Nuance Powers Innovative Speech Capabilities on New Olympus Digital Audio Device

DAISY Member Nuance Communications, Inc. announced that its speech technology is powering the recognition and text-to-speech capabilities found in the new Olympus DM-4 and DM-5 digital audio device. With Nuance’s speech capabilities, users can use their voice for device command and control, as well as listen to text files while on the go. DM-4 and DM-5 are the latest in a new line up of digital audio devices from another DAISY Consortium Member Olympus that feature large color LCDs and easy-to-navigate menus for audio recording, editing and playback of podcasts, music, audio books, textbooks, and DAISY books.

DM-4 and DM-5 feature robust speech recognition capabilities that are powered by Nuance VoCon 3200, Nuance’s trusted speech recognition engine shipping in a variety of consumer electronic devices around the world. Users are able to speak commands that allow them to access folders and set-up options, and easily add items to their lists and calendars. Pre-defined keywords, such as “work,” “travel,” “memo,” and more can be added to audio files, making it easier to access files by using your voice.

The device also features Nuance Vocalizer for text-to-speech to provide voice guidance, enabling visually challenged users to achieve equal accessibility while capturing recordings or moving through the device’s menus, folders and set-up options. Users are also able to hear file details, like date, time, artist, title and preset keywords, to easily identify files without having to listen to them. More information is available in the press release.