Tuesday October 05 03:21 AM EDT

Hands-free surfing, anybody?

Grant DuBois, ZDNet

One Voice Technologies Inc. on Monday announced an
intelligent interactive language technology that enables
users to talk with their PCs and navigate the Web using
natural speech.

One Voice's Intelligent Voice Interactive Technology
understands advanced linguistic concepts such as topic,
subject and synonym, so users aren't restricted to
predefined words and phrases. IVIT speaks to users via
animated characters that ask intelligent questions and read
back results aloud. IVIT also asks users questions to
clarify requests.

One Voice will debut IVIT at Internet World in New York this
week.

"Our vision is to change the way people interact with their
desktop PCs and the Internet by creating entertaining and
highly productive technologies and solutions," said One
Voice President and CEO Dean Weber. "I feel that current
technologies have limitations because everything is
predetermined, and [they] don't allow for variation."

Partnerships with PC makers planned

Available in all of the major European languages, IVIT can
locate a file, launch an application on a PC, search the
Web, and notify users of incoming phone calls and e-mails if
they're away from their workspace. Besides making PCs easier
to use, IVIT allows Internet users to talk directly to their
favorite Web sites, officials said.

One Voice plans to partner with PC manufacturers to bundle
IVIT with their products and with ISPs and Internet content
providers to enable their Web sites with voice.

One Voice's first product, Intelligent Voice Animated
Navigator, will be available as a free download from the
company's Web site late in the fourth quarter. It will also
retail for $49 without dictation and $79 with dictation in
January.

One Voice, of San Diego, can be reached at
www.onevoicetech.com.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html