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To receive monthly Europe-wide news updates, send us an email with 'subscribe' in the subject line. To access news older than two months follow this link. 29.04.03 SDL
International Announces Contract With Dell Computer Corporation 25.04.03 Eckoh
Technologies selected by Wyevale Garden Centres to streamline customer
services 25.04.03 Ladbrokes raises the stakes for the Martell Grand National with VeCommerce’s VeBet solution 24.04.03 Somerfield
Expands Its VoiceLogistics Implementation 24.04.03 Q&A
with Andrew Ormsby of Lexicle 23.04.03 Canon Research and Be4 Join ARM PrimeXsys Community Program 22.04.03 SDL Expands Relationship With SAP 22.04.03 Rhetorical voices delight over 70% rise in turnover 22.04.03 SDL International announces contract with Echostar International Corporation 18.04.03 Complying With European Language Requirements 15.04.03 SITEL
Teams up With SRC to Deliver Data Capture Service for High Call Volumes 15.04.03 UK
Police Consider Lie Detector Tests 11.04.03 20/20
Speech's technology further embedded in US legal software market 10.04.03
Scottish Volunteers Sought For Speech Recognition 09.04.03 Voice-enabled interactive quiz to raise charity money for Red Nose Day 09.04.03 KJ
International Joins Growing List of SDLX 2003 Converts 07.04.03 Hands-Free
E-Mail Product from Domain Dynamics Wins Microsoft Award 04.04.03 PC
screen turns into speaker 03.04.03
Q&A with Chris Hart of SRC 02.04.03 Rhetorical
Looks to Bright Future with Orange 02.04.03 Nortel
Networks Periphonics Signs Reseller Agreement with Rhetorical 02.04.03 Coral
Place Sure Bet on SRC Speech Recognition for Grand National 27.03.03 Q&A
with Andy Munarriz of VoxSurf 21.03.03 Q&A with Nik Philpot of Eckoh Technologies. 20.03.03 Up
To Half Of Customers Lost Through Poor Service 20.03.03 SDL
International Announces Contract With Toshiba Europe 19.03.03 SDLX Translation Suite 2003 Launched 19.03.03 Babel Sets Record Time with THQ and Climax for Moto GP 2 19.03.03 US
legal industry giant buys into 20/20 Speech 14.03.03 Babel ramps up mobile games investment 13.03.03 Broca
Networks and Active Hotels Launch Hotel Booking Service 12.03.03 DAG,
Rhetorical and Emblaze announce three way application partnership 12.03.03 SDL
moves further ahead with leading Multilingual Content Management System 12.03.03 SDL
announces new installations of its leading Real-time Translation System 11.03.03 Telenet
develops call centre solution for Dresdner Bank using Aculab telephony
cards 10.03.03 SDL
Desktop Products Celebrates a Year of Solid Growth 10.03.03 BBC Urdu Online 'the best' 06.03.03 Speech
Driven Online Brochure Request Service A First For The UK 05.03.03 Speech
Recognition Dramatically Reduces Turnaround Times at FirstAssist 04.03.03 Autonomy
Selected By Italian Government 03.03.03 Indigo Holidays & Sky Holidays 'Go Live' With UK's First Speech Automated Brochure Lines 28.02.03 Europe's
Top Speech Solutions Platform Boosts Call Handling Capabilities With
NMS Communications 28.02.03 SDL
International announces Strategic Partnership with Microsoft 28.02.03 SDL
International announces the launch of the new "FreeTranslation.com" 27.02.03 Lloyds
TSB Pioneers Paperless Employee Share Scheme Registration through Speech
Recognition 26.02.03 Eckoh
and Auctionworld Launch 24-hour TV Phone Shopping Channel 20.02.03
IBM donates supercomputer to help fire-hit facility rise from ashes 19.02.03 OUP
Selects ScanSoft RealSpeak to Teach Pronunciation to Language Students
and Travellers 17.02.03 Edinburgh
gets virtual reality centre 14.02.03 SDL
Desktop Products Backs TMX Industry Awareness Campaign 13.02.03 SRC Wins National Innovation Award for Dragon Professional Vocabularies 13.02.03 Eckoh & Auctionworld launch 24-hour TV “Phoneworld” Channel 12.02.03 VoiceObjects
Factory© now available on Voxpilot’s VoiceXML Gateway 11.02.03 Rhetorical provides voice behind Freeview, Europe's largest call volume speech enabled service 10.02.03 A
Cure For The Call Centre Blues 10.02.03 Truancy
Call Successfully Tackles School Truancy with Innovative Text-to-speech
Technology 07.02.03 Nuance
and Aspect Communications Speech System Reduces BA Call Center Costs
by 95% 07.02.03 Calling
all Scousers! 06.02.03
Voxpilot announces support for W3C's VoiceXML 2.0 Candidate Recommendation 06.02.03
SRC Chosen To Provide Speech Recognition Service For Freeview 05.02.03 BT
creates research and technology partnership 03.02.03 UK's
Simera Signs OEM Agreement with Convera
29.04.03 SDL
International Announces Contract With Dell Computer Corporation SDL plc (SDL), the world’s leading provider of multilingual solutions offering scalable translation technology and services, has announced agreement with Dell Computer Corporation for the implementation of SDL’s Globalization Management System (GMS) - SDLWorkFlow 2003 - to manage the localization of the company’s EMEA Website. GMS technology enables businesses to reduce localization costs, reduce time to market and improve the quality of localized content. SDLWorkFlow is a Web-based GMS designed and developed by SDL to enable organizations to optimize localization delivery and management. SDLWorkFlow contains a fully integrated suite of applications designed to automate much of the work related to creating and managing multilingual content. 25.04.03
Eckoh Technologies selected by Wyevale Garden Centres to streamline
customer services Eckoh Technologies, Europe’s leading speech application provider, has announced that Wyevale Garden Centres has selected Eckoh's Store Locator product to create a bespoke Garden Centre Locator to dramatically improve its customer service offering. Eckoh’s Garden Centre Locator allows Wyevale to promote one nationwide telephone number that callers can dial to find out their nearest Centre and much more. The service delivers Centre contact details, opening times and location information, and has the ability to connect the caller directly to the Garden Centre if requested. Using speech recognition technology the system asks for the caller’s county then town or city, from which the nearest Wyevale Garden Centre is automatically identified. Callers simply speak into the telephone, responding to a series of simple prompts. This allows every caller to get the exact information they are looking for. 25.04.03 Ladbrokes raises the stakes for the Martell Grand National with VeCommerce’s VeBet solution VeCommerce Limited, a global leader in the provision of natural language speech recognition (NLSR), speaker verification and voice enabled e-commerce solutions, has announced that Ladbrokes, the betting and gaming arm of Hilton Group plc and largest bookmaker in the world, has launched the second phase of its VeBetR-based voice enabled wagering system. First utilised in May 2002 for the FIFA World CupT, Ladbrokes added support for horse and greyhound racing on 1 April 2003, in time for the start of the 2003 UK horse racing season and particularly the nation's favourite race, the Martell Cognac Grand National. Using the latest in communications and speech recognition technology, the system allows callers to place their bets on horse and greyhound racing without queuing for an operator to take their call or struggling with push button technology - which is vitally important when a caller has that all important 'winner'. 24.04.03 Somerfield
