TALKING TO YOUR COMPUTER IS NOW EVEN EASIER WITH IBM!

8 September, 1997

IBM today makes computers more friendly, with the availability of ViaVoice* which constitutes a significant breakthrough in speech recognition technology. ViaVoice -- IBM's first general purpose, continuous-dictation product -- enables people to talk to their computers naturally, at speeds of up to 140 words per minute, for the unprecedented price of £99.99, including VAT. ViaVoice runs under Windows** 95 and Windows NT 4.0**.

"Businesses and individuals are clamouring for products that make computing easier, more productive and fun," said W.S. (Ozzie Osborne, general manager of IBM Speech Systems. "ViaVoice accomplishes all of these goals -- further extending IBM's effort to make speech recognition available and affordable to the mainstream computing market. In addition, ViaVoice provides a number of exclusive features that our customers have requested."

ViaVoice is useful for anyone who uses word processing to create documents, at work or at home, or who is looking for a fast, innovative and friendly alternative to the keyboard. People can expect to enter text at up to 140 words per minute -- more than three times faster than the average computer user can type.

Continuous Speech and More

ViaVoice is the only general purpose, continuous-dictation product that enables users to dictate directly into Microsoft Word**. Here are some of the main features of ViaVoice:

  • Vocabulary expander, that can analyse all of a user's computer documents and automatically add frequently-used unique words, like names or products, to the base vocabulary which can be expanded from 30,000 words to 64,000
  • Delayed correction, that enables a user to save spoken text and then amend it when convenient
  • Delegated correction, that allows the user to delegate documents to another person to edit
  • Audio playback, that enables the user to select a word or block of text and hear the original recording, to aid correction
  • Dictation shortcuts, that enable the user automatically to insert commonly used passages, such as addresses or opening and closing paragraphs, into correspondences
  • Multiple users - several users can register on a single system. Each user can enrol for different acoustical environments, such as the relative quiet of an office, versus the noisy conditions on an aeroplane

Easy to use and accurate straight out of the box

People can begin using ViaVoice almost immediately after installation. After speaking a few sentences into the Dictation Trainer, users can begin dictating directly into Microsoft Word** or SpeakPad*. SpeakPad is the full-function word processor that is included with the software. There is a also a recommended full voice enrolment which takes about 20 minutes which further improves recognition to about 95 percent accuracy.

Minimum system requirements

ViaVoice works with most Pentium** computers available today, such as the IBM PC 340, that are equipped with industry-standard sound cards such as Sound Blaster or those that are 100 percent compatible.

Minimum requirements for ViaVoice are 125 MB of free hard disk space, 32 MB RAM (48 MB RAM for Windows NT) and a Pentium 166 MHz or 150 MHz with MMX.

Availability and pricing

ViaVoice has a Recommended Retail Price of £99.99, including VAT, and includes a high-quality noise-cancelling headset microphone. It is available from leading retailers as well as from specialist outlets. ViaVoice is also available in US English, UK English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and in Chinese languages.

Speech recognition leadership

IBM set the industry standard for speech recognition software when it launched the VoiceType family of products, and has gained several prestigious international awards including:

  • Best Product Award in the Best of RetailVision Awards 1997
  • PC Plus Magazine's Performance Product Award 1997
  • Ziff-Davis' European Software Excellence Award (Desktop category) 1997
  • Best of Buy IT Online Award 1997
  • PC Magazine (Spain) Product of the Year Award (Utilities category) 1997

With more than 25 years of research in this field, IBM has built a team of speech recognition specialists worldwide, dedicated to the development, support, marketing and sale of IBM speech solutions in many languages.

For more information about IBM speech recognition software, call the IBM Software Enquiry Desk on 01705 492249.

* ViaVoice and SpeakPad are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.
** Microsoft Word, Windows 95 and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation
** Pentium and MMX are trademarks of Intel Corporation. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks of others.

back