SAN JOSE, Calif., February 2, 1998 - ISD (Information Storage Devices, Inc.) (NASDAQ: ISDI) today announced that its ChipCorder® voice record and playback chip, the ISD1420, has been integrated into New York city taxicabs to play public service messages recorded by New York City-based celebrities.

In accordance with an ordinance mandated by the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission, all 12,053 New York taxicabs are required to play two 10-second reminder messages at the beginning and end of a cab ride. Fortunately, the Commission decided to make the project both persuasive and fun by having world famous celebrities such as Joan Rivers, Placido Domingo, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Jackie Mason, Joe Torre, Judd Hirsch, and Ertha Kitt record the messages. When the taxi meter is activated, a unit in the back of the car equipped with the ISD chip plays the first message requesting passengers to wear their seat belts. At the end of the ride, the meter triggers the unit again, reminding passengers to take their belongings with them and to get a receipt from the driver.

Bob Duggan, design engineer at New York's largest cab meter manufacturer, Pulsar Taxi Meter, said that simplicity was crucial in choosing the right circuit to implement in the units. "We were looking for a design that was easy to implement, without a lot of complex external circuitry," said Duggan. "Because the unit runs on the car battery, we also needed the recording device to have nonvolatile memory capabilities. ISD's ChipCorder technology was a perfect fit."

"The functionality of ChipCorder products translates extremely well into safety and annunciation applications, as we have seen with the New York taxicabs," said Karin Bootsma, vice president of marketing at ISD. "When reproducing celebrity voices, it is imperative that the sound quality is authentic and life-like. Our microchips are renowned in the industry for delivering the best, most natural sound quality; so we are excited to have our semiconductors contribute to the creativity of a new application."

The Taxi and Limousine Commission launched the program in response to numerous "lost and found" calls and claims that the celebrity message project has helped reduce the amount of items left behind in New York cabs as well as increase the number of people taking receipts at the end of their ride and wearing their seat belts.

About ISD

ISD is a leading supplier of semiconductor voice record and playback solutions. As the Voice Solutions In Silicon( company, ISD provides essential products to the communications, consumer, automotive, medical and industrial marketplaces using its proprietary technologies. ISD's ChipCorder product family, featuring exceptional sound quality, low power consumption, and non-volatility in a single chip, utilizes ISD's proprietary 8-bit per cell equivalent multi-level storage technology. Leveraging the company's proprietary advanced, proven digital speech processing technology and high-quality speech compression algorithms, ISD's CompactSPEECH products enable an array of digital features and functionality for products such as digital telephone answering devices. ISD is located at 2045 Hamilton Avenue, San Jose, Calif., 95125, USA. Telephone: (408) 369-2400. Fax: (408) 369-2422. Visit our World Wide Web home page at http://www.isd.com.

Note: CompactSPEECH is a trademark of ISD. ChipCorder is a registered trademark of ISD.