Expands Its VoiceLogistics Implementation Voxware, Inc., a supplier of voice-based solutions for logistics, has announced that Somerfield plc, the UK's biggest neighborhood supermarket company, is expanding its commitment to Voxware's VoiceLogistics(TM) solution. "Somerfield has over 1,200 stores nationwide, and we support them with an extremely sophisticated distribution strategy," said Simon Thorogood, Somerfield's Logistics Strategy Development Manager. Somerfield will roll out the technology to their state-of-the-art Northwest Composite site outside of Liverpool, England. The solution includes Voxware's application suite encompassing its Picking Module and VoxView(TM) Management Console, working in conjunction with its VLS-310 wearable, voice-enabled computer unit. 23.04.03 Canon Research and Be4 Join ARM PrimeXsys Community Program ARM, the industry's leading provider of 16/32-bit embedded RISC microprocessor solutions, has announced at Embedded Systems Conference, San Francisco, that Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd. (CRE) and Be4 Ltd. have joined the ARM(R) PrimeXsys(TM) Community Program, bringing with them significant expertise in speech recognition and advanced mobile audio technology. As a new Program member, CRE has ported its speech recognition IP to the ARM PrimeXsys Platform, which is the first time Canon has offered developers access to such proprietary solutions through an open platform. Be4 is currently porting its 3D audio engine named "MPulse(TM)" to the Platform, enabling manufactures and developers to incorporate, for the first time, rich, 3D sound in mobile devices such as cellular phones, game pads and PDAs. Together, CRE and Be4 are expanding the scope of the PrimeXsys Community Program to include important next-generation audio capabilities. 22.04.03 SDL Expands Relationship With SAP SDL International, the world’s leading provider of multilingual solutions offering scalable translation technology and services, has announced that it has been chosen by SAP AG to provide localization services for SAP® Business One™ solutions. The initiative includes localizing a substantial volume of SAP Business One training material into the Norwegian, Finnish, Danish and Dutch languages. SAP Business One is a powerful solutions-portfolio for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). It gives users real-time access to corporate information, complete reports and useful documents for all business processes. SAP Business One covers such activities within an enterprise as sales, final assembly, accounting, purchasing, administration and bank transactions. The localization of SAP Business One by SDL enables SAP to offer its’ customers documentation and training material in their local language. Especially for small and mid-sized companies, the localized documentation and training material play an important role in the successful implementation of SAP Business One. 22.04.03 Rhetorical voices delight over 70% rise in turnover Rhetorical Systems, the Edinburgh text-to-speech company, has recorded a 70 per cent increase in turnover for 2002 and driven revenues to £1.7 million. The firm, which was spun out of Edinburgh University in 2000, said a string of contracts with leading technology companies had pushed turnover "beyond expectations". A profit continues to elude the firm, which suffered £1.1 million losses in 2001, its first full year in operation, but chief executive Mark Moens insisted yesterday it was "on target to reach profitability some time this year". He also pointed out that 13 jobs have been created at the firm, bringing the workforce to 51. 22.04.03 SDL International announces contract with Echostar International Corporation SDL plc, the world’s leading provider of multilingual solutions offering scalable translation technology and services, has announced agreement on a contract with Echostar International to provide multilingual translation and software engineering services, as well as a program of Localization Consultancy. Echostar International Corporation, with European offices in Almelo, Netherlands, and Madrid, Spain, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Echostar Communications Corporation and delivers DVB-S, DVB-T and DVB-C solutions throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Echostar Communications Corporation (headquartered in Littleton, Colorado) delivers Direct Broadcast by Satellite (DBS) television products and services to millions of customers. 18.04.03 Complying With European Language Requirements EU directive IVD Directive (98/79/EC), the last of three directives covering medical industry regulations in Europe, has special ramifications for manufacturers of medical devices. In this article in Multilingual Computing, AIDAN COLLINS examines the issues and implications of the directive to the medical industry. 15.04.03 SITEL Teams up With SRC to Deliver Data Capture Service for High Call Volumes Businesses are set to benefit from a new automated system that will greatly improve the call centre experience for callers by reducing waiting times and eliminating connection failures. SITEL UK, a leading provider of outsourced customer support services, and SRC, will together provide an innovative computerised telephone data capture system that utilises highly sophisticated speech recognition technology. The automated data capture system is specifically designed to handle very high call volumes at peak demand periods efficiently and accurately. In this partnership, SITEL is responsible for delivering the customer service while SRC - Europe's leading independent speech recognition services and solution provider - is supplying the hosted speech recognition system. Although individual technologies are not new, the two companies have combined capabilities to create the most sophisticated and effective service currently available. 