Babel to Offer Advanced Text-to-Speech on Texas Instruments OMAP Processing Platform for Wireless Phones, PDAs

Announcment will bring TTS functionality to mobile phones and mobile devices

Babel to Offer Advanced Text-to-Speech on
Texas Instruments OMAP Processing Platform for
Wireless Phones, PDAs

23 January 2003, Mons, Belgium – Mobile devices will soon be able to read text messages aloud following an agreement between Babel Technologies S.A. and Texas Instruments. Babel has made PocketBabil - its Text to Speech technology - commercially available for Texas Instruments widely used OMAP wireless processing platform. Mobile devices that feature the platform with PocketBabil embedded, such as 2.5G and 3G handsets and PDAs, will enable mobile users to listen to text messages (SMS), receive spoken feedback, and listen to e-mail and voice prompts.

Mobile text messaging is becoming increasingly popular, with over 24 billion text messages sent worldwide in May 2002, according to a recent GSM Association report. The ability to listen to a message is a logical progression as it is the most convenient, safest and most natural way to receive those messages. Furthermore, the technology will help to prevent mobile phone users from compromising safety while still enjoying the benefits of communication via text message.

Paul Werp, worldwide marketing director for TIs OMAP platform, said: As text-based applications for wireless devices become more prolific, text-to-speech and speech-to-text technology will continue to gain popularity." He added: Babel has successfully ported its application to TIs OMAP platform to help handset manufacturers ensure the end-user experience remains convenient and easy to use, regardless of the complexity of future devices and applications."

Vincent Fontaine, Babel Technologies CEO, commented, In todays wired world, the mobile handset is an essential device for both personal and professional use. Mobile access to information saves time and increases productivity, and speech enabling the mobile handset is the next logical step forward in their development."

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About PocketBabil

PocketBabil is the ideal text-to-speech solution for all your embedded multilingual applications. It combines high voice quality with very limited CPU and memory requirements. PocketBabil is based on the Multi Band Resynthesis Overloap add (MBROLA) technology. This award-winning patented technology provides excellent speech synthesis thanks to the innovative approach to speech unit concatenation it adopts. With PocketBabil, words are spoken smoothly with a naturalness far exceeding existing methods, in terms of segmental quality and fluidity of speech.

About TIs OMAP Developer Network
Babel Technologies is a member of the OMAP Developer Network, a group of software developers creating advanced wireless applications for 2.5G and 3G handsets. OMAP developers enable rapid deployment of enhanced applications across leading operating systems in key areas like multimedia, security, messaging, gaming, speech, location based services and mobile commerce. Wireless handset manufacturers also benefit from the high performance and power efficiency of TI's OMAP platform, and worldwide systems level integration services provided by independent OMAP Technology Centers. The OMAP platform has been selected by leading manufacturers such as Nokia, Palm, Fujitsu, Sendo, Panasonic, HTC and others for their 2.5 and 3G wireless devices. For more information about the OMAP Developer Network, the OMAP platform or independent OMAP Technology Centers, please visit: www.omap.com.

About Babel Technologies
Babel Technologies S.A. and Babel-Infovox AB form a corporate group, designing, developing and licensing cutting-edge voice processing technologies. The companies are located in Mons, Belgium and Stockholm, Sweden, closely linked to university research centres like Faculté Polytechnique de Mons, Multitel asbl, CTT Stockholm, etc. It comprises an award-winning team of engineers, with comprehensive expertise in all aspects of Speech Processing who have now launched a world-beating range of products in the following areas: Automatic Speech Recognition, Text-To-Speech and Speaker Verification. Babel Technologies rapidly became a major player on the market thanks to its outstanding multi-lingual, multi-platform products. Babel Technologies collaborates with leading companies in the telecom, multimedia and embedded markets, including Texas Instruments, Comverse, the US Army, Telia, etc.

For additional information, please look at www.babeltech.com or contact Vincent Fontaine (fontaine@babeltech.com) at +32 65 374275

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