Voice Recognition Breaking News

LERNOUT & HAUSPIE ANNOUNCES INDUSTRY-LEADING SPEECH RECOGNITION SOFTWARE DRAGON NATURALLYSPEAKING® SOLUTION SERIES VERSION 6 FOR PROFESSIONAL MARKETS

Outstanding New Version Integrates Best of Breed Technology to Deliver the Most Accurate and Powerful Speech Recognition Software Available

IEPER, BELGIUM and BURLINGTON, MASS. -- October 23, 2001 -- The Speech and Language Technologies Division (SLT) of Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. (OTC: LHSPQ) ('L&H' or 'the Company'), a world leader in speech and language technology, products, and services, today announced the launch of Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Solution Series Version 6, the latest version of L&H's award-winning speech recognition software for professional markets. The result of the successful integration of Dragon NaturallySpeaking® and L&H Voice Xpress™ technologies, the Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Solution Series software is the most comprehensive offering in the family of L&H continuous speech recognition products.

The Solution Series of software products includes Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Professional Solutions for World English, Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Medical Solutions, Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Legal Solutions, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Public Safety Solutions for U.S. English. Each product offers professional users productivity enhancements and time-saving features for document creation, e-mail composition, form completion, and many other writing tasks.

Based on extensive customer feedback, L&H developed the Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Solution Series Version 6 software to be more intuitive and easier to use. Not only can users operate a PC hands-free, but new features and accuracy improvements allow professionals to dictate at a rate of up to 160 words per minute with a high level of accuracy.

Some of the new and/or enhanced features and functions of the Version 6 software include:

Improved Accuracy -L&H's new Acoustic Optimizer improves voice recognition, and the Nothing But Speech (NBS)™ feature filters out inadvertent utterances like "uhms" and "ahs."
Natural language commands can be used with virtually all programs - Execute commands in office productivity applications such as Microsoft® Office (including the new XP version). Corel® WordPerfect®, Microsoft® Outlook®, and others, without having to learn a special command vocabulary. Popular commands can be displayed on screen in each program to assist in dictation.
State-of-the-art Text-to-Speech with L&H™ RealSpeak™ - L&H's award-winning text-to-speech engine provides a human-sounding synthetic voice for editing documents or listening to e-mail messages.
The ability to create customized voice commands (macros)- Sophisticated operations can be executed using simple voice commands. Corporate developers can automate complex tasks and integrate voice into their existing applications using a Microsoft® VBA-compatible scripting language.

"We have combined the best features of our two award-winning speech recognition products, Dragon NaturallySpeaking and L&H VoiceXpress, to produce a product that offers incredible accuracy and the most complete set of productivity features available today," said John Shagoury, President, L&H's Speech and Language Technologies Division. "L&H continues to deliver the best in speech recognition technology with the latest version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. This version, like its predecessors, is both easy to learn and use, while offering a robust set of features that support a multitude of our diverse users' needs."

Product Features and Benefits

The Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Solution Series Version 6 includes new and improved features to make it both easier to use and more accurate. These features include an extensive set of new voice commands to browse the Web and manage e-mail navigation. The software is versatile, users can easily use it to create documents directly in virtually all Windows®-based applications. The winner of more than 140 major awards worldwide, the Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Solution Series software continues to lead the speech recognition category for accuracy and ease of use.

Key Benefits include:

The industry's highest accuracy rate for converting voice to text;
Specialized vocabularies for medical, legal and public safety users (within the market focused products), vocabularies that contain the words, acronyms, and phrases needed to increase accuracy and improve ease of use;
Versatility that enables the software to be used in conjunction with virtually any Windows® -based application;
An extensive vocabulary consisting of over 250,000 words that can be modified to meet a user's particular needs;
Advanced mobile transcription features allowing users to create documents while away from the office, and save created documents with associated voice files for outside transcription, as well as listen to e-mails and other documents that can be read aloud by the software;
Navigation of the Web by voice; and,
Dramatically lower transcription errors as a result of a filtering process that eliminates unintentional utterances such as "uhms" and "ahs."

Pricing, System Requirements and Availability

The Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Solution Series Version 6 software supports dictation in Microsoft® Office, Corel® WordPerfect®, Lotus Notes®, and virtually all Windows®-based applications. Version 6 requires an Intel® Pentium® II /400 MHz processor (or equivalent AMD® processor) or faster, and at least 128 MB RAM is required. A minimum of 300 MB free disk space is needed for installation. In addition, an L&H-certified sound card, CD-ROM drive, and speakers are required. Visit L&H's Web site at www.lhsl.com for the latest hardware compatibility list. An L&H-approved noise-cancelling headset microphone, which is also required, is included.

The Dragon NaturallySpeaking® software has been optimized for a variety of popular processors, including the Intel® Pentium® 4, Pentium® III, Pentium® II, Pentium® with MMX™, Intel® Celeron™, AMD K6®-2, AMD K6®-III with 3DNow!™, and AMD Athlon™, among others.

With respect to the U.S. market, the suggested retail prices for Version 6 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Professional Solutions, Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Medical Solutions, Dragon NaturallySpeaking® Legal Solutions, and Dragon NaturallySpeaking Public Safety Solutions software are $695.00, $995.00, $995.00 and $795.00, respectively.

The products will be available in the coming weeks through Value Added Resellers (VARs) across the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. In the U.S., the products are directly available from L&H by calling 800-443-7077, or visiting www.lhsl.com/naturallyspeaking/. Each product includes software on a CD-ROM, documentation, and a noise-canceling microphone.