15.04.03 UK Police Consider Lie Detector Tests Police in the North West could soon use lie detection tests to interrogate suspects. Researchers are in talks with forces in the region to test the technology - the first time it would be available for forces in the UK. The new system looks for involuntary gestures which act as clues as to whether the person being interviewed is telling the truth. The Silent Talker device has been developed in the region and is touted as having a 90% success rate. It uses a video camera linked to an artificial intelligence system that spots small movements people make unconsciously when they lie. 11.04.03 20/20 Speech's technology further embedded in US legal software market 20/20 Speech, the equity venture between NXT Plc and QinetiQ, has announced that, in partnership with Advanced Legal Technologies, a leading US legal technology and support services company, it has developed the first of a range of new software products. Based on 20/20 Speech’s proven script-audio alignment engine, Aurix st®, Advanced Video Sync™ and Advanced Audio Sync™ are specifically designed for the synchronisation of legal transcripts and associated video and audio content. Advanced Legal Technologies, the exclusive distributor of this suite of products, will market and sell to the legal industry, and adds to the growing number of companies adopting 20/20 Speech’s cutting edge technologies in the US legal market. 10.04.03 Scottish Volunteers Sought For Speech Recognition Engineers at Birmingham University are looking for Elgin folk for a study that will help them to develop better speech recognition systems for personal computers and other applications. The engineers are looking into how accents affect the performance of speech recognition systems, and are looking for participants from the Elgin area for research between April 14 and 16 at Elgin Library. A spokesman for the university said: "Speech recognition software is already available for personal computers from high street stores and is being more widely used in mobile phones, cars and over the telephone network. "However, speech recognition does not take into account the way in which English is spoken throughout the British Isles and currently works best for people with standard southern British accents." 09.04.03 Voice-enabled interactive quiz to raise charity money for Red Nose Day Saffron, the UK’s eLearning solutions provider, and Voxpilot Ltd., the pan-European VoiceXML company, have teamed up with the goal of helping Comic Relief raise £10,000 for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Africa and the UK. By dialling the telephone number 0906 617 4444 from Britain, callers are able to take part in an interactive quiz, pit their wits against their peers, and win one of the two flights to Paris that are offered as a prize. The 40 pence (65 cents) per minute of each phone call will be donated to Comic Relief, a UK-based charity organisation. The application, developed by Saffron Interactive for Red Nose Day, uses its patented voice recognition technology Assure, and is hosted on Voxpilot’s outsourced pan-European VoiceXML Gateway. 09.04.03 KJ International Joins Growing List of SDLX 2003 Converts SDL Desktop Products, a division of SDL International that focuses on globalization productivity solutions for corporations, localization service providers, and professional linguists, has announced that KJ International, a leading localization firm with clients that include Tyoc Healthcare, Rexam and Ecolab, has switched to SDLX as their primary localization environment after the successful completion of a large software localization project into 18 languages. 07.04.03 Hands-Free E-Mail Product from Domain Dynamics Wins Microsoft Award Domain Dynamics Ltd, the UK-based Smart Voice Solutions company, has announced it has won an award this week in the first annual Mobile Solutions Challenge at Microsoft's Mobility Developer Conference in Paris. Its' VOXit Mailer product, which is now available for purchase from Domain Dynamics, was selected as the winner in the Pocket PC category for business and office productivity products. The VOXit Mailer is a software application enabling full hands-free e-mail capability for users of the HP iPAQ and Jornada personal digital assistants (PDAs). Founded in 1990 to innovate and develop novel signal processing techniques, Domain Dynamics is a speech recognition and voice biometrics technology company, with over 120 patents in these areas. 04.04.03 PC screen turns into speaker A British company called NXT has found a way to turn a computer display into a speaker, without interfering with the quality of the picture. Its SoundVu technology has already been built into two models by Japanese electronics giant NEC. NXT says it also could be used for other products like flat-screen televisions and is talking to several electronics manufacturers about the technology. 02.04.03 Rhetorical
Looks to Bright Future with Orange Rhetorical, a leading developer of speech synthesis solutions, has been revealed as one of the core technology providers behind innovative voice services from Orange, the UK's most popular mobile phone service provider. In a move which highlights the growing importance of text-to-speech technology and the ability to support a major brand, Orange will use the technology to keep customers up-to-date with news, sport and regional weather across the UK. 02.04.03 Nortel
