SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 26, 2006–Fonix Speech Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Fonix Corp. (OTCBB: FNIX) specializing in embedded speech interfaces for mobile devices, handheld electronic products, and systems and processors, announces royalty sales in Asia from Fonix speech solutions for electronic dictionaries exceeded the company’s original forecasts.

Casio Computer Co. Ltd. manufactures and markets a line of electronic dictionaries in Asia that feature Fonix text-to-speech (TTS). Market reaction in the region for handheld dictionaries has exceeded expectations; increased sales can be attributed to additional device models in Japan and the introduction of three new models in Korea. Fonix anticipates supplying more than two million TTS solutions to Casio in 2006. The company receives unit royalties from each device sold.

“Casio has ramped up sales and marketing efforts of its electronic dictionaries to meet increased demand in Japan and Korea,” said Walt Nawrocki, senior VP and GM, Fonix Speech. “Fonix is more than pleased to continue to supply our TTS solution for handheld ‘talking’ dictionaries, a market niche that now provides a significant percentage of Fonix Speech revenue. If trends persist, we anticipate continued success in the region and the opening of new markets around the world.”

About Fonix Speech Inc.

Fonix Speech Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fonix Corp. that currently offers voice technology solutions for mobile/wireless devices; interactive videogames, toys and appliances; computer telephony systems; the assistive market and automotive telematics.

About Fonix

Fonix Corp., based in Salt Lake City, is an innovative communications and technology company that provides integrated telecommunications services and value-added speech technologies through Fonix Telecom Inc., LecStar Telecom Inc. and Fonix Speech Inc. The combination of interactive speech technology and integrated telecommunications services allows Fonix to provide customers with comprehensive cost-effective solutions to enhance and expand their communications needs. Visit www.fonix.com for more information, or call 801-553-6600 and say “Sales.”

Statements released by Fonix that are not purely historical are forward-looking within the meaning of the “Safe Harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the company’s expectations, hopes, intentions and strategies for the future. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainties that may affect the company’s business prospects and performance. The company’s actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Risk factors include general economic, competitive, governmental and technological factors as discussed in the company’s filings with the SEC on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. The company does not undertake any responsibility to update the forward-looking statements contained in this release.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The letter ‘W’ has entered the mainstream of the Swedish language, getting its own section for the first time in the nation’s most respected dictionary.

The few Swedish words that use ‘W’ have generally been borrowed from other languages — such as “watt,” “walkie-talkie” and the “World Wide Web” — and have so far been lumped under the ‘V’ section in dictionaries. In Swedish, ‘V’ and ‘W’ are pronounced the same.

Sweden is called “Sverige” in Swedish, and its language is named “Svenska.”

But the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in literature and whose members are considered the guardians of the Swedish language, decided it was time for ‘W’ to come out of the shadows.

The letter, called “double-v” in Swedish, “can no longer be sorted in under the single ‘V,’ ” the academy said when it introduced the 13th edition of its dictionary last week.

American and British business people who speak English fluently can’t comprehend the difficulty in conversation between them and business people from other countries where English is a second language. Since English is the predominant global language, the Americans and Brits do not have to learn a second language to conduct business; however, in countries where English is not a common language or is not spoken at all exists a problem for these business people. They must learn the language to compete in a global business.

Most Asian people, especially in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, spend a lot of time and money to learn English. This has created a market niche for students and business people overseas who want to learn. One product developed is the electronic dictionary.

In Japan, sales of electronic dictionaries are greater than sales of paper dictionaries. A newspaper in Japan reported that more than 3.3 million electronic dictionaries were sold in Japan last year, and an estimated 10 million were sold throughout Asia. Prices range from the 300 – 600 dollars, making it an expensive item for people who want to learn English. One advantage the electronic dictionary has over a paper dictionary is a larger vocabulary or word bank.

A new trend for high-end models includes talking capabilities. The new electronic dictionary provides exact English pronunciations of native speakers. These models not only speak words, but also full sentences in English, making it a valuable teaching resource for Japanese business people. If they input Japanese words, the electronic dictionary translates and speaks the same meaning in English. The electronics manufacturers are developing other language versions such as Chinese and Korean. The latest electronic dictionaries have a large touch screen with color displays.

Accordingly, the electronic dictionaries consume more devices with larger memories and high-density, multilayer PCBs and flexible circuits for the wiring of the display and high quality speakers in the thin body. The total shipments of these products is much smaller than cellular phones, but it is not negligible for the specific manufacturers.

When the electronic dictionaries learn to listen to speech they could substitute as an interpreter. Manufacturers say this could take more years to develop for commercial use.

Minneapolis (PRWEB) April 24, 2006 — Ultralingua announced today the release of the new Accio Dictionary for iPod, a significant innovation in dictionary software.

