L.M. Ericsson signed a software licensing agreement with Lernot & Hauspie Speech Products for the latter’s speech recognition, text-to-speech and speech compression technology.
L&H in the past has signed licensing agreements with Motorola Inc., Deutsche Telekom AG, Northern Telecom Inc. and Intellivoice Communications Inc.
Speech user interfaces are expected to play a significant role in wireless devices in the future, in particular for various hands-free operations.
“Devices such as cell phones, for example, often require hands-free operation and are used in very busy environments,” said Jerry Calabrese, president of L&H’s Core Technologies Division. “A speech user interface is an ideal solution to address these challenges.”
Such SUI applications include hands-free dialing, automated directory assistance applications, phone-based e-mail access and pagers that speak (such as with caller ID systems that speak the name of the caller).
It also may enable applications that require compressed speech and music for storage or transmission, like Internet telephony, videoconferencing, digital answering machines, voice recorders and voice pagers.
An Ericsson spokesman said the agreement applies to Ericsson’s device and enterprise network divisions. Ericsson’s mobile network infrastructure divisions license similar technology from Intellivoice, among others, for voice-activated services platforms. Intellivoice markets voice-dialing services under the EasyDial and TalkDial names. The EasyDial service allows users to use voice commands to dial the phone and control other functions. Intellivoice licenses its SUI technology from L&H as well. L&H’s stock jumped $3 after the announcement to $58.
