Yahoo Accused of Stealing Trade Secrets - interactive speech technology project - voice powered web search
Update 2: Yahoo Accused of Stealing Trade Secrets - Forbes.com: "Yahoo Accused of Stealing Trade SecretsA Silicon Valley technology company is suing Yahoo Inc. for allegedly stealing trade secrets by hiring away 13 key engineers who had nearly completed its interactive speech technology project.
Nuance Communications Inc. said it would ask a Santa Clara County judge Friday to block Yahoo from allowing the engineers to work on the technology it intended to market to Yahoo and other Internet companies.
The California case concerns voice recognition technology that Nuance says was at least 75 percent complete before its vice president of research and development, Larry Heck, took a job at Santa Clara-based Yahoo. About a dozen Nuance engineers on the project followed him to Yahoo this month, leading Nuance to conclude that Yahoo is attempting to swipe its technology...
The technology at issue is called Nuance Directory Assistance Automation, which allows phone users to get information, such as phone listings, without speaking to a person.
Nuance says the technology is relevant as cell phones and Internet telephony are merging in some of the hottest technological crazes. Internet auction site eBay Inc., for example, is acquiring Skype, a free computer-to-computer phone service, for more than $2 billion.
Nuance said that one day its voice technology could enable users to search the Web with their voices instead of typing on a keyboard."
posted by Jen @ 5:51 am
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