Kit Makes Car Phone Hands Free

A kit consisting of a system-on-chip device, microcontroller chip, and embedded software for hands-free operation of car cellphones enhances road safety by replacing keypads and displays with a voice interface. Based on the company's Euterpe digital voice processor chip, the new kit performs voice activated dialing, text-to-speech conversion of incoming text messages, noise and echo cancellation, and biometric verification of the speakers identity. Based on the company's ST10 processor core, the microcontroller portion of the kit manages the dialog between the cellphone and an optional display plus interfacing to the car stereo and other car functions. Rounding out the package is Lernout & Hauspie's ASR311 voice-recognition software plus the TTS3000 text-to-speech conversion package. These applications allow implementation of speaker-independent voice control functions with both a standard vocabulary that can be used with no user training and user-defined words.