Talking Avatars for Messaging and Other Applications

LAS VEGAS--Jan. 5, 2006--3Dmsg(TM), a subsidiary of Sensory, Inc., is now under formation focusing on applications for the cell phone and wireless handset markets. 3Dmsg's avatars are created with the most accurate lip-synchronization technology on the market, using a patented scheme that morphs between visemes (visual phonemes), providing accuracy that is precise enough for even lip readers to understand. The accuracy that 3Dmsg lip synchronization provides will enable the development of products not just for fun, but for communications, and language learning as well. Additionally, 3Dmsg's avatars can be created, not only from live speech, but from input text or a combination of text and speech. 3Dmsg expects to announce its initial products during the first half of 2006. To see a demonstration of 3Dmsg's talking avatar technology, go to www.3Dmsg.com.

"We've spent a lot of time over the past few years talking to handset companies and service providers about our speech technologies," states Todd Mozer, president of Sensory. "We learned that although speech recognition is interesting, what is really more desirable are applications using accurate 3D modeling to exploit many of the new features and capabilities of today's handsets." Development of the technology is underway at Sensory's facilities in Trivandrum, India, and Portland, Oregon.

The patented 3Dmsg technology takes advantage of a hybrid neural network and hidden Markov modeling speech technology to analyze spoken data and break it into components that can be represented visually. These components may be thought of as visual phonemes or "visemes" and represent different mouth/teeth/tongue positions and movements. By stringing and morphing between these visemes, an avatar can be controlled or rendered to represent a talking person or creature.

The 3Dmsg technology allows MMS, SMS, Instant Messaging, and other text or voice messages to be delivered as ultra-low bandwidth 3D video-like messages by a talking avatar. 3Dmsg's avatars achieve the quality and accuracy of lip synchronized video with the bandwidth of text or voice.

Just as the initial quality of text-to-speech impeded mainstream adoption by users, so has the "jerky" quality of animated entities done the same. The introduction of 3Dmsg's technology should open the doors to faster adoption by users, and will enable creative new products to be developed, says Nancy Jamison, principal analyst at Jamison Consulting.

3Dmsg's products will include 3D animated messaging (from voice and text), 3D greeting cards, 3D pronunciation and language learning, and much more.

About 3Dmsg

3Dmsg (www.3Dmsg.com), based in Sunnyvale, Calif., with development offices in Trivandrum, India and Portland, Oregon, is a development stage company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Sensory, Inc.

About Sensory

Sensory, Inc., (www.sensoryinc.com) based in Sunnyvale, CA, is the world leader in embedded speech technologies. Sensory is a profitable private company offering a complete line of IC and software-only solutions for speech recognition, speech synthesis, speaker verification, music synthesis and more. The company's products are widely deployed in consumer electronics applications including telephones, home automation, toys, remote controls, automotive, security, and learning aids. Sensory's customers represent the leaders in consumer electronics, including such companies as Hasbro, JVC, Kenwood, Mattel, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Uniden and Sony. Additional Sensory offices are located in Portland, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Vienna.