The Pantech Group, the second largest mobile phone company in South Korea, has agreed to use Nuance Communications' RealSpeak Mobile SF to power its PG-6200, PG-8000 and PG-3700 mobile phones in multiple languages, including Russian, English and Mandarin.
RealSpeak is a text-to-speech engine designed to accurately convert text into clear, synthesized speech, delivering high-quality readings of SMS and e-mail messages.
The products are already available in Russia and Taiwan.
"We believe this partnership with Nuance Communications will add a significant edge both to our handsets and our ability to roll out new products in different parts of the world," said Tae Hyun Jung, vice president of Pantech's R&D planning division, in a prepared statement.
The company's goal, he continued, "is to selectively increase the scope of our service in a number of key markets, and being able to provide handsets that are fully functional in local languages will be integral to this process."