ArkX Labs’ EveryWordTM Far-field Voice Selected for Research Study by PNI Faculty

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ArkX Laboratories, a leading provider of far-field voice capture technology, announced that its EveryWord™ Development Kit was chosen to be part of research conducted by Princeton Professor of Psychology and Research Uri Hasson as part of Wellcome Leap’s First 1000 Days research initiative to promote healthy brain development for newborn children. The project focuses on the early stages of life, when children develop critical cognitive abilities, such as executive function (EF) and self-regulation. Professor Hasson is deploying the EveryWord speech recognition technology to quantitatively assess infant sensorimotor and social interactions in real world settings. The goal is to create a large database consisting of the (densely sampled) visual and auditory stimuli that surround babies during their first 1,000 days of life.

The study deploys video cameras and EveryWord’s audio collection capability into 20 homes of the families participating in the study to collect data on caregiver/child interactions. The EveryWord solution was selected for the study based on its effectiveness to filter out extraneous noises typical in the home environment while still capturing even the subtlest utterances between mother and baby.

“The ability of ArkX Labs' EveryWord™ technology to capture audio utterances with accuracy and clarity in multiple residential environments made it the right choice for our research project,” said Uri Hasson, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. “And the ArkX Labs team was able to create a custom software integration that converted the captured audio stream into a format easily consumable by our video partner. This software allowed perfect synchronization of far-field audio capture of all utterances in the covered rooms with video recordings.”

Hasson added, “ArkX has really been great partner through the entire project by providing the support we need to ensure the project’s success.”

Scott Wiley, ArkX Labs VP of Sales and Marketing, added, “We are very excited to be part of a project that will benefit early child development in such a profound way. While this is a unique use case, the fact that we performed so well in the rigorous and challenging trials speaks volumes about the versatility and capability of the EveryWord™ technology.”

The EveryWord Ultra portfolio consists of an Audio Front End (AFE) Voice Processing Module, an Integrated Voice Module (SOM + Audio Board w/AFE), integrated into the AVS Development Kit qualified by Amazon Voice Service (AVS). The advanced audio and voice technology enable enhanced human-to-machine speech recognition and superior performance for OEMs and start-ups who want to bring their voice-enabled smart products and devices to market.

EveryWord outperforms other existing OEM solutions by capturing voice commands from three times (3X) the standard distance of competitors’ offerings, around corners, and in noisy and reverbrative environments. Additionally, EveryWord technology provides the unique ability to identify and suppress speech from TV or other competing single-point noise sources. ArkX solutions are production-ready and pre-qualified by Amazon Voice Service (AVS) to mitigate risk, reduce development costs and accelerate time-to-market.

ArkX Labs recently launched its voice control capabilities, featuring Sensory technology, for creating custom wake-word and command set to enable branded voice experiences.

ArkX Laboratories is a joint venture between product development pioneer Surfaceink and consumer electronics manufacturer Ark Electronics USA, created to bring an exceptional voice experience to the marketplace.