“Ultralingua is proud to announce this exciting innovation in language learning reference software. Now users will be able to get common translations when traveling, and even listen to translations of common phrases recorded by native speakers,” said Chad Johnson, Ultralingua General Manager. “The Accio iPod dictionary includes up to 8,000 indexed translations with the vocabulary you need for everyday usage and traveling.”

In addition to the database of common translations, Accio dictionaries for the iPod also include verb conjugation tables for the most commonly used verbs. And in a new twist, the dictionaries include audio files varied by region; for example, customers can chose between European or Latin American dialects in Spanish and Portuguese. Accio dictionaries are available for use with iPods that sync with Macintosh or Windows computers.

The Accio Dictionary for iPod is part of a new brand of dictionaries from Ultralingua for those users who need a simpler, more affordable dictionary for use in reading on their computer or while traveling with their iPod. Accio dictionaries will offer instant access to translations and definitions of the most commonly used words, but will be “lighter” and will have fewer features than standard Ultralingua dictionaries. The company plans releases of versions for Macintosh, Windows, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile later this year.

About Ultralingua Inc.
Ultralingua is a leading provider of dictionaries and grammar and spelling checkers for educators, translators, and business travelers worldwide. The company’s product lines consist of nineteen dictionaries of translation, two monolingual dictionaries, four grammar and spelling checkers, and the Eureka thematic encyclopedia. Ultralingua distributors include McGraw-Hill, Apple Computer, Hachette Multimedia, Handango, PalmGear, and others. Ultralingua is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Accio iPod dictionaries include up to 80,000 indexed entries. The versions for iPod include audio files of common phrases recorded from native speakers. Language pairs include French-English, Spanish-English, Italian-English, Portuguese-English, and German-English.

Products are available for online purchase starting at $19.95, with (with free demos available) at: http://www.acciodictionary.com/. Inquiries and questions should be directed to Chad Johnson, General Manager.

Ultralingua has released the latest iteration of Accio Dictionary for iPod, its language learning reference software for users on-the-go. The update allows users to retrieve common translations when traveling, and provides translations of common phrases recorded by native speakers. The dictionary offers up to 8,000 indexed translations, designed to supply most vocabulary required for everyday usage. Accio dictionaries for iPod include verb conjugation tables for the most commonly used verbs, as well as audio files varied by region. Accio Dictionaries for iPod are priced at $20 each, and require Mac OS X 10.2 or later for installation.

The internet is often criticized for spreading a kind of lowest common denominator English dialect throughout the world, to the detriment of local languages, but it does also allow speakers of other languages to use and develop those languages even when the number of speakers in a particular geographical area might be quite small. It also enables related language speakers to collaborate in ways that would previously have been unrealistic - such as those projects led from a far-flung corner of Wales by Kevin Donnelly.

Donnelly, originally from Northern Ireland, has a doctorate in African languages, and now lives in Llanfairpwll, Anglesey, where he works as a part-time web and Linux consultant. He is well-known in Wales and abroad for establishing Kywaith Kyfieithu in February 2003, a global volunteer effort to translate the Linux KDE desktop into Welsh.

His latest project, Eurfa, a free online Welsh dictionary, is a solo effort which has taken nine months to reach its first release. Now it’s up and running, he’s hoping people will contribute wordlists and develop and refine the dictionary further. Donnelly describes it as: “A stepping-stone to the holy grail of a free Welsh grammar-checker.”

Why is this important, you may ask. Well, although various ‘official’ dictionaries exist, usually with web interfaces, this is the first time that the contents of a Welsh dictionary will be available to download and share under the GPL. This is also the first Welsh dictionary to be based on digital rather than printed resources - all 10,000 base words in this initial release of Eurfa have been compiled, captured and edited by Donnelly from scratch, based on the content of texts on the internet.

Most importantly, especially for learners, Eurfa is the first dictionary in any Celtic language to include inflected verb forms, along with mutated forms of both base words and verb inflections. There are over 400,000 of these secondary forms in this initial release, dwarfing the 10,000 base words.

Eurfa will form the basis of the Welsh spelling and grammar checker that Donnelly is working on now - a port of Professor Kevin Scannell’s Irish original, Gramadóir. This will be the first ever GPL grammar-checker for Welsh, and an initial version should be available by the late summer.

The Eurfa site also has two little demo apps - Rhymer, which produces a list of rhyming words, and Translist, which does multiple lookups on a piece of English text, and produces a “sort-of” first attempt at a translation. The latter is limited at present, but Donnelly hopes that more work on this front in the future might lead first to a Welsh-English auto-translator, and then an English-Welsh one.

