Conference 35.181::insurance

76.0. "DECvoice" by FOOZLE::BAKER () Fri May 19 1989 14:25

                             SPEAKER INDEPENDENT
                              CONTINUOUS SPEECH
                               RECOGNITION FOR
                                  DECVOICE
    
    Voice response and recognition systems are becoming one of the keys 
    to effective customer service in the insurance industry, with 
    DECvoice as one of the premier offerings in this field. Digital has 
    now enhanced the voice recognition capabilities of DECvoice, as 
    discussed in the following press release.
    
    Speech recognition is of special importance in an industry which has 
    a high number of individual customer service contacts. Over 60% of 
    the telephones in US homes are still rotary dial, and rotary dial 
    phones do not work with conventional voice response systems. Further, 
    from a "human engineering" standpoint, it is easier and less error 
    prone to speak your responses than to key them in. While the original 
    DECvoice product had highly effective speech recognition technology, 
    it has now been enhanced to make it even better and easier to use by 
    adding the capability to interpret numbers spoken at normal speed. 
    With this new approach to voice recognition, by speaking their social 
    security number, and yes or no at appropriate points, customers will 
    easily be able to access their personal information throughout the 
    company, without the cost to the company of personnel to manage and 
    control the operation.
    
    You or your customer can test the continuous speech recognition 
    capabilities by dialing 503-492-1923 or DTN 223-1923. When asked if 
    you have a touch tone telephone, answer NO - this will take you into 
    a demonstration which involves speaking a phone number and a response 
    which gives the name and address associated with the number (a so 
    called "reverse directory"). You will note that there have also been 
    improvements made in the synthesized response characteristics, and 
    that the names are now pronounced more in keeping with their national 
    origin. This has been accomplished through enhancement of the 
    synthesis process, which now examines the nature of the name to 
    determine the potential national origin and then modifies the 
    response characteristics to fit the language patterns of that origin.
    
    DECvoice is the leader in voice recognition and response. When sold 
    with the overall VAX capabilities including mainframe access and the 
    Cullinet Enterprise::Expert development tools, is a highly 
    competitive product. You may discuss this opportunity with customers 
    now, however the first deliveries will not be until the fall. 
    
    Additional information can be obtained from Joan Forman (VOX::Forman) 
    DTN 223-6178.
    
     
     Tad Thompson
     (603) 884-6253
     
     
     
               DIGITAL ANNOUNCES DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT TO PORT VOICE 
              PROCESSING CORPORATION'S SPEECH RECOGNITION TO DECVOICE 
     
     
     
     MAYNARD, Mass. -- March 6, 1989 -- Speaker independent, continuous 
     speech recognition capability is planned to be added to Digital 
     Equipment Corporation's DECvoice product under a development agreement
     with Voice Processing Corporation (VPC).
     The new capability will enhance Digital's DECvoice system, a 
     recently introduced voice processing platform for VAX systems, that 
     incorporates speech synthesis, digitized voice and voice recognition 
     technologies for over-the-telephone access to computer-based 
     information.
     
     VPC technology recognizes certain words and numbers spoken  
     continuously, with no special pauses or other adjustments or 
     training of the speaker's voice.  Continuous speech and true 
     speaker independence allows a system to understand the speech of 
     callers with different accents and speech patterns.
     With speaker independent, continuous speech recognition 
     capability, DECvoice will be able to offer companies the ability 
     to implement telephone-based applications with enhanced ease of 
     user interaction.  A VAX system equipped with the new DECvoice 
     capability will accept normal speech input from users over 
     standard telephone networks and respond to these inquiries with 
     text-to-speech synthesis or digitized voice.
     
     
     Typical applications of this capability would be credit card 
     authorization, bank-by-telephone transactions, insurance claims 
     inquiry and processing, telephone company operator services 
     automation, cable TV pay-per-view authorization, 24-hour catalog 
     sales, mutual fund inquiry and transaction handling and inquiry 
     into public or government data bases.
     
     A simple application using all of the DECvoice capabilities 
     is a "reverse directory" system where, in response to a digitized 
     voice prompt from the system, a customer would speak the 
     telephone or customer number and the system would recognize the 
     digits spoken and respond with the name and address in 
     synthesized voice over the switched network.
     
     "This agreement," said Ed Lazar, group manager of Digital's  
     Voice Products Group," is consistent with the strategy of the 
     DECvoice platform, namely, the ability to accept advances in 
     technology without change to the hardware platform itself, thereby 
     preserving customer investment."
     
     VPC will port its speech recognition technology that 
     recognizes the digits 0-9 and the words "yes," "no' and "o" to 
     the standard DECvoice "soft-loadable" systems.  Digital 
     manufactures, markets and supports these systems as a complete 
     VAX-based, voice driven, transaction processing system or as a 
     low-cost Q-bus component.
     
     
     
     Digital Equipment Corporation, headquartered in Maynard, 
     Massachusetts, is the leading worldwide supplier of network 
     computer systems and services.  Digital offers a full range of 
     computing solutions for integrating the entire enterprise, from 
     the desktop to the data center.
         
     Voice Processing Corporation of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is 
     the speech recognition industry leader in the development of 
     continuous, speaker independent speech recognition software and 
     systems that operate over the switched public telephone network 
     with a high degree of reliability.
     
     
              			#   #   #  #   #
     
     Note to Editors:  DECvoice, Q-bus, and VAX are trademarks of Digital 
                            Equipment Corporation.
     
     
    

    The correct number for the demonstration of continuous voice
    recognition is 508-492-1923. Sorry about that.

    In correcting the phone number I introrduced another error (making a
    bug while fixing a bug. The right number of 508-493-1923.