ECTACO Inc. (East-Coast Trading American Company Incorporated) is a US-based developer and manufacturer of hardware and software products for
speech recognition and electronic translation. They also make
jetBook eBook readers
An e-reader, also called an e-book reader or e-book device, is a mobile electronic device that is designed primarily for the purpose of reading digital e-books and periodicals.
Any device that can display text on a screen may act as an e-read ...
.
Speech recognition technologies
ECTACO is one of the first developers of speech recognition technologies in the field of electronic translation. The speech recognition technologies developed by ECTACO in cooperation with the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Adv ...
are used by such international organizations as
NATO,
United Nations and
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), such state institutions of the US as
United States Army,
FBI,
United States Department of Homeland Security,
Social Security Administration,
United States Secret Service, Department of Health Services,
United States Postal Service, New York Hospitals etc. The cooperation with US institutions was especially active in 2004-2006. ECTACO devices were also used in the
War in Iraq.
The speech recognition system developed by ECTACO allowed troops as well as other US governmental institutions to communicate with non-English-speaking communities, especially in conflict regions. The technology made it possible to translate not only the outgoing message but the incoming one as well, with no dependence of the quality of the translation on the speech particularities of an individual speaker – a service not provided by other companies in the segment of the time.
Report
Technologies used by US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan
Founding
ECTACO was founded in autumn of 1989 in New York, USA, by David Lubinitsky
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
, who was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The company was functioning at that time mainly as a reseller of electronic dictionaries of other manufacturers. In 1990 ECTACO started to develop its own hardware and software. Russian- and Polish-speaking immigrants in the USA became the primary commercial target group for the products of the company. The first electronic dictionaries of ECTACO supported translation between Russian ↔ English, Polish ↔ English and later German ↔ English language pairs.
Developing centers
In 1998 a software developing center of ECTACO was opened in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The center developed software for app. 300 models with support of 47 languages and started to develop speech recognition software in 2000. The first commercial device of ECTACO with speech recognition appeared on the market in 2002. With cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency the company launched production of the first multi-lingual translation device with ASR (Advanced Speech Recognition).
The hardware developing center of ECTACO is located in Hong-Kong.
World presence
The headquarters of ECTACO are located in Long Island City, New York. In 1993 ECTACO opened a local representation in Russia (Saint Petersburg and Moscow). Within the next 2 years offices were opened in Germany (Berlin), Great Britain (London), the Czech Republic (Prague), Canada (Toronto), Poland (Warsaw) and Ukraine (Kiev). In 2000 a second US office was opened in Chicago.
Brands
Ectaco has several brands which it uses to break its products into categories.
*iTravl - is aimed at travelers and features multiple languages and speech recognition.
*Lingvosoft - encompasses all the translation software available from Ectaco and is available for multiple platforms including Windows, Palm OS, and Pocket PC
A Pocket PC (P/PC, PPC) is a class of personal digital assistant (PDA) that runs the Windows Mobile or Windows Embedded Compact operating system that has some of the abilities of modern desktop PCs. The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 ...
.
*Partner - this brand houses a general purpose translation dictionary which targets business users and language learners.
*SpeechGuard - is the brand used to market devices to military, police and other government agencies.
* JetBook - a range of eBook readers.
References
External links
ECTACO Inc. – Global Headquarters
JetBooks on the ECTACO Website
JetBook Website
Forbes.com
Russia Takes Advantage of Brain Power at Home
International Herald Tribune
Palm Reading Goes Educational
Wired.com
Pcworld.com
CNN
Patent Storm
* ttp://www.ectaco.com/awards/ ECTACO clients
SpeechGuard Handheld Language Translation
{Dead link, date=August 2019 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes Law & Order Magazine
Air Force Dual-Use Science & Technology Two-Way Voice-to-Voice Translator
Air Force Research Laboratory (PDF-Datei; 524 kB)
Companies established in 1989
Companies based in New York (state)