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.
