Nuance's AudioMining technology allows text-based keywords to be used to find and playback speech information at precise locations within audio content. The technology uses Nuance's advanced speaker-independent recognition engine to create XML word, timestamp and meta-data for every word spoken within rich media files. XML speech index data makes the speech information within rich media files visible to text-based Web crawlers and search products, unlocking the information hidden within digital audio files on the Web and within private media archives.

Automatic XML speech indexing eliminates the time and cost associated with manually indexing rich media, enables the indexing of 100% of the speech information within audio files, and integrates with standard text-search products to enable the rapid access to specific audio content. Applications include enabling text-based search and the precise playback of audio within Web search, content management, CRM, media archive applications.

The underlying speech recognition software that AudioMining employs is the same that is used in Dragon NaturallySpeaking. This technology has been proven in the marketplace on hundreds of thousands of machines. AudioMining extends the underlying statistical models that support this recognition engine to scalable server architecture, specifically tailored for use in the production and presentation of streaming media.

There are three main areas involved in producing an indexed solution for our customers.

1. The first step involves the actual indexing of the spoken content. The spoken content is then analyzed and different information, such as the words and their associated timestamps, are extracted.
2. The second step is to place the indexes within the infrastructure currently used to serve up the spoken media. For this infrastructure, the indexes have been added to the solution on an Index Server, to create the media index guide to the site's media archive for all browsing clients looking to access that media.
3. The third step is to provide the browsing and search components that allow a client to interact with the index to each piece of media. These components allow the user to find and play just the segments of the media that matches their search request. Through the client's native browser, these tools are presented to the client as part of standard html web pages.

AudioMining XML speech index data can be integrated with standard search and index products, adding text-based search and precise playback capabilities to content management products from FileNET®, Microsoft®, and Oracle®. The system can also enhance CRM, call center and other enterprise investments with support for XML speech indexing.