New Voice Chip Signals Talking Magazine Ads
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Texas Instruments has found a unique way to show off its latest
speech-synthesis chip: a "talking" magazine ad. Certain editions
of the October 20 issue of Business Week include a four-page
insert from TI. When you open the insert and remove a label
covering a tiny white button, you hear a 15-second message of a
male voice speaking the ad copy printed on the page.
 
The electronic message is delivered by a credit-card-size module,
the brains of which is TI's new TSP50C10 chip. Three
calculator-type batteries allow you to play the talking ad some
650 times through a one-inch piezoelectric speaker embedded in
the module.
 
Just another marketing gimmick? Not exactly. TI expects its new
50C10 chip to "launch a new category of talking product," namely,
the talking advertisement. As TI sees it, the low-priced 50C10 is
the ideal communications tool for magazine advertising, direct
mail, and point-of-sale displays. Talking ads could become cost
effective, TI says, because the new chip costs buyers less than
$2 each in high volume (one-million piece quantities). Also, TI
expects the 50C10 to be used in more traditional speech
applications, such as toys.
 
According to TI spokesperson Martha Brounoff, several toy,
learning-aid, and answering machine manufacturers currently are
designing the 50C10 chip into new products. She declined to name
specific companies, however.
 
The 50C10 CMOS chip offers better sound quality, uses less
energy, costs less, and is some 40 percent smaller than TI's
previous-generation speech chip, the 50C40, TI claims. The
50C10 can execute up to 600,000 instructions per second and
perform 61 instructions. It's RAM storage has a capacity of
sixteen 12-bit words and 112 bytes. It synthesizes speech at
an 8- or 10-kilohertz sample rate, producing telephone-quality
speech. The chip also has 8K bytes of ROM for storing program
instructions and speech data.
 
For several years now manufacturers have added high-quality
speech synthesis to consumer products priced at $50 or more, but
it hasn't been cost effective below that price point. TI thinks
the $2 price of the 50C10 will enable many OEMs to add speech
capabilities to products that retail for as little as $10.
 
We cringe at the thought of talking magazine ads or talking junk
mail. No one wants a yapping Ed McMahon in their mailbox. But the
TI chip could have some useful applications. Imagine software
packages that tell you how to install them. Or VCRs that tell you
how to adjust their timers. The concept has us almost, well,
speechless.
 
Contact: Texas Instruments, Semiconductor Group, P.O. Box
809066, Dallas, TX 75380-9066; (800) 232-3200
 
                              --- BYTEWeek Staff
 
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