Our guest is Gerd Graumann, President of Speech Technology Group,  who provide advanced TTS and ASR speech technology.

Using Text-to-Speech online, site visitors can now listen to anything you have posted on your website. With a simple click of a button, your content is instantly converted to audio and played back. This is but one of many applications, where the new generation of natural TTS voices can help. IVR is another example, where TTS plays a significant role. A high quality TTS voice combined with an affordable license model not only sounds good, but can be a significant contributor to the success of a project.

Examples of these highly natural voices are at www.speechtechnologygroup.com

The speech synthesizer can be integrated using a wide variety of interface options, such as MRCP, API or Web services, whether you are looking to deploy an embedded, mobile, desktop, server or cloud based solution.

In this session, we will be discussing improvements in TTS technology and  launch an unusual contest that should make you smile.

Michael Cullen of Criticall 911 joins the call to discuss their real world application of this technology.

Allison is back with the latest news of her activities in the world of voice-over and voice prompts. If you’re not familiar with the name Allison Smith, I’ll tell you when I first heard it: on Free World Dialup circa 2003, yes, nearly 9 years ago!

If you’re lucky enough to be coming to Astricon this year, you’ll certainly have a chance to meet Allison, one of the nicest people I’ve met anywhere.

Part 2, a wandering discussion:

0:04:40 webOS
0:08:32 Karl moves to the Jabra headset
0:13:09 Sokris 5501
0:16:30 MobileMe
0:18:12 WebOS and other mobile OS
0:27:43 Flip cam killed by Cisco
0:35:30 back to Apple and Mobile Me
0:38:02 DECE wikipedia entry
0:42:49 Piracy
1:00:48 US Patent and Trademark Office
1:14:21 IVR discussion
1:26:15 Zimmerman, Crypto

Intro music by Zip Caplan.

Andy Kuan, CEO of Plum Voice is our guest. You may recall Plum Voice visited the VUC last year to show their Quickfuse app. He will be talking about a new product they offer, Floodlight, which addresses the need for a survey via web or phone. If you are into surveys, here’s a slide show about Floodlight. On that same page is a free trial demo you’ll want to check out. Key points he will be addressing are:

1. Overview of the Floodlight product and its origins
   • 17 different question types all of which work on both the web and the phone
   • Utilizes speech recognition extensively for a friendlier end-user experience
   • Integrated audio management
   • Integrated reporting
   • Runs on the Plum Voice infrastructure allowing calls to be terminated via SIP or TDM. With toll-free numbers in the US and Europe, or local numbers from much of the world via Voxbone.
2. Floodlight does more than surveys
   • Hooks for VoiceXML subdialogs for custom dialog handlers
   • Hooks in QuickFuse which can jump to surveys — use the right tool for the right job
   • Question-centric rather than flow-centric which makes it somewhat easier to understand for non-technical people
   • Data integration via SOAP

Allison Smith (@VoiceGal) pinged me about the collection she recorded for Joey Lindstrom for use with Asterisk pbx. The full set, which Mr. Lindstrom has generously decided to place in the public domain is available for dowload free here:
http://vuc.li/FunnyAllison.

Joey wrote to say this was his way to give something back to the community, and he’s asking Digium to put these prompts in the Asterisk distribution should they wish to do so.

[audio:http://recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-22622/TS-317303.mp3]
Antony Martin and Jeff Dworkin will introduce the latest features available from ProjectDiaStar. They will also discuss the business benefits of implementing Interactive Voice/Video Response Systems and Video-Enabled Contact Centers.

Project DiaStar represents the work of dedicated team of engineering and marketing professionals that have been tasked with making certain portions of the Dialogic product portfolio accessible to the open source community.  This includes creating new open source projects, providing support and documentation for existing open source projects that utilize Dialogic components, working with other companies in the open source marketplace to get Dialogic products certified within their ecosystems, and promoting and sponsoring events and Dialogic partners that are focused on this growing space.

IRC Links Feb 26, 2010

Allison is writing about what she does with her new Voicegal’s Blog. Don’t forget to follow her on Twitter: @voicegal.

This Friday, Allison chatted with regulars Michael Graves and John Covici about procedures and equipment used to provide the quality work with fast turnaround that make her a renowned figure in the voice-over world.

There was also some talk about Skype for Asterisk, which PhoneFromHere.com is using to help make it easier to get into the wideband conference bridge. My own experience on the iPod is that the audio is of excellent quality. I’ve listened on it to several concerts for long durations, it not only sounds good but seems pretty stable, considering that Skype alone is often known for dropped calls.

Also discussed: Broadvoice releases codecs into Open Source

[audio:http://media.blubrry.com/winelover/recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-22622/TS-285271.mp3]

[audio:http://media.blubrry.com/winelover/recordings.talkshoe.com/TC-22622/TS-184932.mp3]

Allison Smith, the Voice of Asterisk

Allison Smith, aka “the voice of asterisk” is always a fun guest to talk to but her contributions to the Asterisk community are ongoing. We talked among other things about her new site, The Asterisk Voice.

Membership on TheAsteriskVoice.com is growing steadily, and is proving to be the ultimate clearing house for Asterisk stock prompts. Take those stock prompts a step further, and enlist Allison’s help in customizing and personalizing your company-specific messages.