Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / October 2004

Sensory Inc, the world leader in embedded speech technologies, is now
demonstrating its new patent-applied-for English language training
technology that is implemented on low cost chips. The new technology
is being introduced in Hong Kong at Sensory's "Designing a Voice User
Interface" seminar.

Chinese Market Opportunity
The Chinese government has mandated that all service employees will
learn English by the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing. This has caused
a rapidly growing market to emerge for handheld language training
devices. Typically, these language trainers will use chips from
companies like Sensory or Scansoft to play samples of the English
phrases and to allow a Chinese speaker to compare his/her recorded
voice with that of the English speaker.  Sensory's new technology goes
one step beyond this to perform an analysis of the Chinese speaker's
phrases so the speaker can get immediate feedback on the
pronunciation. It's much like an English instructor on a chip!
According to Sensory's CEO, Todd Mozer "Sensory is already selling
millions of chips each year into this rapidly growing market, and
these chips are just used for playback of speech, not analysis or
feedback. Sensory's language training technology is exactly what our
customers want!"

How it Works
A phrase is recorded into a handheld device and the technology
analyzes the phrase's phonemic content, which is compared with that in
stored templates of the properly spoken phrase. Playback of the
recorded phrase can be sped up or slowed down, and an LED or LCD
display can provide feedback on the quality of the spoken phrase
during playback in order that the user can visually assess the
performance. Settings can be adjusted to switch between a "lenient"
instructor and a "tough" instructor, and training phrases can be
cycled through to find specific phrases or general areas to practice
(e.g. shopping, business, socializing, etc.).

The RSC-4x Family & Tools
Sensory has chosen to rollout and showcase its language training
technology on the RSC-4x Family. This family of integrated circuits
(IC's) has the ability to support a wide variety of speech
technologies on a general purpose 8-bit microcontroller core. The
RSC-4x Family is supported by a full suite of tools including,
assembler, C-Compiler, debugger, and voice coding tools (QT2SI
vocabulary generator, Quick Synthesis speech compressor, etc.).

Edgar Chau, Managing Director of product development house
Cyber-Workshop says "We are familiar with the RSC-4x Family of IC's,
and we see much demand from our customers for this new language
training technology. The Beta unit we received from Sensory worked
quite well and we are sure to have many designs for 2005".

Sensory plans to bring its language training technology to other
embedded platforms,  including the ARM line of microcontroller
products popular in cell-phones.

Availability & Pricing
Sensory has created a demo platform that showcases a product design
concept for a low cost language-trainer. Sensory is seeking strategic
partners to roll out English language training handheld products
around the world. The complete system is expected to retail for
$19.95-$49.95 depending on features.

About Sensory, Inc.
Sensory, Inc. is the world leader in embedded speech technologies.
Sensory's speech technologies include language training, speech
recognition, speaker verification, speech synthesis, and animated
speech, and are used in consumer electronics, cell phones, PDA's,
Internet appliances, interactive toys, automobiles, and other
applications where low cost and high quality is essential.  Sensory
offers a complete line of integrated circuit and embedded software
solutions to customers such as Hasbro, JVC, Kenwood, Matsushita,
Mattel, Mitsubishi, Sharper Image, Sony, Toshiba, Uniden, and many
others.  Sensory is a profitable privately held company founded in
1994. More information can be found at www.sensoryinc.com.