Conversa Speech Recognition Engine Ported to Phone.com WAP-compatible Microbrowser.Business/High Tech Editors REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 25, 2000 Conversa, a global leader in enabling speech technologies that facilitate Internet access See how to access the Internet. through both mobile and traditional access devices, announced today it has successfully ported its CASSI(TM) speech recognition and text-to-speech engine to the Phone.com(TM) WAP-compatible UP Browser(R) microbrowser A Web browser designed for small display screens on smartphones and other handheld wireless devices. See smartphone and WAP. technology. With this step, the Conversa technology is ready for implementation on specific manufacturers' devices. The UP.Browser microbrowser, currently licensed to 36 leading wireless phone manufacturers, enables Internet access from wireless devices. Porting embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. speech recognition technology from Conversa to the UP.Browser is expected to result in the first device-based voice-navigation user interface for Internet-enabled mobile phones. Mobile phone users will then be able to easily and quickly access Internet-based information by spoken commands. "This is the first step toward achieving what Phone.com and Conversa set out to do together," said Dave Anastasi, CEO/President at Conversa. "We've shown that our two technologies can be integrated into something that has huge implications for mobile Internet Refers to gaining access to the Internet using a lightweight, handheld device. See Mobile IP, PDA, smartphone and mobile TV. access. What it means is the handset manufacturers that partner with Phone.com now have a voice option that allows them to circumvent any interface issues they're facing." The successful porting is the first milestone in ongoing cooperative development between Conversa and Phone.com. A greater set of features and functionality is anticipated in future releases. While Conversa has ported its technology to a number of embedded platforms (a list of ports available upon request), the port to the UP.Browser microbrowser gives the voice interface a wide availability through Phone.com's extensive existing OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and relationships. Wireless Web industry analyst firm Strategy Analytics predicts that more than half a billion Web-enabled phones will be shipped by 2003. While end-users benefit from easier navigation through voice command, Internet content providers See content provider. could also likely see increased access to their online information. Wireless carriers are expected to also benefit through increased use of their WAP (1) (Wireless Access Point) See access point. (2) (Wireless Application Protocol) A standard for providing cellular phones, pagers and other handheld devices with secure access to e-mail and text-based Web pages. services and systems. About Conversa Conversa (pronounced con-ver-say), founded in 1994, is dedicated to enabling seamless interactive voice access to Internet-based information, anywhere, anytime, on any device and from any network. Built on an innovative speech engine, Conversa(R) technology is speaker-independent, modular, scalable and accommodates unlimited vocabulary, making it ideally suited for embedded applications An application that permanently resides in an industrial or consumer device. Providing some type of control function and/or user interface, the software is typically stored in a non-volatile memory such as ROM or flash memory. . It also drives award-winning products including a voice browser A voice browser is a web browser that presents an interactive voice user interface to the user. In addition, it typically provides an interface to the PSTN or a PBX. Just as a visual web browser works with HTML pages, a voice browser operates on pages that specify voice dialogues. , desktop and web developer tools, and a conversational server. Conversa headquarters are in Redmond, Wash., and is located on the web at www.conversa.com. Conversa and CASSI are trademarks of Conversational Computing Corp. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. |
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