Loquendo, the international leading speech technology and services company, have equipped "Fila Tri", the tri-hull with which Giovanni Soldini will take part in the "Jacques Vabre" transoceanic sailing-race, with a speech apparatus interfaced with some of the navigating instruments on board.

Valentina, Loquendo's speech device, is equipped with water resistant microphoned headphones, thanks to which the navigator will be enabled to communicate with the automatic pilot, developing navigation systems performances. Thus Valentina becomes a precious virtual assistant that by means of a synthetic voice will promptly "obey any order" and will enable Giovanni Soldini to give improvised voice commands, at any time and in any position of the boat, such as "veer left" to adjust the course of the tri-hull, or even "navigation lights", to switch on and off the mast navigation lights.

To solve recognition problems due to background noises, Loquendo "trained" the speech system, recording the voice commands pronounced by Giovanni Soldini and integrating this voice model with Valentina's speech recognition platform.

Loquendo is the speech technology provider within technologically advanced navigating systems supplied by Telecom Italia Lab.

With Loquendo's technology even the solo voyage-skipper will no longer be alone. A virtual helmsman will always be at his orders at any time. Just use the voice!