Chant Expands Speech Options for Desktop, Web, and Mobile Applications

Updated components accelerate voice controlled application development

Los Angeles, California, May 7, 2007—Chant Inc., the leading independent software vendor of speech technology tools, announced today general availability of SpeechKit 5, a new version of its component software that enables software programs and web pages to speak and respond to voice.

Now developers have the ability to quickly and easily add speech recognition and speech synthesis (text-to-speech) capabilities to desktop, web, and mobile applications that can utilize the majority of available speech technologies. SpeechKit 5 provides a common application interface for Cepstral, IBM, Microsoft, and Nuance speech technologies.

"We were able to integrate text-to-speech in the Remote Access Bridge, a Java application at NC State University, with SpeechKit 5 in no time and run with more voices than we ever imagined," says Sina Bahram, President of Ad-Lib Technology, who also plans to take advantage of the new WinCE edition in Ad-Lib products. "In addition, we can easily build conversation-based speech input/output .NET desktop and mobile applications with SpeechKit 5."

New key features and capabilities provided by SpeechKit 5 include:

  • Native speech API support for Cepstral, Nuance RealSpeak Solo, and Nuance VoCon 3200
  • WinCE Edition for Pocket PC 2003 and Windows Mobile 5 devices
  • Unified audio management for playback and recording independent of Speech APIs and event handling for USB wireless headsets
  • Performance enhancements and streamlined queue management for synchronous and asynchronous requests

US Pricing and Availability

SpeechKit 5 can be ordered today. SpeechKit 5 Win32 Developer Edition new user pricing is $199. SpeechKit 5 WinCE Developer Edition new user pricing is $199. SpeechKit Win32 Deployment Edition pricing is $199. SpeechKit WinCE Deployment Edition pricing is $399. For more information about features and pricing, visit www.speechkit.com.

About Chant

Chant Inc. is a leading provider of software and services that help organizations gain competitive advantage with speech technology. Chant is the first company to provide engine-independent middleware for developing desktop, mobile, web-enabled, and telephony applications that use speech technology. For more information, please visit www.chant.net. Getting the world talking with technology.

Chant, SpeechKit, and Getting the World Talking with Technology are trademarks or registered trademarks of Chant Inc. All other marks are owned by their respective companies.