FTW builds multimodal mobile applications using Kirusa's Industry Leading Multimodal Solution

Kirusa's Open standards-based multimodal solution provides the foundation for FTW's work on next generation mobile applications that combine voice, text, graphics and touch

Vienna, Austria, and Edison, NJ – June 28, 2004: Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien (FTW), the premier telecommunications research institute in Austria, and Kirusa, the world’s leading provider of multimodal infrastructure solutions, today announced that FTW will use Kirusa’s Multimodal Solutions in its research program on mobile multimodal user interfaces. The research program, funded by leading carriers and information technology providers in Austria, involves building and showcasing several multimodal applications for delivery on a wide range of mobile devices on 2.5G and 3G wireless networks.

FTW’s MONA project (Mobile multimOdal Next generation Applications, mona.ftw.at) is funded by Kapsch CarrierCom AG, Mobilkom Austria AG and Siemens Österreich AG together with the Austrian competence centre programme Kplus. The project is showcasing the value of multimodality in a messaging application, called MONA@Work, and in a multi user real-time game, MONA@Play. Consumers can entertain themselves on their phones with a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” style MONA@Play, while enterprise customers can manage email, voicemail, SMS, and MMS with MONA@Work.

“Kirusa’s multimodal technology is a central pillar in our vision for a new class of exciting and user-friendly applications in mobile communications. Having Kirusa as a partner enables us to focus on research issues such as device-independent multimodal authoring and conversational speech recognition that come into view once a powerful multimodal infrastructure using Kirusa’s servers is in place”, said Georg Niklfeld, project manager of the MONA project at FTW.

Enabling wireless carriers, service providers, and enterprises to offer applications with integrated voice and visual interfaces, Kirusa’s multimodal solutions allow mobile users to simultaneously or alternatively use voice, text, graphics, keypad, and stylus to interface with wireless services and applications. The solution integrates seamlessly with industry standard technologies such as SMS, WAP, XHTML, VoiceXML, and HTTP, and supports all major mobile networks, including CDMA, CDMA 1x/3x, GSM, GPRS, UMTS, Flash OFDM, WiFi, and others. Enabling compelling multimodal end-user applications on a wide variety of handsets from all major manufacturers – carriers and enterprises offering this dynamic service are able to monetize voice and data applications immediately, leveraging the new smart devices, as well as devices already widely deployed in their networks.

Kirusa’s Circuit Voice multimodal platform, IP Voice Multimodal Platform, and IP Voice Multimodal Clients have been integrated into FTW’s MONA architecture.

“FTW is at the forefront of research into multimodal interfaces for mobile users, and we are pleased to be involved in their projects”, said David Berkley, Chief Scientist of Kirusa. “The results from the MONA project will prove invaluable in delivering revenue generating mobile applications to consumers and enterprises.” 

About FTW

Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien (ftw., Telecommunications Research Center Vienna) is the joint research center of the leading players in business and science responsible for developing telecommunications in Austria. It brings together departments from Vienna University of Technology, several well-known telecommunications companies, some smaller enterprises, the Austrian Research Center Seibersdorf and the Association of the Electrotechnical and Electronics Industry. The expertise accumulated at ftw. makes it the primary address for Austrian telecom companies, as well as one of the leading institutions worldwide for application-oriented research in telecommunications.

For more information about ftw. please visit www.ftw.at.

About Kirusa

Kirusa is one of the leading global developers of Mobile Social Media and Value Added Services enabling mobile subscribers to reach out to their family and friends. Kirusa’s solutions include the hugely successful Kirusa Voice SMS service, the world’s most advanced Voice SMS solution, used by over 30 carriers around the world. Kirusa has pioneered a suite of social media applications that facilitate mobile subscribers to interact through voice, including the Call-n-Tweet application which helps users update their Twitter status using voice. Kirusa provides an open platform with APIs to enable third parties to offer mobile applications services to mobile subscribers. Used by mobile subscribers millions of times daily, Kirusa solutions are built on its patented and patent pending technology and its highly reliable and scalable open multimodal platform. Kirusa has been recognized as one of top 100 technology companies by Silicon India, and one of top 25 emerging technology companies by Smart Techie magazine. Headquartered in New Jersey and led by an experienced team of wireless telecom executives and technologists, Kirusa has offices in three continents. ‘Kirusa Voice SMS,’ is a trademark of Kirusa, Inc.

For more information visit: www.kirusa.com.

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