Networks Periphonics Signs Reseller Agreement with Rhetorical Rhetorical, one of the leading speech technology companies worldwide, has signed a reseller agreement with Nortel Networks Periphonics, which will see Rhetorical's rVoice product sold alongside the Nortel Networks IVR platform as a total solution package. The deal cements another route to market for Rhteorical. Rhetorical's rVoice product is to be integrated into Nortel Networks Periphonics extensive customer service range as part of the OSCAR (Open Signal Computing and Analysis Resource) platform. The deal is ongoing and has already resulted in several high profile sales, most notably to SRC (the Speech Recognition Company) for the BBC's FreeView Launch and to British Telecom. 02.04.03 Coral Place Sure Bet on SRC Speech Recognition for Grand National Coral, one of the UK's largest bookmakers today announced the launch of a proven telephone-based speech recognition solution from SRC to handle high call volumes and eliminate lost calls from customers wishing to bet on the Martell Cognac Grand National on April 5. Coral's decision to embrace the SRC hosted speech recognition service follows the success of last year's pioneering Grand National services developed by SRC, which successfully handled more than 35,000 bets and 60,000 call minutes in the lead up to the race. With an estimated £100 million bet on the race each year, Grand National day is the busiest day of the racing calendar for bookmakers. Telephone betting can see a 300% increase on a normal sporting Saturday and all bookmakers, including Coral, have traditionally been under immense pressure to cope with the nation's enthusiasm for the world's most famous steeplechase event. 21.03.03 Q&A with Nik Philpot of Eckoh Technologies In the latest issue of Speech Technology Magazine, Judith Markowitz speaks with Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer of UK-based Eckoh Technologies about Phoneworld, which uses Eckoh's speech solutions in the UK’s first 24-hour TV phone shopping channel. 20.03.03 Up
To Half Of Customers Lost Through Poor Service British businesses are losing customers and sales because of poor service in call centres, a study reveals today. Over one million customers can hang up on companies’ call centres each week, businesses reveal in the Voice Report published by Vocalis. A third of businesses believe their customers hang up after they’ve been put on hold for as little as thirty seconds. As a result two in three firms believe they are losing as much as 30 per cent of potential business. Paul Wright, CEO of Vocalis, said: “Poor service and inefficient call centres have a direct impact on the bottom line. Our research shows that customers are increasingly demanding even better service – they don’t expect to be kept waiting. 20.03.03 SDL
International Announces Contract With Toshiba Europe SDL plc, the world’s leading provider of multilingual solutions offering scalable translation technology and services, has announced that it had been successful in winning several new projects from Toshiba Regensburg Operations. The translation and project management work follows an earlier contract to localize the new Toshiba convertible Portégé 3500, the smartest fusion of notebook and Tablet PC, into Danish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. Projects included the creation of basic layouts for the document templates, User’s Manual, Quick Start and Online Manual. Toshiba´s Portégé 3500 won the 2002 Best of COMDEX Award for PCs. SDL has also been informed that it has been chosen to become a preferred localization partner of Toshiba Europe GmbH. This decision has been taken based on an internal Toshiba project called "Improvement of the Localization Process for User Manuals", which assessed availability, commitment, lead-times, output quality, project communication and costs. 19.03.03 SDLX Translation Suite 2003 Launched SDL Desktop Products, a division of SDL International that delivers globalization productivity solutions for corporations, service providers, and professional translators, has announced the launch of a new version of its industry-leading SDLX Computer Aided Translation system accompanied by strong endorsement from its early users. With over 20 new enhancements, SDLX is quickly becoming the benchmark for others in terms of productivity, reliability, scalability, compatibility and exploitation of open standards such as TMX. 19.03.03 Babel
Sets Record Time with THQ and Climax for Moto GP 2 Outsourcing games specialist Babel Media has collaborated with THQ Inc. and Climax to localise Moto GP 2 in record time. The three companies worked closely together in a move away from the traditional relationship between developer, publisher and localisation company. Working directly with Climax, Babel was given only three weeks to carry out a full localisation of the racing game into French, Italian, German and Spanish. Time and quality efficiencies, as well as the attendant cost benefits, meant the racing game was localised in half the time it normally takes for a major title. 19.03.03 US
legal industry giant buys into 20/20 Speech NXT in Huntingdon, the British audio and speech technology company, has struck an important strategic deal in the US through its 20/20 Speech subsidiary. Visionary Legal Technologies, a leading supplier of software to the US legal industry, has selected 20/20 Speech’s Aurix® st script-audio alignment technology as the basis for its legal document/presentation management software. This software will be used to perform automatic synchronisation of transcripts and associated video footage and will revolutionise the way in which deposition evidence is processed and presented. 14.03.03 Babel ramps up mobile games investment OUTSOURCING games specialist Babel Media has upgraded its mobile games department by investing a further £30,000 this year in testing equipment. The company now has on-site a team of 20 testers working on more than 120 handsets in 11 languages that encompass all major European languages as well as Turkish, Arabic and Chinese. These handsets include the latest models from Nokia, Motorola, Sharp, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. Babel is one of the world's leading providers of specialist services to the games and interactive entertainment industries. These services include localisation, QA, editorial, porting, interactive TV, print, audio, high-end video, design and online marketing. 13.03.03 Broca
Networks and Active Hotels Launch Hotel Booking Service Broca Networks Limited, a Cambridge-based speech application provider and Active Hotels, a provider of online reservations to the European hotel industry, have partnered to create a speech-activated hotel booking service, enabling telephone callers to book hotel accommodation throughout Europe over the Internet. The service works by the caller interacting with a computer rather than a live agent. The caller is navigated through a menu of options from which they can select and make requests for information using their voice. This system brings the benefits of real-time online booking services to those without easy access to a PC or for those who are on the move. Guests can request information and book hotel accommodation throughout Europe whenever they want from wherever they want. 12.03.03 DAG,
