Philips takes speech recognition to eastern Europe

Philips Speech Processing is continuing to broaden its portfolio of languages. The addition of Hungarian. marks the first step into Eastern Europe for native-language speech recognition.

Radiologists have had a chance to test the Hungarian Radiology ConText, due to be released this summer, at the Philips Speech Processing booth at the ECR. The software will be marketed within Philips' SpeechMagic recognition software by a Hungarian software distributor, which will sell the product to major international PACS vendors and local IT suppliers.

"We developed the Finnish ConText a couple of years ago, and Hungarian is quite similar," said Klaus Stanglmayr, product marketing manager for Philips Speech Processing's dictation software. "We are the only providers of speech recognition in Finland, and I think we will be the only ones for Hungary."

Release of the Hungarian-language software will bring to 22 the number of language options available with SpeechMagic. The list of ConText vocabularies to date includes U.K. and U.S. English, German (for Austria and Germany, in old and new grammar), French (for France and French Canadians), Spanish (for North and Central America, South America, and Spain), Catalan, Portuguese (for Brazilian Portuguese and natives of Portugal), Italian, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch, and Flemish.

"You have to capture as many dialects and variants as possible," Stanglmayr said. "For example, if you look at Spanish, the language is very different in Chile than it is in Spain and also very different from the Spanish that Mexicans speak."

Philips Speech Processing is also showcasing its Italian Radiology ConText, which was released last year. The Italian version of SpeechMagic is available as a stand-alone package and is also integrated within the new Magic Reporting radiology information system developed by Philips' partner company, Gruppo Soluzioni Tecnoloiche.