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VoiceXML solution from NewVoiceMedia and Aculab gets more Friends Reunited
See Aculab at SpeechTek 30-31 Oct 2002, stand 205
UK, Germany, Australia, US, South America, Korea, China, India - Members of
the highly popular Friends Reunited website service can now listen to voice
profile messages from old school mates thanks to a VoiceXML solution created
by NewVoiceMedia (NVM) using technology from Aculab. Members can also send
a voice message to old friends and hold a voice 'reunion' by dialling into a
conference service.
"To use the service, members simply dial 0871 271 8000 - which costs less
than a mobile phone call - or if calling from overseas +44 870 055 3222,"
explains Faye Matthews, strategic marketing manager at Aculab, which
provided the digital signal processor (DSP) resources needed to create the
application. "Members then enter an ID and PIN number to leave a message or
set up a conference.
"Information from the Friends Reunited web server is taken by NVM's VoiceXML
interpreter, which utilises Aculab's Prosody DSP resource platform for
record and playback functions.
"This allows the members of the service to record a voice profile about
themselves - indicating what they are doing now, for example. An icon
appears alongside their name and school listing. When the recording is
complete other members can click on the icon to hear the message on their PC
or call into the service and hear the profiles over the phone."
The VoiceXML solution also allows members to send voice messages to friends
by using personal ID numbers. Aculab's text-to-speech (TTS) speaks back
their name for verification. Members then record a voice message, which can
be converted to a .WAV file and sent to a friend using email. Friends can
also call into the system and hear the message.
Prosody's conferencing capabilities are used to allow the setting up of
conferences for up to 100 members at any one time. Prosody was the ideal
hardware choice for NVM because of its low-level matrix conferencing
application programming interface (API), which allows multiple DSPs to be
linked together to enable large conferences. This reduces the amount of
hardware required and therefore cost of ownership.
When members dial in to the system they can select from the ID numbers (room
numbers) of the other members they would like to conference in with. The
caller enters the room number using dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) keypad
entry. This is then sent to the Friends Reunited website for verification
and Aculab's TTS speaks the room owner's name as confirmation.
An invitation is sent out via email informing participants of the room
number ID and time that the conference will take place.
Leo Todd, marketing manager at NVM, commented, "Friends Reunited has a
fabulous web presence and NVM saw an opportunity to add value to the site
they offer their clients. We chose Aculab's DSP resources because they
offer a significantly better price performance than their competitors. They
also have a solid range of services such as speech recognition and TTS and a
really high quality technical support team."
For more information on Friends Reunited, visit www.friendsreunited.co.uk
(ENDS)
About Aculab
Through a customer-focused approach to development, Aculab has produced a
computer telephony (CT) product portfolio that satisfies the speech resource
and global digital connectivity requirements of developers and system
integrators. CT applications utilising Aculab's components can handle
real-time telephony, through an extensive range of resources and signalling
systems.
The evolution of Aculab's generic API, to provide a consistent programming
interface, reduces the integration time of a combination of technologies
including text-to-speech (TTS), automatic speech recognition (ASR),
conferencing and fax. Collectively through supporting a broad range of
industry standards and operating systems, Aculab can provide the products
needed when quality and performance cannot be compromised.
Aculab's head office is located in Milton Keynes, UK with offices in North
America, Germany and Australia. Website: www.aculab.com
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