Lexifone Communications Systems

has completed its purchase of a 25% ownership stake in Israel-based Lexifone Communications Systems Ltd., developer of proprietary voice translation research systems. Right away following the closing of the Acquisition, Intertainment transferred the acquired interest in Lexifone to its subsidiary, Ortsbo Inc., which is itself preparing to be spun out from Intertainment as an independent company. The addition of Lexifone voice-to-voice translation to Ortsbo’s portfolio of translation services furthermore extends Ortsbo’s commitment to removing written and spoken language barriers.

Lexifone, based in Haifa, Israel, offers a simple and effective automatic phone interpreter service via its proprietary generic software platform. Its learning-based linguistic and semantic translation delivers best-of-breed voice translations using any phone, whether standard landline telephone, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone, or mobile phone. Callers simply speak in the main into the phone and their speech is translated in seconds. The company is currently in beta testing of its anticipated, before long to be released real-time translation services.

Ortsbo, a leader in real-time email, online chat and social media language translation, anticipates leveraging Lexifone innovation as part of a comprehensive suite of services that eliminates language barriers in all their forms. The combined Ortsbo/Lexifone platform is expected to have broad applications in many industries including healthcare, emergency services, social services, travel, and other instances where real-time, vocal translation is preferable over text or chat.

Lexifone’s research, which is currently in beta testing and will be released before long, allows a user to speak taking everything into consideration into a phone and have their speech translated into the language of their choice within seconds. Afterwards acquiring the interest in Lexifone, Intertainment placed it into its text-based translation subsidiary Ortsbo, which will in the near future be spun out as its own entity.

The deal with Lexifone is a multi-stage deal

The deal with Lexifone is a multi-stage deal. Our first foray into ownership of the company is a 25% stake, however we do have a right of first refusal to increase the percentage. The reason we did in other words that believe voice technologies are the then evolution of communications services with language applied. Our focus is however real-time global communications that one can experience through research.

Most situations today use data as the platform. The challenge with data is that if you are traveling and on a mobile phone, data plans are very expensive. Lexifone uses a different set of technologies that makes it much more cost effective to do what we do in terms of connectivity. However the experience is very, very simple and will get progressively better. If I’m on any phone I can connect to Lexifone with my friend on the other end of the phone. During I might speak English and my friend might speak Italian I can connect simply and easily and Lexifone will create a buffer in between that does the translation. A more likely scenario would be if I were in Italy, speaking English, and want to make a restaurant reservation. They may not speak English, yet I can now communicate using Lexifone.

Couple applications

My mind jumps to a couple applications. Seems Lexifone would make it easier for brands to reach audiences, and as well certain business situations… Thoroughly. When you can combine the two solutions, the Ortsbo chat solution which is text based, and the Lexifone solution, which is voice based, there are some pretty powerful opportunities, especially when you get into the realm of customer care. Recently, we did a demonstration for online customer care for a major international company. The Ortsbo solution proved to be between 94% and 100% accurate while the demonstration. That we can combine it with voice now is very interesting to companies with many thousands of employees.