New voice recognition-based identification, verification and payment system for school cafeterias

(11/12/2006)

CellMax Systems Ltd. and point-of-sale (POS) system producer PCS Revenue Control Systems, Inc., have announced the joint development of a rapid, voice recognition-based identification, verification and payment system for school cafeterias. The system, which will be piloted in Q1 2007, has an initial potential market of 800 U.S. school districts.

The system provides a practical, non-intrusive solution to the logistical challenges faced every day by school facilities managers – tracking meal accountability, enhancing student per minute processing time and increasing line speed – all to ensure kids get the meals they’re entitled to, and get them fast. It also circumvents several major technological roadblocks previously posed to voice biometrics by the lunchroom set: rowdiness (background noise) and sudden voice change (affecting false acceptance/rejection rates).

Simply by saying a name and student number, students’ account data and photo come up on the food server’s screen, they are charged automatically, and the right lunch is placed before them. The system integrates CellMax Systems’ next-generation, non-intrusive, physical biometric technology into all POS terminals offered by PCS. CellMax Systems’ natural speech-based VioMetrics™ solution will be added to PCS’ existing cardless ID product range, which includes picture roster, numeric keypad, fingerprint and/or barcode scanner.

More than 8,000 school systems with over 30,000 PCS Points of Sale have been installed in over 800 small, medium, large, and major city school districts throughout the U.S.

Israel Ronn, CEO of CellMax Systems, said, “Instead of relying on present-generation methods such as swipe ID cards, cash or tokens that get lost or stolen, personal identification (PIN) numbers that are forgotten or used by others, or fingerprint scanning which has a lower rate of accuracy, we provide a highly accurate, low-cost, hardware-free solution. Our solution is software only – it’s flexible and more easily deployed.”

David Yaniv, General Manager of PCS Revenue Control Systems, said, “PCS revolutionized school meal programs across the nation in 1986, when the Federal Government invited it to offer accountability solutions to the National School Lunch and Nutrition Act. The joint solution with CellMax Systems continues our principle of making life easier for thousands of business managers, food service directors, cashiers and cafeteria staff, principals, students – and parents, too.”

The solution has also overcome the particular challenges posed by the school lunchroom environment, explained CellMax Systems CTO Ziv Barzilay. “Our technology filters out background noise. If a child or parent is phoning in, it can support and authenticate input over landline, VoIP and we’ve even managed to overcome cellular phone distortion. It also ‘learns’ constantly, adapting to gradual voiceprint changes, and even dramatic ones, like an adolescent’s voice breaking.”

Sales of licenses will commence immediately after the initial commercial rollout in July 2007. CellMax Systems and PCS plan to launch the system first in the U.S., followed by Latin America and Asia.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Related topics:  Access Control   Biometric Systems   Security market sectors 

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