TURIN, Italy, and AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands - Loquendo, the global speech technology company, and TomTom, a leading provider of solutions for personal and in-car navigation, today announced the integration of Loquendo's multi-lingual Automotive Text-to-Speech Solution with TomTom's new flagship product, the TomTom GO 910.

The TomTom GO 910 is TomTom's top of the line, feature-rich, all-in-one portable navigation device. It has been developed specifically to meet the needs of TomTom's most demanding customers. Building on the strengths that have made TomTom devices so popular, the new TomTom GO 910 includes hundreds of features and software improvements such as route choice, re-route calculation and itinerary planning, making it even easier to navigate from A to B.

Loquendo offers a high quality, multi-lingual portfolio of speech technologies, including the Loquendo Automotive Solution that has been integrated by TomTom into its GO 910 navigator. This solution, combining lifelike, embedded text-to-speech software and pre-recorded prompts, gives the user intelligible and natural-sounding instructions and information in the language of their choice. It also reads aloud SMS messages using Loquendo's unique Expressive TTS, rendering messages ever more personal and pleasing to listen to. The Loquendo embedded software currently supports 18 languages from around the world with 40 different voice personas, and the language portfolio is constantly expanding.

"It is exciting to think that drivers right across the globe will be pleasantly and safely driven to their destinations by our synthetic voices" says Paolo Coppo, VP of Business Development. "We expect drivers to greatly appreciate the advantages of having more detailed voice prompts, including street names and POIs, as well as the reading of SMS messages, by the voice of their choice during their journey. The 'expressive' features of our technology can create the illusion of being escorted by a digital travelling companion."

"The Text-to-Speech functionality brings further personalisation and ease of use to the ground breaking TomTom GO 910," said Harold Goddijn, TomTom's chief executive officer. "We're pleased to work with Loquendo to enable street names and places to be read aloud in 8 languages as part of the spoken instruction of the TomTom GO 910. We think this feature, that can also enable SMS messages to be read aloud from the GO, will be a big hit with our consumers."

About TomTom
TomTom NV is a leading provider of personal navigation products and services. TomTom's products are developed with an emphasis on innovation, quality, ease of use and value.

TomTom's products include all-in-one navigation devices which enable customers to navigate right out of the box; these are the award-winning TomTom GO family, the TomTom ONE and the TomTom RIDER. TomTom also provides navigation software products which can be integrated with third party devices; the TomTom NAVIGATOR software for PDA's and TomTom MOBILE navigation software for smart phones. TomTom PLUS is the location-based content and services device for TomTom's navigation products. TomTom WORK combines industry leading communication and smart navigation technology with leading edge tracking and tracing expertise. TomTom was founded in 1991 in Amsterdam and has offices in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the United States of America, Australia, China and Taiwan. TomTom's products are sold through a network of leading retailers in 20 countries, and online.

About Loquendo - Vocal Technology and Services
Loquendo is a global speech-technologies leader with over 30 years of R&D experience in the field of advanced voice processing techniques. It provides a complete range of best-in-breed products such as:

• Loquendo Text-to-Speech (TTS), that converts text into lifelike spoken audio.
• Loquendo Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine, that reliably recognizes continuous speech from any speaker, without any prior training.
• Loquendo Speaker Verification technology, that uses the voiceprint as a biometric to ascertain an individual's identity.

Loquendo has developed specific line products for embedded environments, which make high quality TTS and ASR available for products such as fixed and mobile phones, PDAs, car navigators, etc.

Loquendo has also recently created a specific solution for in-car mobile phone and navigation devices, closely tailored to the sector's specific needs, boosting the technology's quality and performance.

For more information, visit www.loquendo.com.