ClearOne and Speakables Announce Chat 50 as First Speaker Phone to Enable VoIP Voice Control on Mac Platform


SALT LAKE CITY, July 6 // -- ClearOne , the worldwide leader in highend audio conferencing and the creator of the innovative Chat(TM) 50 personal speaker phone, and Speakables, a leading voice recognition software provider for the digital home, today announced that ClearOne's Chat 50 is the first speaker phone that allows Mac users to operate VoIP applications such as Skype and iChat by voice command, using Speakable Items (Apple's embedded speech recognition technology) and the new Speakables or Skype.

The combination of the Chat 50 and Speakables gives Mac users unprecedented flexibility and control, particularly in the Mac Digital Home environment. These products enable simple control of VoIP applications without the need to access the keyboard, mouse, or even view the screen. In addition, the advanced audio processing technologies of the Chat 50 deliver full-duplex audio and full echo cancellation, which gives Mac users even greater choice and flexibility. For example, users can continue to listen to iTunes or watch TV with the sound output through their main speakers, while using Skype.

"The Chat 50 personal speaker phone is the perfect addition to the Mac Digital Home," says Deborah Quinlan, president of Speakables. "In our testing, the Chat 50 emerged as a clear stand-out as the only speaker phone product on the market we have found to be compatible with both Apple's embedded speech recognition technology and VoIP applications, such as iChat and Skype."

"In combination with voice control, the Chat 50 extends the speaker phone from an office/home office productivity device to a 'must-have' for the Mac Digital Home," adds Kurt Olsen, director of product marketing at ClearOne. "The ability to control popular applications like Skype and iChat by voice makes it unnecessary to even be in view of a monitor screen.

This is important not only for those wanting to make use of VoIP in relaxed areas of the home, but especially in cases where Macs are connected to big-screen TVs, since the user doesn't have to switch from TV mode to computer mode to see their computer screen."

"Advanced automatic level controls on the microphone of the Chat 50 give it some of the best pickup performance of any microphone designed for computers. This superior pickup allows for great accuracy in speech recognition; it also makes the Chat 50 a perfect fit for other microphone applications, such as recording podcasts," continued Olsen.

The Chat 50 is available at leading resellers such as Mac Mall, PC Mall, PC Warehouse, Tiger Direct, and CDW. Speakables software solutions are available from speakables.com, including free trial versions.

ABOUT CLEARONE

ClearOne is a communications company that develops and sells audio conferencing systems and related products for audio, video and web conferencing applications. The reliability, flexibility and performance of ClearOne's comprehensive solutions create a natural communications environment that saves organizations time and money by enabling more effective and efficient communication. On the web at www.clearone.com .

ABOUT SPEAKABLES

Speakables is the voice recognition unit of NHANDZ, a digital home company providing innovative input devices and software that enable remote control of PCs/Macs. Targeted to the digital home market, and with an emphasis on entertainment use, Speakables encourages consumers to converge their home entertainment media to their computers, by making it more convenient and impressive to control their computers in relaxed areas of the home, away from the desktop, by voice command. On the web at speakables.com .

All third-party names referenced are registered trademarks of their respective companies, who do not necessarily endorse ClearOne, Speakables, or their products.

Source: ClearOne

CONTACT: Kurt Olsen of ClearOne, +1-801-303-3362,
kurt.olsen@clearone.com; or Benjamin Factor of Speakables, +1-415-867-0763, bfactor@speakables.com; or Ryan Schradin of RLM PR, +1-212-741-5106, ext. 213, Ryan@RLMpr.com, for ClearOne

Web site: www.clearone.com/
http://speakables.com/

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