ClarityLabs Creates a Hands-Free Automotive Solution for Texas Instruments' OMAP Platform

Clarity Technologies' Award Winning CVC(R) technology for speech recognition software combines with IBM Embedded ViaVoice to create a TI automotive solution for hands-free development.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Oct. 18 -- ClarityLabs a division of Clarity Technologies Inc. (http://www.claritycvc.com/ ), the leading provider of services for embedded speech recognition testing, announced today it won and will complete by year end a project with Texas Instruments (TI) to create a complete hands-free automotive solution for TI's OMAP products. The project will integrate Bluetooth technology, Clarity Technologies' various CVC(R) products and enable interoperability with IBM(R) Embedded ViaVoice(R) speech recognition software product creating a complete platform, the TI OMAP5912 OSK, for Telematics voice-enabled application development.

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Clarity Technologies' award-winning CVC(R) technology, having been selected by 7 automotive nameplates for hands-free phone products, continues to expand and enhance the state-of-the-art for hands-free voice communications. Clarity Technologies is recognized as a global leader delivering solutions that enhance audio quality and performance in automotive voice-based communications systems. Clarity has the technology, expertise and exclusive focus to address the voice quality and performance degradation issues that result from today's increasingly complex automotive communication environments.

The project's Telematics solution requires Clarity's CVC(R) software, running on the DSP, to control the audio flow for all applications. For a hands-free phone operation, CVC(R) extracts speech from the audio input and sends it over a wireless Bluetooth connection to a cellular phone for noise- free wireless communications. When a person requests a speech command, Clarity's CVC(R) software will extract the speech from the audio, process it for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and then send it to the Embedded ViaVoice front-end process for speech recognition.

Texas Instruments' OMAP5912 Starter Kit (OSK) is a low cost, easy to use, convenient way of evaluating the features of the OMAP5912 Processor in next generation Telematics devices. The kit includes a development board, and a collection of board and chip specific libraries as well as a suite of development tools. The OMAP platform has a dual core architecture with both an ARM and DSP processor both running at 192 MIPS (million instructions per second). Applications developed on the platform can take advantage of having code reside on both cores resulting in increased net performance.

As part of the project, ClarityLabs will enable Clarity Technologies CVC(R) for ASR to interoperate with a new version of IBM Embedded ViaVoice speech recognition software created to run on both the DSP and ARM cores. This new IBM Embedded ViaVoice contains a front-end feature extraction process running on the DSP and a back-end process running on the ARM for recognition. When a person requests a speech command, Clarity's CVC(R) software, running on the DSP will extract the speech from the audio, and send it to the IBM Embedded ViaVoice front-end process running on the DSP.

"ClarityLabs takes on many projects of this nature, bringing new technology to the automotive and speech recognition industry," said Fred Nussbaum, ClarityLabs president. "In the last year, TI, IBM and Clarity Technologies have heard from mutual customers that the integration of all these technologies was needed to provide solutions for their hands-free and voice-enabled applications. We are delighted that TI selected ClarityLabs for the project and we're confident their customers will be delighted with the results".

About Clarity Technologies and ClarityLabs

Established in 1998, Clarity Technologies Inc. develops and delivers software and services that improve the audio quality and performance of voice- based communication products and systems. Using its expertise and voice extraction technology, Clarity solves voice quality and performance degradation issues for today's complex audio environment, regardless of hardware, audio interface, operating system or speech recognition applications.

Clarity has 20 technology patents either awarded or pending, more than 300 years of technical and commercial experience in the digital signal processing field of audio voice communications, and has been recognized by industry influencers like Speech Technology Magazine, IEEE Spectrum, Telematics Update and the AVIOS Board at the Speech Developers Conference as delivering superior voice enhancement technology. Additionally, Clarity is the only associate member of the Bluetooth SIG that provides noise and echo cancellation technology.

ClarityLabs is a services division of Clarity Technologies Inc. and provides its customers with the ability to evaluate, select and integrate speech recognition technology for voice-based applications in addition to providing embedded services and developing an independent and objective voice quality certification process.

For more information, please contact Tom Houy, vp marketing (tomh@ClarityCVC.com) or 248-409-1400.

All trade and service marks are the property of their respective owners. CVC is a registered trademark of Clarity Technologies Inc. in the United States, other countries or both. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

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