Recommended headsets: theBoom “O”, theBoom “C”, theBoom “E”, theBoom Quiet

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How financial markets are using theBoom

theBoom headsets are now being used to communicate clearly, quickly and effectively in noisy and mission-critical trading floors where other microphones fail :

• - theBoom "E" on ASCOM units at CBOT
• - theBoom “O” and "E" at NY Mercantile Exchange
• - theBoom "E" at CME

theBoom’s Wall Street Legacy

theBoom’s unique, patented technology was forged in the fire of extremely noisy environments of Wall Street trading floors. We, the creators of theBoom (UmeVoice, Inc.), were developing speech recognition software for Wall Street traders. We faced two major challenges:

Highly Noisy Environment: As anyone who has used speech recognition software knows, background noise is highly undesirable. For that matter, anyone who has used a phone to exchange critical information in real time knows how detrimental background noise can be.

Mission Critical Environment: In addition, anyone that has worked in or even visited a trading floor of a stock exchange knows how noisy the environment is. They would also know how high-pressure and stress-ridden the activities can be. The activities often include transactions involving very large sums of money, making them extremely mission-critical. This meant that the speech recognition application would have to be extremely accurate in order to add value to the traders’ activities.

A solution was required that allowed us to get very high speech recognition accuracy in such environments. Software engineering and linguistic expertise only got us so far towards acceptable accuracy. We had to have a solution that reduced background noise effectively in order to get the accuracy up to acceptable levels.

How theBoom’s technology was invented

We explored all the commercially available solutions for noise cancellation but none of them gave us acceptable speech recognition performance. Our scientists tackled this problem and invented an innovative acoustic solution that was effective even in very high noise environments (such as Blackhawk helicopter noise, Jet engine noise, Wall street trading floor noise). This solution was initially incorporated into telephone handsets which were connected to phone systems as well as desktop computer systems on trading floors. We achieved remarkable levels of success with this solution, obtaining very clear audio even in noise levels of 100 dB. Using our noise cancelling technology, Wall Street traders were able to communicate clearly from these noisy environments without having to repeat themselves and with dramatically reduced levels of transmitted noise.

As a result of our success, our speech recognition and noise cancellation products were able to add significant value to large Wall Street clients including Goldman Sachs & Company, Union Bank of Switzerland Warburg, Credit Suisse First Boston and Merrill Lynch and Company.

The technology was miniaturized to fit on a headset, and theBoom was born. theBoom is now available in several models : theBoom v4, theBoom “O”, theBoom “E”, theBoom Quiet and theBoom “C” that combine varying fit preferences and additional features.

How good is theBoom’s technology?

We have proven theBoom’s noise cancelling technology not only on Wall Street trading floors but also in other severely noisy environments such as NASCAR, Military environments including Blackhawk helicopter noise and nuclear powerplants. To experience the dramatic difference theBoom’s technology can make, please click listen to our sound demos (top box to your left) that showcases sound recordings made on the NYSE and in Blackhawk helicopter noise. You can also view this animation that explains how the astoundingly simlple but amazingly effective technology works.

Other benefits of using theBoom headsets

theBoom headsets are designed with universal connectivity in mind, and can be used with a wide variety of devices. Adapters are available for most cell phones, home and office phones, PC sound cards, PC/Mac USB ports and PDAs.

With theBoom headsets, people can communicate effectively in practically any environment.