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7 Nissan 5760 - April 12, 2000 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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News
Revolutionary Voice-Activated Microwave Oven

by N. Katzin

De Longhi, an Italian manufacturer of electronic appliances, and Rovidium, an Israeli start-up technology company, have recently announced the development of a revolutionary microwave oven. The first of its kind, which has a speech engine and a voice-identification device to control its operation.

The Infinito Voice microwave oven is the first domestic electrical appliance to use a Rovidium speech engine. The oven currently knows how to "speak" and "understand" English and Italian only, but will "learn" other languages in time. The speaking and hearing microwave will be sold worldwide during the second half of this year.

Company director Fabio de Longhi said that the user-friendly, intelligent microwave oven enables the user to activate a cooking program and a specific recipe through speech. "Potatoes" or "fast food" are some of the commands it obeys. The oven responds with a cheerful voice, giving detailed instructions such as, "place the bowl on the lower shelf and add half a cup of water." It also solicits missing information such as: "Do you want to bake or roast it?"

The speech engine was developed by Rovidium, a small Petach Tikvah start-up company. It is a small device, the size of a matchbox, which simulates human communication. The "dialogue engine listens, understands, thinks, answers and communicates," with an active vocabulary of more than 100 words. It can simulate human speech for periods of up to ten minutes.

Shlomo Feld, director of Rovidium, says that the company is excited by this technology which makes possible the development of user-friendly appliances that will not need instruction manuals to operate.

The speech engine will be installed in other domestic electrical appliances such as refrigerators, multimedia equipment, and cellular telephones in the future. Even speech- responsive cars are also in the works.


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