Hitachi gets vocal support
Hitachi rang up another big win for its SH-3 RISC processor as Lernout & Hauspie plans to port its speech recognition technology to the chip.
A spokesperson for L&H said the speech recognition technology may eventually be available on Windows CE handheld computers, but no official announcement has been made yet. At Comdex in Las Vegas, five of the seven new Windows CE handheld PC devices used Hitachi's processor.
Lernout & Hauspie (LHSPF) will port its text-to-speech technology for use in devices that will allow travelers to call their computers and have their email read to them over the phone in natural-sounding speech, according to the company. L&H also says the program can be used to locate appointments and contacts and enter alphanumeric characters.
The text-to-speech recognition technology is available in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Korean, and Spanish, in addition to American and British English. Mandarin Chinese and Japanese translators are under development. (See related story)