Lucent Technologies Introduces PhoneBrowser
6 March 2000
Telephone Web Access System for Mobile Callers
MURRAY HILL, N.J.--Allows Callers To Access Travel-Related ContentLucent Technologies today introduced a new way for mobile phone users and on-the-go callers who are without PCs to access information from the Web using spoken commands. Called PhoneBrowser, the Bell Laboratories technology is being developed as a new business by Lucent's New Ventures Group.
Lucent also announced an initial customer trial for PhoneBrowser with DriveThere.com, a new type of business-to-business and business-to-consumer motor club that provides information and services for motorists via a Web portal.
PhoneBrowser allows consumers to access the Web with an ordinary telephone, providing input to Web sites via natural language speech commands and receiving content via recorded audio or synthesized text-to-speech. The natural language telephone interface allows users to access the Web anywhere and anytime, when they are commuting, traveling or on the go.
For service providers such as a wireless carrier or a Web portal, PhoneBrowser will build, host and manage Web speech applications, offering these customers a variety of ways to leverage the new access capability.
According to an International Data Corporation report, by 2003 more than 40 million people in the U.S. will be wireless Web subscribers. Several wireless carriers are already offering services for connecting to the Internet using microbrowsers and small messaging devices.
"We believe the wireless Web will reach its full potential only when customers can use the most simple, natural and mobile human interface -- speech," said David Stahl, a director in Lucent's New Ventures Group. "This need and the resulting huge market opportunity has led Bell Labs to develop the PhoneBrowser technology."
PhoneBrowser technology will enable wireless carriers to offer new premium services to subscribers. Recent marketing studies conducted by Lucent indicate that potential users of speech-enabled wireless services will pay a monthly fee for the right packages of services, including e-mail reading, turn-by-turn directions, traffic alerts, weather reports, stock quotes, telephone directories, concierge-like services for local information and other specialized services.
"PhoneBrowser lets Web users be more productive," said Michael Brown, chief scientist for PhoneBrowser. "People will be able to access their favorite Web content while they are commuting or traveling, any time they have access to a phone. We expect that content providers, wireless carriers and Web developers will want to take advantage of this technology."
PhoneBrowser features will make these services more user-friendly. For example, consumers can interrupt spoken content using Lucent's patented barge-in feature to navigate to other pages or Web sites. The system summarizes pages in a concise manner, signifying fonts like bold text, for example, with special voices. PhoneBrowser can access current Web sites without the need for them to be reprogrammed in any way.
Based on a broad portfolio of existing and pending patents, PhoneBrowser is designed to work with any Web site that uses Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). PhoneBrowser is ready today for the rapid development of new applications. Enterprises, commercial Web sites, and telecom service providers can extend the reach of existing applications and create a new class of Web applications that employ mobility and lend themselves to a voice interface. Future versions will work with Web sites using the emerging W3C voice markup language.
DriveThere.com is using the Web to redefine what drivers expect from a motor club. Its goal is to make motoring better for everyone traveling by highway, whether for business or leisure.
"PhoneBrowser is the perfect complement to our services, because it allows us to deliver services to drivers where they need it most -- in the car," said Craig Kaminer, president of DriveThere.com. "We're able to create a motor club that's better than any other, because we'll be right alongside drivers during their trip, not just before or after. By combining forces with PhoneBrowser, we're creating a system that's easier to use and more comprehensive than other in-car technologies. The user never has to take her eyes off the road."
The highway information database to be used in the test was developed by Ultradata Systems, a leading provider of highway travel information and a one-third owner in DriveThere.com.
Typical PhoneBrowser customers will include wireless carriers, ISPs and Web portals. Wireless carriers can offer their subscribers simple, largely intuitive, Web access to user-specified Web portals or new, targeted services implemented using standard Web technology. Internet Service Providers or portals now can extend the existing Web service they provide to include direct access via telephones. Corporate information networks can combine their interactive voice response (IVR) systems and Web servers into a single Web site system, to serve both voice and Web users.