British speech technology developer Novauris® Technologies announces it is the supplier of automatic speech recognition to Medio Systems Inc, of Seattle, WA — the primary developer of the Verizon Wireless Get It Now® Search application, which enables millions of Verizon subscribers to search by voice for ringtones and ring-back tones, as well as pictures and games. Verizon Wireless is the largest CDMA operator in North America.

To search for a tone, customers simply speak the name of any artist or band in the extensive Get It Now ring tone and ring-back tone catalogues. Alternatively, they can specify any available music title, together with the artist. Selected items can be purchased directly and downloaded.

As well as accepting voice input, the Get It Now Search application also permits customers to carry out text searches using technology developed by Medio Systems.

Brian Lent, CEO of Medio Systems, says: “We originally chose Novauris on the basis of their impressive technology and now, working with them, we appreciate their responsiveness to evolving application requirements, making Novauris a first-class partner.”

To some industry observers in the USA, the choice of Novauris, a relatively new and small British company, may come as a surprise. However, its founders and key researchers have a long track record with many major centres of expertise in speech technology, including Dragon Systems, the pioneer in automatic dictation products.

At Novauris, this team decided to develop technology for a specific class of applications, namely spoken selection from large sets of alternatives, of which the Get It Now Search application is a prime example.

The company demonstrated its novel approach in 2004 with an application providing spoken selection from a set of 245 million US names and addresses with a single utterance. This was followed in 2005 by a telephone-based system with obvious application to destination-entry for in-car navigation systems. It allows a caller to specify virtually any of the 5 million streets in the US, simply by speaking the name of the street, city and state all in one shot.

The use of voice input in music selection constitutes a first in mobile search applications, in which mobile phone customers with access to data networks can obtain content and information stored centrally, says Novauris.

“We are delighted to be working with Medio Systems,” adds Novauris co-founder Dr Melvyn Hunt. “We are particularly keen to see the power of our technology exploited as the number of items on offer grows and as the number of voice search requests also grows. Our unique speech recognition technology, combined with our proprietary multiprocessor architecture, make this expansion possible.”

The Get It Now Search application can be simply and quickly downloaded on to a large and expanding set of Verizon Wireless phones, including more than a dozen popular models from Motorola and LG. Use of the application is free, apart from airtime charges.

UK contact:
 Dr Melvyn Hunt
 Novauris Technologies Ltd
 Millbank
 Stoke Road
 Bishops Cleeve
 Cheltenham
 Gloucestershire
 Tel: +44 1242 678581 Fax: +44 1242 678301
 E-mail: info@novauris.com