Source - http://www.pingwales.co.uk/2006/04/18/eurfa.html

Every third-grader in Mansfield now has a brand new, age-appropriate dictionary, compliments of the Mansfield Elks Club.

The Elks went out and purchased about 390 dictionaries at approximately $4 per book. The dictionaries are personal gifts to the current third-graders, and the children can keep them as special keepsakes as they head into fourth grade, rather than turning them in at the end of the school year.

The bright yellow dictionary, entitled “The Best Dictionary for Students” is an easy-to-read dictionary which offers brief definitions of each word, making it very user-friendly for its 8- and 9-year-old recipients.

Judy Blackader, Malcolm Smith, and Diane Owens, all officers of the Mansfield Elks Club, were on hand at Tuesday night’s School Committee meeting to formalize the gift.

In return, Kate Kristenson and Kathy Podesky, co-principals of the Jordan/Jackson Elementary School, presented them with personal thank-you letters from many of the children, as well as a framed picture.

Blackader said that across the country, chapters of the Elks Club had begun giving books to entire grades of kids several years ago, and nationwide, more than two million books have been distributed. The project was first started by a woman in South Carolina in 1995, she said. In many cases, the dictionary was the first and only book that some children could call their own.

Smith said that, in Massachusetts, the statewide president of the Elks had been a teacher, and that had also been an impetus in getting the Elks involved in the contribution to schoolchildren.

The Mansfield Elks plan to make this the first of an annual donation of dictionaries to the town’s third- graders, so the current second-graders can look forward to their special book next year.

Blackader said that she would like to find books with more “civics” - specific information about how the government works - for next year’s donation.

“This is an important project for literacy and for children,” Blackader said.

BURBANK — Third-graders across the Burbank Unified School District left school on Friday one book heavier.

The Burbank Elks Lodge provided each third-grader with a new, blue student dictionary to use in school and at home — a book that will help them explore words, planets and even a comprehensive list of national flags.

For all this, the students have bingo to thank.

“People don’t know why we’re playing bingo,” said Charlene Peale, who worked to raise the money through the Burbank Elk’s Lodge’s Monday-night bingo games. “All of that money goes back to buying library books or supporting our Boy Scout troup.”

Peale and other members of the Elks Lodge resurrected bingo after a nearly six-year hiatus in order to fund the purchase of more than 1,100 student dictionaries geared toward third-graders.

“We usually don’t get things that the kids can keep,” said Joel Shapiro, assistant superintendent of instructional services.

In books they can own and keep, students are free to highlight words of interest, tag pages and write additional information in the margins, Shapiro said.

The push to provide the dictionaries to third-graders came from a national Elks Lodge program, Peale explained.

“Elks clubs across the nation are trying to do the same thing,” she said. “We’re all trying to put dictionaries in the hands of students.”

The club first had to get the dictionary they would be distributing to the students approved by the Burbank Unified School District Board of Education. Once approved, the Elks looked to raising money and resurrecting bingo.

“It’s all word of mouth,” Peale said. “We have to get people knowing that we’re doing (bingo).”

The Elks chose to support third-graders with the belief that the third grade is the first year students really start needing it.

“We learned to use dictionaries in second grade,” said 8-year-old Brandyn Barillas, flipping over his new dictionary. “This is going to take me years to finish.”

The dictionaries selected will also serve the students for a few years, said third-grade teacher Kate Scanlan.

“The children’s dictionaries we have are often limited,” Scanlan said. “The adult dictionaries we have here are huge and it’s not like we can have kids cart them back and forth.”

Elena Lopez, 8, plans to keep her dictionary with her at school and at home.

“You use them to look for words that are really long,” she said.

The most definitive reference to the English language is now instantly available to students, scholars, writers, business professionals, government workers, bloggers and word lovers with a passion for reading and writing.

WordGenius today launched the electronic edition of The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, published for users of Microsoft Windows on CD-ROM and also available via fast download from http://www.wordgenius.com for $49.95.

Designed for use at the office, school and by the entire family, the electronic editions of the world’s best-selling hardcover and paperback dictionaries are essential tools for students and scholars, who study ancient documents one minute and surf the Web the next; for writers of poems, resumes, homework assignments, technical journals, presentations, proposals or government regulations; for journalists, whether they cover toll roads or technology; and for government and business professionals, who need to communicate clearly, whether face-to-face, fax-to-fax, or email to email.

“This is more than a complete reference library on your computer,” said Alfred Papallo, president of WordGenius, which publishes the CD-ROM and download editions under license from Random House.

“This is a powerful productivity tool for all who read and write on a PC,” said Papallo. “The language of literature, the terms in your textbooks, the arts of law and medicine, the nuances in your newspaper — they are all here, instantly available, whether or not you are connected to the Web, guaranteed to help you communicate and write more effectively, to comprehend more, and to extend your vocabulary.”

