Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV, says it is considering setting up a company to develop speech recognition and translation products to make it easier for a wider public to access the Internet. Chairman Gaston Bastiaens told De Financieel Economische Tijd that the new products could help those that did not speak English to use and explore the Internet, where 90% of material is in English. The Ypres, Belgium-based firm, which currently employs some 500 people, majors on technology that enables computers to recognize speech automatically, transform text on the screen into speech, or digitize speech. It is available in Dutch, German, French, Italian, and Korean, with Russian and Chinese on the way. Founder Jo Lernout told the paper that gossip that Microsoft Corp might buy the company was wide of the mark because he and co-founder Pol Hauspie, would never give up their majority stake in the company. The talk is because Microsoft adopted Lernout & Hauspie’s text-to-speech as its standard for software development.
