Vocera’s Wireless Voice Communicator

Vocera have developed a wireless voice communicator, worn around your neck, that provides push-to-talk calls and voice recognition via wi-fi.

The communicator itself is tiny – 4.2” x 1.4”, because there’s just not much to the the device itself. To achieve the functionality, system is in two parts: the communicator badge, and the server side software that does all the hard work like recognising speech. Text messages and alerts can also be sent to the device – and read from the LCD on the back.

Vocera are concentrating on health care applications – the ease of use for the Voice Communicator and cost savings make it idea for deployment in hospitals, and it offers far more features than a pager.

Vocera’s voice communication system

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Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?