Have you ever been stuck in slow moving traffic and wished you could have your PDA respond to verbal commands rather than having to fiddle around with a stylus and deal with the risk of dropping the darn thing? Your wishes may come true. Lernout & Hauspie plans to make your wishes come true.
Their prototype product, Nuk, offers three innovations:
- Handheld includes a large-vocabulary speech-recognition engine
- It runs on a mobile version of the Linux operating system
- It Uses Intel’s next-generation StrongArm II low-power chip for handheld devices
The device will give users with a wireless connection voice access to Web sites for e-commerce transactions such as buying and selling stocks or ordering books online as well as the ability to read and send e-mail using vocal commands.
The StrongArm II was optimized to run the mobile version of Linux and has the equivalent performance of a desktop Pentium III.
L&H expects products based on Nuk to ship by the end of the year, and is seeking OEM partners. Pricing is not set but is expected to be in the $200 to $600 range.
