SALT LAKE CITY Aug. 16, 2004
Pharmacies may now provide their customers with an easy-to-use, cost-effective speech interface to access prescription information
Fonix(R) Corp. (OTC BB: FNIX), an innovative communications and technology company providing integrated telecommunications services and value-added speech technologies, announces that Fonix’s proprietary automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology has been licensed and deployed by Smart Solutions, a Salt Lake City-based provider of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems to pharmacies.
Smart Solutions recently released its pharmacy IVR system incorporating Fonix ASR, which allows pharmacy customers to access prescription information via an easy-to-use voice interface, a simple solution that doesn’t require pressing buttons or looking at the phone. Fonix will receive unit royalties from each speech-based IVR unit sold by Smart Solutions; production is expected to begin fourth quarter 2004. «Smart Solutions’ innovative hardware design combined with Fonix ASR allows us to offer ASR features to our multi-site customers at a desirable price-point,» said Craig Swett, Smart Solutions president. «With this powerful combination, Smart remains a leader in our industry, providing a technology that has been previously unavailable and unaffordable.»
Currently, Smart Solutions is the only pharmacy IVR provider to offer ASR features to retail pharmacies for a price comparable to DTMF IVR. Speech interface systems provide chain store and independent pharmacy customers with a simpler and more convenient prescription refill experience. As customers become more accustomed to speech recognition-based services such as this one, demand is expected to increase and this technology will be incorporated into other versatile customer service systems.
«With their IVR pharmacy solution, Smart Solutions demonstrates the ease with which manufacturers and developers can incorporate Fonix speech solutions into user-friendly devices and systems that are also cost effective,» said John Oelfke, vice president of Fonix Embedded Speech Solutions.
Smart Solutions designed their proprietary speech board using Fonix ASR on Analog Devices Blackfin DSP. Fonix has designed our ASR for Blackfin as a low-cost, high-performance SDK for manufacturers seeking to integrate speech interfaces to products and devices such as automotive multimedia systems, data collection devices and instruments, entertainment systems, appliances, games and toys, and education devices. The Fonix SDK for Blackfin processors is easy to implement, resulting in quicker development and testing for manufacturers and decreased time-to-market for their products.
Fonix ASR is speaker-independent, which means Smart’s IVR system can be used by anyone and doesn’t need to be trained by the user. Fonix ASR is also based on proprietary Fonix neural network technology, which requires a smaller memory footprint and takes less of the developer’s valuable processor resources compared to speech recognition offerings from other companies.
