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Technology Stocks : LHSP: Lernout En Hauspie -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cdtejuan who wrote (2288)	8/11/2000 9:54:40 AM
From: cdtejuan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2467

The New Straits Times LERNOUT and Hauspie, a speech and language technology provider from Belgium, is currently working on a handheld prototype codenamed Nak to deploy various voice-enabled functions such as dictating e- mails instead of having to type them, connecting to the Internet for information, instructing home devices such as TVs and VCRs. Richard Levine, demo and training manager for Lernout and Hauspie informs that the prototype will replace the functions of devices such as the mobile phone, PDAs, and notebooks. "Nak" is expected to be available in the US early next year. The word "Nak" is derived from the Swahili word "nakawa" meaning, "sound". "Nak" employs the natural language understanding (NLU), an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that recognise human voices, understands the various ways of saying the same thing, and detect nuances of meaning and emotion. The size of "Nak" is slightly larger than a mobile phone and it has a display screen similar to that of a palmtop. The company is looking at the Asia-Pacific region as a potential market for speech and language solutions. In Malaysia, Lernout and Hauspie is currently looking for local partners to deploy its technology. It is targeting the healthcare sector particularly in the medical line, telcos, the education sector, embedded systems such as PDAs, and Internet portals. Asked if there will be a Malay version of speech recognition in the solutions offered by the company, Daniel Ng, marketing and product management director for Lernout and Hauspie Asia-Pacific comments that the large majority of IT-literate Malaysians are familiar with the English language, therefore there are no plans yet to introduce the Malay version. However, by the year end, the company will be coming up with a Singapore- accented English version in its solutions. With success of Ananova, the cyber newscaster created using Lernout and Hauspie's speech and language technology which was sold to a British company for a hefty US$143 million, the company is confident to reach further heights. "In healthcare, doctors will find applications that convert speech to text very convenient and time-saving. The turnaround time for an average recorded speech to be transcribed into text is forty two hours. With L&H Voice Xpress, doctors are able to do it in four hours or less," says Ng. Launched in Singapore in January 1999, Lernout and Hauspie currently provides speech and language solutions to various companies in Singapore, China and Korea in the Asia-Pacific region. By: Loh Chyi Jen