U.S. Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/OFA/AGFS/AMD -- OFA51, 1305 East West Highway -- Station 7604, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910

70 -- TEXT-TO-SPEECH (TTS) VOICE SYSTEMS POC Edward F. Tennant, Jr., Contracting Officer, 301/713-0823 or Mary Watson, Procurement Technician, 301/713-0823 This is a Request for Information (RFI). The Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Weather Service (NWS) is considering replacing the existing Text-to-Speech (TTS) voice used on the Console Replacement System (CRS) of the NOAA Weather Radio. The NWS recognizes new technologies in TTS processes are emerging, and wishes to improve the voice quality of the CRS. Interested parties are invited to provide specific information on potential TTS voice systems, including but not limited to: voice samples; operating system requirements; hardware platform requirements; identification of any equipment required other than Commercial, Off-The-Shelf (COTS) equipment; licensing cost; availability of Spanish language TTS; and voice file sampling rates. All system technology approaches, including next-generation synthesis, concatenation, hybrids and combinations thereof will be considered. Respondents should clearly identify information considered to be proprietary; such information will be properly safeguarded by the Government. In the event that the NWS holds a public forum on this subject, respondents to this RFI will be invited to participate. The Government will not award a contract based on this RFI. The Government will not pay for information received in response to this RFI; provided, however, that costs properly chargeable under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Section 31.205-18, "Independent Research and Development and Bid and Proposal Cost," may be allocated to Government contracts consistent with the terms of such contracts. No direct inquiries to NWS personnel concerning this RFI will be accepted; however, further information related to this RFI may be obtained from the following web sites: www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/index.html and www.nws.noaa.gov/oso/oso1/oso12/crs.htm. Responses to this RFI should be submitted to the Government in writing to the attention of Mary A. Watson at the header address or at fax 301-713-0806. All information submitted in response to this RFI which is received by the Government not later than August 17, 2000 will assuredly be considered by the NWS in its deliberation of this subject. Posted 07/18/00 (W-SN475923). (0200)

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