Columbia, and Ecuador. GM's ChevyStar is a in-panel car security system and hands-free dialing device. Financial impact of the design win was not disclosed. LumenVox said the deal came as part of a product designed by Redmond Software, a software and systems integrator.

Boston Medical Center Uses Envox 7 to Pioneer a New Healthcare Delivery Model

Envox Worldwide today announced that the Envox Communications Development Platform 7 is being used by researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) to deliver cutting edge care to patients with chronic health conditions. The BMC team has developed Envox 7-based automated phone-based information systems that monitor the health of patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity; screen patients for healthcare issues; and help patients take better care of themselves. [click heading for more]

Canada’s Zi Corporation Hopes to Fend Off Nuance Takeover; Companies Issue Dueling Statements

Zi Corporation (NASDAQ: ZICA), a struggling Calgary, Alberta-based company whose software is designed to speed text entry on mobile devices, today rejected a takeover offer from Burlington, MA-based speech recognition giant Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN). Nuance reacted angrily, calling the rejection “perplexing and inappropriate” given Zi’s financial condition.
Last Thursday—the same day Zi announced widening financial losses for the second quarter of 2008—Nuance pounced, saying in a letter to Zi’s board of directors that the time for a sale of the company had come. Nuance noted that Zi was hemorrhaging cash and that low stock trading volumes had put the company in danger of being delisted by the NASDAQ exchange. “We believe that a negotiated transaction with Nuance would be the best way for Zi Corporation to maximize shareholder value, and in particular, to offer substantially superior value…relative to any available alternatives,” Nuance CEO Paul Ricci said in a the letter, which Nuance released to the media. [click heading for more]

Verizon Business Launches Open Hosted Speech Services

Verizon has launched its new open hosted speech services, which allows customers to create and host their own speech applications while they continue to rely on Verizon Business' speech platform, which includes interactive voice recognition services.
According to the company, this new open hosted speech services (OHSS) gives users flexibility and oversight typically associated with customer premises equipment-based solutions, without the large capital costs or burden of platform management. [click heading for more]

Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Requirements

This is the 8 August 2008 W3C Working Draft of "Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0 Requirements".
This document describes the requirements for marking up dialogs for spoken interaction required to fulfill the charter given in the Voice Browser Working Group Charter, and indicates how the W3C Voice Browser Working Group has satisfied these requirements via the publication of working drafts and recommendations. This is a First Public Working Draft. The group does not expect this document to become a W3C Recommendation. [click heading for more]

Loquendo Makes Speech Recognition and Text to Speech Available for iPhone 3G

Speech technologies provider Loquendo announced today that Loquendo Embedded TTS and ASR now available for the new iPhone 3G in more than 20 languages.

With their voice, iPhone users can select and play MP3 files, or use their device for voice-enabled GPS navigation, or to read aloud SMS and email messages. [click heading for more]

Nuance Communications Introduces Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10

Nuance Communications today unveiled Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® 10, a breakthrough new release of the world’s best-selling speech recognition software. With Dragon, people can write documents and emails, search the Web, and even control their PC entirely by voice, saving time and boosting productivity. Because most people speak at least three times faster than they type, Dragon makes it possible to get things done more quickly by voice than by relying on keyboards and mice alone. Dragon 10 is nearly twice as fast as the previous release and can deliver accuracy up to 99 percent, while never making a spelling mistake. [click heading for more]

NuEcho Introduces the NuGram Platform at SpeechTEK 2008

[nik's note:]

Nu Echo Inc., today announced that it will introduce the NuGram platform at the SpeechTEK 2008 conference and exhibition in New York City, August 18-20.
While there are numerous effective speech application service creation tools on the market today, the lack of an effective grammar development solution has traditionally presented a significant obstacle to the development of increasingly complex speech applications.
In response to this Nu Echo is launching the NuGram platform. By enabling the development of both static and dynamic grammars, the NuGram platform provides a complete grammar solution that uniquely supports the full development and deployment lifecycle of speech recognition grammars.
The NuGram platform consists of two key components: NuGram™ IDE, an Eclipse-based grammar development environment, and NuGram™ Server, the dynamic grammar runtime solution. [click heading for more]

Nuance Announces Winners of Second Annual Dragon NaturallySpeaking Story Contest

Nuance Communications announced the winners of its “I Speak Dragon!” contest, which invited Nuance’s Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® software users to share their unique experiences using the speech recognition solution. The second annual contest encouraged users to share their personal stories about how Dragon has improved their lives. [click heading for more]