The way the questions are asked to the callers changes, so that the usage or clarifications the machine requests about what has been said does not become tedious.

The technologies used to obtain up-to-date contents from the SAPO Internet site of known astrologist Paulo Cardoso are ASR, TTS and IIWC™. The texts of the page are converted automatically by a speech synthesiser.

The IBE™ technology cam can be also used in this service, but for the demonstration purposes, taking into account a possibility of using telephones with loudspeakers, we chose not to use it to make sure it would not interfere with ASR. For users that do not use loudspeakers the inclusion of IBE™ would not interfere with ASR. [back]

Whenever there is an accident or a traffic jam, the service includes the pertinent information and makes it available from the menu, so that the user can get more details about occurrence. This helpful service justifies well a small amount of money spent on the call, being especially useful during the rush hours (of course, it must be used with an earpiece or a "hands-free" adaptor).

The technologies used are DTMF, TTS, IBE™, and IIWC™ to get the data from a web site. The texts of the page are converted automatically by a speech synthesiser. [back]

It should be noted that here the usage of IBE™ technology enable the common text-to-speech (TTS) systems to be introduced, overcoming the drawback of reading the news by monotone voices, which are typically deficient in expressiveness.

The technologies used to get the up-to-date news from a Web page are DTMF, TTS, IBE™ and IIWC™. The texts of the page are converted automatically by a speech synthesiser. [back]

The user chooses products thus forming a "cart" or "basket" for subsequent home delivery.

The technologies used to get the list of products and prices from the Hypermarket Jumbo Web site are DTMF, TTS and IIWC™. The texts of the page are converted automatically by a speech synthesiser. [back]

The database is not real (so by now it snows in Alentejo): the demonstration mainly focuses on the voice technology.

The technologies used are DTMF, ICOT™, and IBE™. [back]

For example, the user sends a message:

"213100400#Bom dia mãe. Parabéns pelo teu aniversário do teu filho Joaquim." ("213100400#Good morning, mother. Congratulations on your Birthday from your son Joaquim.")

The IVR makes a call to 213100400 and reads the message "Bom dia mãe. Parabéns pelo teu aniversário do teu filho Joaquim. Repito... Bom dia mãe..." using the TTS technology.

Additionally we provide an access to the service by e-mail, just to demonstrate how e-mails are read by TTS: the user sends an e-mail message to the IVR service, which then makes a call to the requested number and reads the message. [back]

DTMF - Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency: a standard industrial technology that enables the digits to be introduced from the phone keypad.

TTS - Text-To-Speech: Automatic conversion from text to speech without the need for specific recordings. This technology relies on the RealSpeak algorithms from L&H, currently owned by ScanSoft. INOV holds two licenses for usage of European (not Brazilian) Portuguese.

ASR - Automatic Speech Recognition: Recognition of words. This technology relies on Nuance's algorithms, for which INOV holds two licenses for usage; integration with Philips is also available.

IIWC™ - INOV Instant Web Contents: INOV proprietary technology that allows the IVR to access any Web page available on the Internet, and use its contents (or part) in one or more services. These contents may be automatically updated with the desired periodicity (from 10 seconds to several days), or on-demand when the service needs the information.

IBE™ - INOV Background Environment: INOV proprietary technology that allows the IVR to recreate a given environment by using several special effects, like background music, equalisation, reverberation, delay, etc. to make better impression and/or to improve perception in hostile environments (for example, cellular phones used un automobiles).

ICOT™ - INOV Concatenated Optimisation Technology: INOV proprietary technology that allows the IVR to use pre-recorded sentences making the concatenations as soft and undistinguishable as possible. It is essentially an off-line technology.

API - Application Programming Interface: Interface for the programming of additional services and/or functionalities to the platform.

DLL - Dynamic Link Library: External library of functionalities that can be used by the platform.

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Thanks to its modularity, the platform can be used with an almost absolute independence from the hardware, making it very simple to install hundreds of thousand services in one or more machines, with one or more telephone entries per machine.

The platform contains multiple statistics and alarm mechanisms, including auto-recovery systems, which gives it irreprehensible up-times even for the most demanding applications of the telecommunications industry.

The platform easily integrates with any other INOV system, like SIMA™ or MultiSERV™, and even with external systems through a vast range of access services and protocols.

Currently the platform uses the most recent speech recognition technologies from Nuance and Philips, either small or large vocabularies, and also speech synthesis in European Portuguese (among other languages) from ScanSoft, constantly evolving to incorporate state-of-the-art technology in these areas.

It can include a C/C++ API (Windows), be integrated with external DLL's or a proprietary interpreted language (script) for easy development by the client. It includes a simulator so that one can test the services in ordinary computers (Windows 95/98/NT/2000), for example, using a laptop.

Besides these possibilities offered by the platform, INOV offers services of consulting from the specification to the implementation stage. [back]