Rhetorical and Emblaze announce three way application partnership Digital Animations Group, a pioneer in intelligent communications, and Rhetorical, a leader in speech synthesis technology have announced an application partnership with Emblaze Systems, an Emblaze Group company and a provider of media services and delivery solutions over wireless networks. The agreement will see the three partners develop joint products for GPRS and 3G standard phones. The triumvirate will work closely together to develop products for the mobile media messaging marketplace enabling carriers and service providers to unlock increased data revenue from mobile services. The system brings together DAG's groundbreaking avatar technology, Rhetorical's leading text-to-speech solution and Emblaze's media delivery solution to provide content rich messaging for multimedia phones. 12.03.03 SDL
moves further ahead with leading Multilingual Content Management System UK-based SDL International, the world’s leading provider of multilingual solutions offering scalable translation technology and services, has announced a technology-breaking advance in the Globalization Management Systems market (technology for the management of multilingual content). The system is unique in offering both forms of translation technology – “Translation memory” (‘TM’) and “Real-time Translation” (‘RTT’). TM re-uses human translations, once captured in a database, when matched to new content. This reduces the cost of managing foreign-language websites and intranets substantially. RTT is the result of many years research into the software necessary to automate translation, offering an immediate understanding of the material being processed. The new version - SDLWorkFlow 2003 - includes the capacity to manage any format of content within a seamless translation process, dramatically reducing the overall timescales within which foreign language information can be posted online. 12.03.03 SDL announces new installations of its leading Real-time Translation System SDL International, the world’s leading provider of multilingual solutions offering scalable translation technology and services, has announced a new release of the company’s leading automatic translation solution for corporations, the Enterprise Translation Server 2003™. Enterprise Translation Server has long provided the fastest automatic translation available on the market. With this release, SDL has substantially improved the output quality of the system by expanding the scope of its dictionaries. The parsing, transfer, and generation rules on which the translations are based have also been improved. Installations include government departments such as the Department of Trade and Industry in London, the Swiss Army, the City of Los Angeles and corporations such as Nestle and the Belga News Agency. Several of these implementations are closely coupled with Autonomy’s engine for the management of unstructured information. 11.03.03 Telenet develops call centre solution for Dresdner Bank using Aculab telephony cards Telenet GmbH Kommunikationssysteme, a leading provider of voice server solutions, has recently developed a call centre solution for Dresdner Bank combining its MultiVoice system with telephony cards from Aculab, a leading provider of enabling technology for the communications market. Dresdner Bank's
call centre was established with a special focus on personalised service,
which means every caller is welcomed individually by an agent. The agent
then finds out which consultant the customer wishes to be connected
to. When the agent enters the caller's name in the computer, a window
containing data relevant to this customer as well as their main "With voice servers, Aculab’s digital network access cards are essential for connecting calls arriving from the public telephone network to the voice server. With their long-standing partnership, Telenet and Aculab can guarantee customers a high level of availability and internationally tried-and-tested solutions for professional applications,” says Wolfgang Hellmanzik, Managing Director of Aculab Germany. 10.03.03 SDL
Desktop Products Celebrates a Year of Solid Growth SDL Desktop Products, a division of SDL International that focuses on multilingual productivity products for corporations, localization service providers, and professional translators, has announced preliminary results for 2002 that showed product sales grew by over 90% for 2002 sales year. “Ease of use, full support for TMX, Trados compatibility, free training and support; these are the difference makers that companies and translators are looking for today, when shopping for productivity tools,” said Brian Briggs, Vice President of SDL Desktop Products. “We’re not there yet, but customer response and our growing sales momentum positions us well to be the dominant player within the next 3 years.” 10.03.03
BBC Urdu Online 'the best' BBCurdu.com, has just been ranked the world's best Urdu website by South Asia's leading internet magazine, Spider. The March issue of Spider carried out a survey of Urdu sites to rank the top 10 websites. BBCUrdu.com shared the honour with the news daily Jang's internet site, jang.com. When BBCUrdu was launched last year, it was hailed as something that would prove to be a landmark in Urdu online publishing. More than a year later, the news site logs thousands of hits 24 hours a day. It now ranks as the most successful of the BBC's South Asia language news sites. 06.03.03 Speech
Driven Online Brochure Request Service A First For The UK Broca Networks of Cambridge UK, providers of speech technology applications and services and Confero, the London-based operators of outsourced call centres formed a partnership to deliver the UK's first speech automated Travel Brochure request. The online brochure request service is designed using advanced speech technology that collects data from the caller in real time. The caller's name, address, postcode and brochure request are captured using a speech recognition platform that processes the information automatically. Using text-to-speech technology, this information is then read back to the customer to confirm the details they have given are correct. This information is then fed directly into the customer database for immediate fulfilment. 05.03.03 Speech
