SVOX Joins the Open Handset Alliance

Zurich, Switzerland-based embedded speech solutions provider, SVOX (News - Alert)  has joined the Open Handset Alliance and will work together with other members of the alliance to enable speech user interfaces on the Android platform.

The Open Handset Alliance (News - Alert) is a multinational alliance of technology and mobile industry leaders. The alliance envisages the development of an open, complete and free platform for mobile devices. As a part of its vision, the alliance has developed Android (News - Alert). Android cuts down time-to-market and costs for the introduction of new products by developers, wireless operators, and handset manufacturers. This in turn ensures better, more personal, and more flexible mobile experience for customers. SVOX will contribute through its best-of-breed solution called SVOX Pico. A small-footprint Text-to-Speech (TTS) system, SVOX Pico was unveiled in November of last year.

In addition to its SVOX Pico TTS engine, the company’s contribution to the Android platform includes six language packages (US and UK English, German, French, Spanish and Italian) and tools that can be used to create new languages and voices.

"SVOX is committed to bringing high quality speech to the mobile market, with first-class support and integration services. This is the first step in our mission to bring natural-language technology to the Android community," said CEO Martin Reber. "Device manufacturers, service providers and application vendors will all benefit from the newest TTS being part of the Android Platform."

SVOX offers a full portfolio of Speech Recognition (ASR), Speech Output (TTS) as well as complete Speech Dialog solutions that finds application in mobile device industries. SVOX employs flexible software architectures to create optimized embedded speech solutions that can be customized to customer requirements. The company has also introduced the next-generation, first truly polyglot Text-to-Speech system, SVOX polyglot TTS. The solution allows users to translate languages in daily situations.