WordGenius takes the Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary beyond the factual and encyclopedic features of the print edition, powering the CD-ROM and download editions with award-winning eComPress electronic publishing technology. eComPress delivers viewing options for visually-impaired users, drag and drop facilities when working with all Windows applications, and a range of tools to search both 315,000 “headwords” and all the definitions for those 315,000 entries.

Unmatched by any print or Web-based dictionary, the WordGenius edition of the Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary also delivers a unique “drag-on” tool. Drag-on instantly pops on screen to display a definition after a user highlights a word in a Web page or Windows application, then drags that word to the icon that the dictionary adds to the Windows desktop. Users may resize the drag-on icon, replace it with an alternative, position it anywhere on screen, and more.

For students learning English and anyone exploring the dynamic complexities of language, WordGenius also brings to life recorded pronunciations, phoneme by phoneme, and lightning fast powerful search capabilities. For example, users may solve crosswords by doing what no print dictionary does — search any string of wildcard characters to find bizarre words like p?mmy and av???dup??s, and by Boolean operators such as &(AND) or |(OR), etc.

The more than 315,000 entries range from b2b and spam to hottie and identity theft, from WML to body piercing to Megan’s Law, from law, medicine and computers to art, history and world geography; etymologies, including dates to show when terms entered the language; important and famous people, historical events, major works of literature, music and art; names and abbreviations of academic, governmental, social and fraternal organizations; popular names; common abbreviations; and current place names that reflect recent political and geographical changes.

Students, scholars, writers, business professionals, government workers, bloggers and word lovers using Windows may securely purchase and download the dictionaries from WordGenius at www.wordgenius.com or Download.com; purchase the College edition on CD-ROM from Best Buy, J&R Electronics and Costco; or order from Amazon.com. CD-ROMs are also available from AcademicSuperstore.com, Campus Tech, CCV Software, Studica.com, and Torcomp.com. Site licenses for organizations with multiple users are available by contacting info@eis-usa.com or calling 888 234 9823.

WordGenius also publishes the electronic editions of the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, $19.95.

The CD-ROM and download editions of both dictionaries are sold under license and developed for Random House by WordGenius, a division of Eurofield Information Solutions, www.eis-usa.com, using their proprietary award winning eComPress electronic publishing technology. eComPress technologies provide efficient permanent bit compression, unique encoding, exhaustive indexing and powerful annotation for medical journals, service manuals and large reference publications from the World Health Organization, International Monetary Fund, John Wiley, Macmillan and the International Accounting Standards Board, among others.

Leon the Milkman of www.LeontheMilkman.com is a true innovator in the dairy industry. He is proving this again by bringing out a dairy dictionary. Yes, you read that right!

He says that people keep on asking him the same questions. Answering all the questions almost made him late in delivering the milk early mornings. This milkman from South Africa is serious about his job.

Thus he decided to put together a glossary of dairy and related food terms that amount to twenty three pages. The document is available in PDF format from www.Dairy-Info.org for registered members. Registration is free.

Both of the above mentioned sites spread the good word about dairy and Leon the Milkman is intent on giving objective information to consumers and to dairy industry workers.

Leon says that he is not happy with all the negative publicity the dairy industry and milk is getting lately. He says that he is available to do talks, but is not interested in talking to argumentative people who have no intent to listen to another person’s point of view, especially so when facts are presented to back up valid claims. Although it is to be sure that research is not the end-all and there is biased research out there we must certainly be able to see both sides before making judgment.

On the dairy dictionary the milkman says that he thinks there will shortly be a huge trend towards niche dictionaries and that people that get into this market now will prosper.

A certain amount of credibility comes from producing a quality product that is practical to use in everyday business.

There is so much info going round, but branded niche dictionaries are up to now an unmined marketing technique. As technology grows and people learn new things everyday, a dictionary is a very fast and efficient way of absorbing and conveying a huge amount of information on a topic. This method of learning fits in well with the speed of modern living and enables anybody to quickly gather a load of information. Applying this thinking to a niche will leverage the concept even more.

With niches being so specific and being split up even more every day the scope for this idea is huge.

Leon says that he will update the dictionary from time to time and is thinking of adding pictures as well, but for now he hopes to get the dictionary on as many computers as possible. The dictionary is compact enough to print and keep as a reference as well. He also wants users of the dictionary to suggest words and terms for the next updated issues. By distributing the dictionary to the primary and secondary dairy industry he hopes to make it as complete as possible, using their feedback. Consumers are also more than welcome to contact Leon with suggestions by registering with www.Dairy-Info.org.

Source - http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb369757.htm