Recognition Dramatically Reduces Turnaround Times at FirstAssist The legal expenses insurance division of FirstAssist has implemented a desktop speech recognition system from Europe's leading speech recognition provider, UK-based SRC, to reduce document turnaround times and boost efficiency within its claims department. FirstAssist, which is part of Royal & SunAlliance, has combined Dragon NaturallySpeaking V5 Professional with SRC's corporate law vocabulary for its specialist Legal Expenses Division and is now looking to roll out the system across its remaining assistance and legal advisory divisions. The speech technology - currently used by 30 legal claims professionals - allows documents to be dictated through microphone headsets directly into the computer. In addition, the corporate law vocabulary, which was developed by SRC and includes over 4,500 legal words and phrases, ensures that even the most complicated 'legalese' will be recognised by the computer and typed correctly. SRC also expanded the vocabulary to incorporate around 500 words of in-house jargon and key client names, which would be needed on a daily basis. 04.03.03 Autonomy
Selected By Italian Government Autonomy Corporation plc, a leading provider of information infrastructure software, has announced a new agreement with the Italian Government in the area of protecting the security of homeland territories. The government has purchased Autonomy's IDOL platform including multimedia-handling capabilities for the automation of operations on voice and video data. Numerous Government agencies are already using Autonomy's automatic technology, in particular within security applications. These include the US Government's newly created Department of Homeland Security, which comprises 200,000 employees across 21 federal agencies. Autonomy's technology enables the automatic aggregation of content from a wide range of sources, including text, voice and video, and analyzes the concepts within them, delivering a highly intelligent infrastructure layer. 03.03.03
Indigo Holidays & Sky Holidays 'Go Live' With UK's First Speech
Automated Brochure Lines Indigo Holidays and Sky Holidays, two of the country's leading direct-sell travel companies, are using the UK's first speech automated Travel Brochure Lines. This solution is provided through Confero, the London-based supplier of outsourced call centre services. Confero recognises that traditional call handling solutions for high volume, brochure lines are expensive. Customers often experience call queuing, engaged tones, limited opening hours and cumbersome IVR systems. Using Confero's speech recognition solution, customers benefit from an 'always on' service whilst clients reduce their cost per customer contact by up to 70% over live agents or voice mail systems. 28.02.03 Europe's
Top Speech Solutions Platform Boosts Call Handling Capabilities With
NMS Communications NMS Communications, trusted supplier of communications products and services, has announced that Eckoh Technologies, Europe's leading speech recognition application service provider, will standardize on NMS' technology as part of its voice hosting infrastructure. This allows Eckoh Technologies to deliver its customers enhanced levels of service and even more effective peak call management. Eckoh Technologies provides the largest and the most cost-effective speech solutions hosted environment in Europe, with the ability to handle 4,500 simultaneous phone users and more than 270,000 calls per hour. 28.02.03
SDL International announces Strategic Partnership with Microsoft SDL International, one of the largest providers of multilingual management solutions in the world, has announced that it is to deliver a substantial contract worth several million dollars US to Microsoft, the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. Microsoft makes a substantial investment in the translation and adaptation of its software for each local market. This new, long-term contract expands the long-standing relationship between the two companies. 28.02.03 SDL
International announces the launch of the new "FreeTranslation.com" SDL Plc, the world's leading provider of multilingual solutions offering scalable translation technology and services, has announced the integration of a new range of automated translation solutions into its leading website - www.FreeTranslation.com. With more than 1.5 million visitors per week, www.FreeTranslation.com is one of the most popular sites on the Internet. FreeTranslation.com now offers a comprehensive range of services for any translation requirement, from personal correspondence to the localisation of corporate websites. 27.02.03 Lloyds
TSB Pioneers Paperless Employee Share Scheme Registration through Speech
Recognition Lloyds TSB Group plc has become the first UK financial institution to operate a completely paperless employee share scheme by deploying a telephony speech recognition service from UK speech technology specialist, SRC. The telephone-based speech recognition service has been implemented by Lloyds TSB Registrars to initially handle Lloyds TSB's own Share Incentive Program (SIP) but Lloyds TSB Registrars plans to offer the service to its other clients - which number almost 800 companies and includes more than half of the FTSE 100 - to simplify the process of employee share scheme registration. 26.02.03 Eckoh and Auctionworld Launch 24-hour TV Phone Shopping Channel Eckoh Technologies, the UK Speech Solutions provider, in collaboration with Auctionworld.TV, the TV home-shopping specialists, have successfully launched Phoneworld, the UK’s first 24-hour TV phone shopping channel. Phoneworld, which is broadcast on Sky Digital channel 666, will feature round-the-clock promotions of a wide variety of mobile phones and accessory packages on exclusive tariff plans at heavily discounted prices. The bespoke packages are created, supplied and fulfilled on an exclusive basis by Eckoh’s mobile wholesale division, Phones Express. The channel will also feature new mobile content and services as well as showcasing new technical innovations coming out of the mobile phone industry. 