Thursday May 4, 5:01 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
L&H Executives, Industry Luminaries Discuss Universal Role of Speech and Language in the Future
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2000--
Panels Discuss Technology's Growing Role in Consumer Devices and in Numerous Industries Including Translation, Telephony, Healthcare, Internet and Wireless Communications; L&H Launches New Products and
Technologies During L&H Technology Days
The future of speech and language technology and the role it will play in an ever expanding number of industries, applications and devices served as the backdrop for panel discussions, presentations, product demonstrations and announcements at Lernout & Hauspie's (NASDAQ:LHSP, EASDAQ:LHSP) (L&H) fourth annual Technology Days, held here on May 4 and 5. Industry luminaries, L&H executives and customers all underscored how speech and language solutions are increasingly being used to provide a natural interface to devices, to simplify tasks, and to breakdown communications barriers for consumers and businesses worldwide. Discussions called special attention to the role of speech and language in: call centers and telephony, automotive; handheld, wireless and mobile consumer devices; computing and the Internet, healthcare and translation and globalization.
L&H introduced at the event L&H Voice Xpress(TM) version 5, the newest offering in its family of award-winning continuous speech recognition products and L&H Voice Xpress(TM) Custom Solutions, the industry's first offering that enables users to both customize and add speech recognition technology to applications. The company also demonstrated its NAK technology (code-name). Its NAK prototype provides the industry's first handheld large vocabulary continuous speech recognition engine that allows users to easily compose documents, send and receive e-mail, surf the Web and conduct e-commerce transactions. L&H customers: Cellport, Cygnion, BeVocal and Arial Systems, showcased their offerings at the event, demonstrating how a variety of applications employ L&H's RealSpeak text-to-speech and it's other technologies. The demonstrations, new products and technology are all examples of how advances in speech and language technology - such as enhanced usability, support for multiple devices, and speech-enabled Internet access -- are helping to make the technology more attractive to a broader group of users and industries.
``Speech technologies can provide a universal interface to a very broad range of devices - including wireless devices and the Internet - on a wide variety of platforms, and in many languages. Advances in Natural Language Technology and our RealSpeak text-to-speech engine allow humans to have dialogues with many devices and for those devices to understand them and talk back,'' said Gaston Bastiaens, president and CEO of L&H. ``Language technologies too are being employed much more broadly, for areas as diverse as translation over the Internet, machine translation, and globalization and localization of worldwide communications. This diversity demonstrates how speech and language technologies could become universal in their applicability and appeal.''
L&H Voice Xpress(TM) Version 5
The new version of L&H Voice Xpress(TM) includes significantly improved accuracy and usability as well as 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 consumer's needs, helping to drive the use of continuous speech recognition among a broader audience of users. There are four new products in the L&H Voice Xpress(TM) version 5 family suite: Professional, Advanced, Standard and Mobile Professional. L&H Voice Xpress(TM) version 5 Mobile Professional enables mobile users to conveniently dictate with the Olympus© DS-150 digital hand-held recorder while away from their computer. L&H plans to begin shipment in the coming weeks and international language versions of L&H Voice Xpress(TM) Version 5 are expected to be released later this summer.
As part of its accuracy enhancements, L&H Voice Xpress(TM) version 5 includes Nothing But Speech (NBS(TM)) Technology, a new disfluency filter that eliminates ``ahh'' and ``umm'', the sounds users often make while speaking that can increase errors in dictation. The product also employs the award-winning L&H(TM) RealSpeak(TM) text-to-speech (TTS) engine to read dictated text back to users with a human sounding voice. L&H Voice Xpress(TM) Professional's other enhancements include the Chat 2 Chat feature that instantly converts chat jargon to emoticons or abbreviations and offers a comprehensive suite of commands to control chat and Instant Message environments. L&H Voice Xpress(TM) Professional tightly integrates L&H(TM) Natural Language Technology(TM) (NLT) with Microsoft© Word 2000/97 and '95, Microsoft© Excel 2000/97, Microsoft© PowerPoint© 2000/97, Microsoft© Outlook© 98/2000 and Corel© WordPerfect© 9. The new version also includes voice PIM tools with the ability to synch to and from Palm(TM) handheld computers.
L&H Voice Xpress(TM) Custom Solutions
L&H Voice Xpress(TM) Custom Solutions, the first offering in L&H's new Solution Series product line, gives organizations the building blocks to add the productivity-enhancing benefits of speech recognition and language technologies to new and existing applications.
The new offering combines version 4 of L&H's award-winning L&H Voice Xpress(TM) continuous speech dictation software, L&H SpeechLinks and L&H SpeechDocs Filler. The ready to use capabilities of L&H Voice Xpress(TM) allow users to apply the power of speech to PC command-and-control, task automation, and document creation, formatting and editing. L&H SpeechDocs Filler adds speech and natural language query support for creating, accessing, and distributing documents, information, and knowledge for tasks such as document and forms fill-in and information browsing. L&H SpeechLinks allows both novice and advanced computer users to quickly create powerful voice macros and customize virtually any application with speech to command-and-control the computer, automate tasks, and integrate desktop applications. L&H plans to begin shipment of this new offering in the coming weeks.
NAK Demonstrated on PDA
During Technology Days L&H also demonstrated its patent-pending, prototype handheld concept for PDA platforms equipped with its large vocabulary speech recognition engine - an industry first - and its L&H RealSpeak text-to-speech (TTS) technology engine. During the presentation L&H demonstrated: how users can employ the device to ``listen'' to e-mail summaries, as well as full-text e-mails; issue natural language commands such as ``next message'' or ``send e-mail''; and dictate e-mails. As part of its live presentation, L&H also demonstrated how its solutions allow a user with a wireless Web connection to make simple web queries (``What is the traffic like in Boston?''; complete an e-commerce transaction, such as purchasing a CD from CDNow.com; and accessing stock quotes.
Panels Explore Future of Speech and Language
In addition to its new product demonstrations, L&H's Technology Days also features the following panel discussions: ``Operating in a Borderless World,'' the impact of e-commerce and the Internet on today's business, and ``Speech Beyond the PC,'' the future of computing and the potential impact of speech and language technologies and products. These panel discussions are hosted by key speech and language luminaries and by well-known industry analysts.
Individual presentations include L&H president and CEO, Gaston Bastiaens, delivering the keynote address: ``Bringing New User Interfaces to Devices & Platforms''; ``The Future of Speech & Language'' presented by L&H co-founder, Jo Lernout; and various L&H executives providing overviews of L&H' divisions and business groups.
Group discussion panelists include:
-- William Meisel, President, TMA Associates
-- Judith Markowitz, Markowitz Consulting
-- Paul Stockford, president of SaddleTree Research
-- Jo Lernout, Co-Chairman, co-founder, L&H
-- Gaston Bastiaens, president & CEO, L&H
-- Florita Mendez, President, Globalization & Internet Translation,
L&H
-- Ray Kurzweil, Chief Technology Advisor, L&H
-- Janet Baker, Chairman of the Board and Co-Founder, Dragon Systems
-- Dr. Alex Waibel, Professor & Director Interactive Systems
Laboratories, Carnegie Mellon
-- Doug Henrich, General Manager, Speech Products Group, Microsoft
-- Rob Monster, President, Global Market Insite
-- Amol M. Joshi, Co-Founder & VP of Products, BeVocal
-- Michael Anobile, president of LISA
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Good luck
Don |
