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USTelematics enhances talking email with voice recognition

Sending emails and text messages while driving can be dangerously distracting. For this reason, USTelematics Inc. has introduced Vivee -- Voice Interactive Voice Enhanced Email -- to enable drivers to compose and send email using voice commands.

The technology translates written electronic communications into audible ones which are played via talking avatar characters. As a user speaks a response to an email or text message, the technology generates the reply in either POP email or SMS text format.

"The original Vivee only read incoming messages," said Howard Leventhal, CEO of USTelematics, Wood Dale, IL. "This upgrade enables users to have a totally hands-free, two-way communication via email or text without taking eyes off road."

Vivee can be installed in any compatible device, including laptops and USTelematics Multimedia Car PCs. It works with Microsoft Windows Mobile for Pocket PC Wireless Phones and its wireless Internet connectivity offers speeds on par with many DSL services.

Recently, Ford Motor Co. partnered with Microsoft Corp. to introduce a sync system enabling in-car voice commands.

"Ford Sync only responds with a few "canned" messages," Mr. Leventhal said. "We recognize whole words with a big vocabulary."

Vivee sees tremendous marketing opportunities arising from its wireless technology and its on-the-go customers.

"We see a plethora of location-based services popping up," Mr. Leventhal said. "For instance a family driving down highway at 4:45 p.m. might opt-in to be informed by Vivee that a McDonald's is coming up at the exit 15 minutes ahead, and kids eat free on Tuesdays. The implications, particularly in relation to local radio broadcasting, are enormous."

Some analysts expect the global telematics industry to reach $58 billion by 2012.

The company also offers a portable version of this technology - Vivee2go -- which can be linked to a Web-augmented GPS navigation system.

Vivee2go is a customized Windows Mobile PocketPC device made by Hewlett-Packard. It's about the size of two decks of playing cards and also plays music and video.

Vivee's portable device wirelessly retrieves and plays email and text through an internal Wi-Fi connection when stationary near a Wi-Fi hotspot. While on the road, Vivee2go connects to the Web either through a Verizon Wireless EVDO broadband tetherable phone or via USTelematics' TrotSpot.

Telematics has become one of the fastest-growing segments of the automotive industry, with in-vehicle navigation systems, DVD players and other rear-seat infotainment systems considered standard features for many new vehicles.

"We want to use our service as a building block for location-based services ultimately," Mr. Leventhal said.