20.02.03 IBM donates supercomputer to help fire-hit facility rise from ashes A world-renowned computer centre devastated by the last year's fire in Edinburgh Old Town has been given a £1 million supercomputer that will help accelerate groundbreaking research. The server, or "mother computer", will allow the school to create a massive yet easily accessible database of decades’ worth of pioneering research. The databank will cover tens of thousands of items of research into computer science, artificial intelligence and robotics. The range of information that will be readily available for the first time includes cutting-edge work in areas such as computer voice recognition and cameras which mimic the human eye. The database will help researchers in a wide range of fields, including genetics, medicine, engineering and language technologies. 19.02.03 OUP Selects ScanSoft RealSpeak to Teach Pronunciation to Language Students and Travellers ScanSoft, Inc. the provider of imaging, speech and language solutions, has announced that Oxford University Press (OUP) has selected ScanSoft's RealSpeak(TM) in French, German, Castilian and Mexican Spanish languages for inclusion in its innovative pronunciation CD-ROMs. Beginning April 2003, these CD-ROMs will be included at no additional charge with the new Oxford Spanish Dictionary, the Oxford-Hachette French Dictionary, and the Oxford-Duden German Dictionary. These CD-ROMs are dewsigned to help students, business professionals, translators, and language students improve pronunciation, intonation and comprehension by listening to text read by a virtual native speaker. Users can type or paste in a word, phrase, or even a whole paragraph and hear it spoken back in perfect Spanish, French, or German. 17.02.03 Edinburgh
gets virtual reality centre A new multimillion-pound research centre dedicated to the development of virtual reality communications and next-generation mobile phones is to be built at Edinburgh University. According to The Scotsman newspaper the facility, called the Institute for Digital Communications, will be built with a £27m grant from the Science Research Investment Fund. 14.02.03 SDL
Desktop Products Backs TMX Industry Awareness Campaign UK-based SDL International, a leading globalization solutions provider, has announced its support for the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) campaign on the importance of the new open standard for storing and exchanging translation memories. 13.02.03 SRC Wins National Innovation Award for Dragon Professional Vocabularies UK based SRC’s pioneering work in developing vocabularies for use with speech recognition software has been recognised by ScanSoft awarding the company its inaugural Award for Innovation. SRC, the European provider of speech technology solutions, has developed a suite of ten professional vocabularies to enable professionals in the finance, legal, healthcare, company secretarial and surveying sectors to achieve increased accuracy when using ScanSoft’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional speech recognition software. The vocabularies were considered to be of such high quality that they are now sold by ScanSoft resellers branded as the Dragon Professional Vocabularies. 13.02.03 Eckoh & Auctionworld launch 24-hour TV “Phoneworld” Channel Phoneworld, which is broadcast on Sky Digital channel 666, will feature round-the-clock promotions of a wide variety of mobile phones and accessory packages on exclusive tariff plans at heavily discounted prices. The bespoke packages are created, supplied and fulfilled on an exclusive basis by Eckoh’s mobile wholesale division, Phones Express. The channel will also feature new mobile content and services as well as showcasing new technical innovations coming out of the mobile phone industry. Phoneworld is also unique as respondents are handled entirely automatically by a speech application that has been devised, built and hosted by Eckoh’s Speech Solutions division. The service uses speech recognition to provide an end-to-end solution to process the transaction and deliver complete customer data to the fulfilment house. 12.02.03 VoiceObjects
Factory© now available on Voxpilot’s VoiceXML Gateway Voxpilot, the pan-European VoiceXML Gateway provider, has annouced that it has fully integrated the VoiceObjects Factory© to help companies across Europe build voice applications via VoiceXML, the industry standard for voice application development and deployment. VoiceObjects Factory© is based on VoiceObjects™, core elements which can be assembled into interactive dialogs of any complexity, following the lego principle. “VoiceObjects Factory© has been designed for companies looking for an easy and rapid way of delivering powerful voice applications”, says Dr. Jon Alcantara, the CEO of Voxpilot. 11.02.03 Rhetorical
provides voice behind Freeview, Europe's largest call volume speech
enabled service Rhetorical, a world leader in developing text to speech (TTS) technology has provided a telephone voice as part of SRC's speech recognition service for Freeview, a UK digital terrestrial television service. Since its launch the service has handled over 500,000 calls, operating around the clock -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customer management specialist 7C, now owned by Vertex, the UK's leading Business Process Outsourcer, utilises speech recognition applications and hosting from SRC to provide the service for Freeview. The speech recognition service is the nation's first to be used in response to TV and radio promotions and is accessed from options on the Freeview information line. 10.02.03 A Cure For The Call Centre Blues So would it not be better (and cheaper), the argument goes, if call centres could be done away with and replaced by computers? This is the kind of thinking which has informed the work of Transversal, a start-up spun out of Cambridge University, and which now has Fujifilm UK, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and furniture retailer MFI among the customers for its Metafaq system. Transversal's founders, the physicists David MacKay and Davin Yap, started from the premise that 80 per cent of enquiries made to call centres have been made before and therefore should be susceptible to being answered without human intervention. MacKay and Yap tackled the problem with a combination of computational linguistics and Baysian networks, a pair of mathematical techniques which are giving "artificial intelligence" back some of the respectability it lost when much ballyhooed systems in the 1980s and 1990s failed to deliver. Computational linguistics breaks down the elements of natural language into units that a computer can process. Baysian networks organise discrete bodies of knowledge by tracing cause-and-effect among the key variables and assigning numeric values to them. Essentially, a Baysian system can predict a likely outcome from incomplete data. Companies like Transversal's Cambridge contemporary Autonomy, for example, use Baysian logic to identify patterns in huge collections of unsorted data. 10.02.03 Truancy
