A few months ago, during a blog field trip to the Netherlands, I asked if anyone knew who the vendor for the TouchSpeak device was, well David from Great Talking Box answered my call. It turns out, in the U.S., the TouchSpeak will the sold by Great Talking Box.

Here is what David had to say:

Touchspeak is really neat stuff, At first sight, it is a software program operating efficiently on a small screen which, in itself, is not unusual. What is unusual is that operating on one of the new Windows CE PDA-style phones, it turns the phone into a very sophisticated communication aid and then enables the user to make telephone calls and use all the communication features to speak to the person receiving the call. It can be picture based or text based with a word prediction system with features that you do not find on many PC based systems. A user could even write on the screen with a stylus and have the written text spoken on the phone! A great feature is found in the programming of pages. It takes a little getting used to but instead of creating pages with links back and forth between the pages, you simply tell the system that you want a key contain a page under it and the page and all links are magically created. The Great Talking Box Company will be marketing a series of complete solutions featuring Touchspeak. You can watch them as they appear on my blog and get more technical information when it appears on the company website. Interesting times.

Thanks, David. I have also had an e-mail from Richard Hill, one of the original designers of the TouchSpeak in the U.K., so expect to hear more soon. I hope to review the device personally once it becomes available in the U.S., but here is the Ace Centre review to hold you over.