MURRAY HILL, N.J.-In an effort to enter the growing market of speech products in
communications networks, Lucent Technologies Inc. announced a new unit called Lucent Speech Solutions, which
introduced two speech communication products, the Lucent Personal Assistant and the Lucent TTS engine, a text-to-
speech product.
Lucent Personal Assistant, said the company, is a personal software tool that uses spoken
commands to control and screen incoming calls, simplify outbound calls and manage voice mail. It is available on a
limited basis to North American telephone and mobile service providers, which can install the software in their
networks and then offer service subscriptions to customers.
“Personal Assistant leverages critical technologies
developed across several Lucent businesses, including Intelligent Networking software, speech recognition from Bell
Labs and voice messaging from the Octel unit,” said Lance Boxer, group president, communications software,
Lucent Technologies.
The Lucent TTS engine, developed by Bell Labs, enables users to develop applications that
deliver clear, precise speech in English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, French and German, said Lucent.
The first
customers to use the new product are Atlanta-based Intellivoice Communications and Pronexus, based in Kanata,
Ontario, Canada.
Lucent said Intellivoice plans to integrate the Lucent TTS engine into its unified messaging
products, and Pronexus will use the engine to enable speech synthesis and recognition as a component of its telephony
tool kit, VBVoice. Pronexus also will use the engine for custom speech solutions developed by its Application Services
group. The new TTS engine is version 3.0 of the product line.