Call Successfully Tackles School Truancy with Innovative Text-to-speech
Technology C3 and Rhetorical have announced that text-to-speech systems developed by the two companies are being successfully used by Truancy Call to tackle over 3000 cases of truancy from UK schools each day. Truancy Call is a centrally managed, automated outbound phone service used by 150 educational establishments in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to alert families that their child is absent from school without a valid reason. Once an outbound alert call to a parent's phone is picked up, an automated message is used to notify the parent of the child's absence with the name of the parent and the child read out from a computer database using text-to-speech technology. 07.02.03 Nuance and Aspect Communications Speech System Reduces BA Call Center Costs by 95% Nuance, the speech experts, have announced that customer British Airways is reaping significant financial rewards after making speech an integral part of its call center operations. According to British Airways, the Nuance-powered flight information line, which allows callers to speak their flight numbers and access gate numbers and departing times has reduced the airline's call center costs by 95%. In addition, the speech system has helped British Airways reduce its cost-per-call from $3.00 to just $0.16. Developed by Nuance and its partner Aspect Communications, the British Airways' flight information line was implemented in just 16 weeks. Within six months, the airline realized a 100% Return-on-Investment. British Airways' voice-driven flight information system handles approximately 12,000 customer calls per day, and reached the two-million-call benchmark in December 2002. 07.02.03 Calling all Scousers! Brummie boffins are looking for scousers to sound off with the accent on a major new survey of regional sounds. Researchers at the University of Birmingham are developing voice recognition software but stronger accents can seriously confuse computers so they need a little help. Volunteers are needed from Liverpool to simply read a set of words so everything from mobile phones to cars which now use voice recognition to work, can understand what we say. It's not just Liverpool speakers that are needed, volunteers are being sought from 15 different regions, from north Scotland to Eire. Chelsea Building Society is setting new standards for customer service with the launch of its voice driven telephone account service - the first of its kind for a top ten building society in the UK. The new voice driven telephone account service went live to all Chelsea Building Society’s Call-Direct account customers in December 2002. The service enables Call-Direct account holders to transfer money, enquire about their balance and obtain information on recent transactions all by speaking naturally and without needing to talk to a member of staff. In excess of 13,000 calls have already been made, successfully using the service. The solution has been supplied and installed by Vocalis, a leading provider of voice driven solutions to the UK call centre market. Vocalis and Chelsea worked together to cover all areas of the customer experience. This involved Vocalis’ expertise in the dialogue design through to the selection of voice for the service in order to ensure the transaction success for the customer. 06.02.03 Voxpilot announces support for W3C's VoiceXML 2.0 Candidate Recommendation Voxpilot, the pan-European outsourced VoiceXML provider, has announced the latest release of its platform, including full support for the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) VoiceXML 2.0 Candidate Recommendation (published on January 28, 2003). Voxpilot, an active member of the W3C Voice Browser Working Group, is committed to the mission and the goals of the World Wide Web Consortium, an organisation created in 1994 to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability. 06.02.03 SRC Chosen To Provide Speech Recognition Service For Freeview One of Europe's highest volume speech recognition telephone services has been implemented to support Britain's new free-to-view digital terrestrial television service, Freeview. Customer management specialist 7C (now owned by Vertex) is using speech recognition services from SRC to provide the service which has handled more than 500,000 calls since 30 October. Accessed from options on the Freeview information line, this speech recognition telephone service is to be used in response to TV and radio promotions. UK-based SRC designed and implemented these services and hosts live operation on its carrier-class speech hosting platform. 05.02.03 BT creates research and technology partnership BT announced that BTexact Technologies, its advanced research and technology business, has teamed up with Coller Capital and New Venture Partners (NVP) to create a new, independent corporate venturing partnership to be known as NVP Brightstar. NVP Brightstar will have the exclusive rights to create new start-up businesses with BTexact using BT's extensive and developing intellectual property portfolio. It is expected to begin activities in March 2003 and will initially purchase the majority of the existing portfolio of technology ventures developed by BTexact's corporate incubator, Brightstar. An office will be located in Ipswich, UK. 03.02.03 UK's
Simera Signs OEM Agreement with Convera Simera of UK, a provider of mission-critical enterprise search, retrieval and categorization solutions, has signed an OEM agreement with Convera to develop a suite of e-HR tools to benefit employers and employees alike by exploiting Convera's expertise in the search and retrieval market. Convera's RetrievalWare(R) will deliver fast, accurate and secure search to Simera's eZ-Answer(R), part of its Ez-Sens(R) product range. eZ-Answer is an automated contact center designed to deal with inquiries via email, the web, wireless and voice applications. RetrievalWare will increase eZ-Answer's sensitivity to 'non-standard' questions with its cross-lingual functionality and provide the system access to more complex or archived data from an organization's knowledge base through its wide variety of complex search techniques.
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