Ericsson, InterDigital boost Hypervoice effort

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and InterDigital joined the four-month-old Hypervoice Consortium, which aims to set standards for morphing regular voice communications into native Web objects that are searchable, shareable and linkable.

According to the group, Hypervoice conversations can be initiated from within any digital communication channel such as Facebook or Twitter, CRM systems or instant messenger. Standard actions such as note-taking, assigning tasks or sharing slides create metadata for the recorded audio, while new behaviors, such as tagging a conversation with important information, enable new kinds of workflow.

The consortium was announced at the WebRTC conference in November 2012 and also counts as members Telefonica Digital, HarQen, Voxeo Labs and Martin Geddes Consulting. HarQen demonstrated the first Hypervoice application in October 2012, when it added Hypervoice conversations as a service to Oracle Social Network.

"There is an opportunity to develop new voice communications technologies, applications and standards for rich media voice as another rich application delivered over wireless broadband networks," said Jim Nolan, InterDigital's executive vice president of research and development.

"People still have the need to speak to each other, so voice services are important. And with Hypervoice it is no longer one-dimensional--voice becomes searchable, reusable assets. We see opportunities for Hypervoice, along with other communications channels, creating a new generation of services and apps that provide great user experiences, potentially beyond even in-person meetings," said Tracy Isacke, head of Silicon Valley and director of investments and global partnerships at Telefonica.

For more:
- see this Hypervoice Consortium release

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