Among the many voices heard at the International Home & Housewares show this year were some very famous celebrity chefs, as well as some not yet famous talking appliances. Galanz, (www.galanz.com) which manufactures half of the microwave ovens in the world, showed off their new product line featuring voice recognition provided by Sensory, Inc., the leading supplier of embedded speech technology for consumer electronics. Targeted towards younger and more tech-savvy users, a speech-enabled microwave offers convenience with preprogrammed settings for common foods, and also allows custom settings that can be "memorized" and recalled with a simple spoken command. "Consumers are always looking for added features in their appliances," says Travis Kirwan, senior vice president of Galanz North America. "Sensory's RSC-4128 speech recognition chip enables us to offer ease of use and adds value at a very low cost to the consumer." Galanz speech-enabled products are being marketed under their own name as well as under the Sylvania brand.

Weighing in with Humor

Digiweigh, an innovator in design and quality for competitively priced weighing devices, treated visitors to a unique bathroom scale at its booth. Billed as the first scale that speaks your weight and also understands your voice, it provides irreverent feedback like "I am a body scale, not a loading dock!" In addition, the scale will track a user's previous weight, average weight, and target weight for up to 3 family members. The contemporary design and precise weight-sensing electronics are provided by Digiweigh (www.digiweighusa.com), and the ability to listen and chat is based Sensory's RSC-4128. Sensory also provides speech technologies for HVAC, lighting, audio-visual, and other voice control functions in the home.

About Sensory, Inc.

Sensory, Inc., (www.sensoryinc.com) based in Sunnyvale, CA, is the world leader in embedded speech technologies. Sensory is a profitable private company offering a complete line of IC and software-only solutions for speech recognition, speech synthesis, speaker verification, music synthesis and more. The company's products are widely deployed in consumer electronics applications including telephones, home automation, toys, remote controls, automotive, security, and learning aids. Sensory's customers represent the leaders in consumer electronics, including such companies as Hasbro, JVC, Kenwood, Mattel, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, Uniden and Sony. Additional Sensory offices are located in Portland, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Vienna.