Nuance Voice Control Automotive Brings the Power of Dragon to the Car

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Auto Industry’s First Integrated Speech Interface for On- and Off-Board Services Powers the Connected Car, Leveraging Renowned Dragon Speech Capabilities

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced the availability of Nuance Voice Control Automotive, an innovative mobile platform that enables drivers to take advantage of today’s most popular connected services with simple, easy voice commands based on the popular Dragon NaturallySpeaking core speech technology. Nuance Voice Control Automotive is the industry’s first solution to provide one-button, seamless access to all services —on-board and connected — via a single, consistent voice user interface that leverages advancements in natural language understanding and mobile speech applications.

“Internet in the Car: The Future of In-Vehicle Connectivity”

Nuance Voice Control Automotive provides drivers around the world with a safer connected car experience through interaction with online services using remote speech applications based on Nuance’s robust Dragon core speech technology. Dragon is already used and trusted by millions globally via its PC-based dictation software, and the popular Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search Apps for iPhone. Now manufacturers can harness the power of Dragon in their cars to allow drivers to access dynamic real-time information and services including:

• SMS text messaging and email capabilities, allowing drivers to simply speak and send messages while keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road;
• Interaction with social networks such as Twitter and Facebook;
• News, weather and traffic updates and the latest sports scores and stock prices;
• Movie theatre locations, film listings and times;
• Dining options in current area or point of destination; and,
• Price comparisons for hotels, fuel, etc.

According to a recent 2009 iSuppli report entitled, “Internet in the Car: The Future of In-Vehicle Connectivity,” Egil Juliussen, PhD., Principal Analyst and Fellow, Automotive Business Unit states that “The communication-based applications that use the Internet are currently the most useful for car use. This is due to the user interface need for communication applications, which can be served by speech recognition and text-to-speech.” Juliussen’s report also notes that “Mobile search for internet content is emerging for mobile phones and will see strong growth in the car in the next five years. To minimize driver distraction, mobile search will need a speech [input/output] interface.”

The Nuance Voice Control Automotive in-vehicle head unit serves as “mission control,” tying together all solution components to enable high-performance speech interaction with all services available in a connected car environment. The embedded in-vehicle head unit leverages the Nuance VoCon 3200 speech recognition engine and Nuance Vocalizer text-to-speech (TTS) solution to enable direct speech interaction with on-board applications, while Dragon technology is used for connected capabilities. These proven solutions allow drivers to use speech for controlling in-vehicle systems, including mobile phones, entertainment systems, navigation devices, and more.

“Automakers around the world are deploying in-car connected services that give drivers access to traffic reports, local business search, weather reports, and even the ability to send and receive text and email messages. However, it’s critical that these experience-altering services are accessible to the driver without creating heightened distraction behind the wheel,” said Arnd Weil, General Manager, Nuance Automotive. “Our Nuance Voice Control Automotive platform enables manufacturers to voice-enable every aspect of the in-car infotainment system, providing drivers with the ability to take advantage of these amazing connected services while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. It’s part of our larger mission to reduce dangerous driver distractions.”

Nuance’s 2008 In-Car Distraction Study implemented by the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, revealed that voice commands help drivers keep their eyes on the road, reducing driver distraction by as much as 100 percent depending on the task.

Nuance’s automotive solutions power the speech recognition and text-to-speech capabilities of more than 25 million automobiles and 20 million personal navigation devices from the world’s leading brands – including the recently unveiled MyFord Touch direct connect technology powered by Ford SYNC. Nuance offers a complete, integrated suite of technologies and services enabling voice-activated dialing, destination entry for navigation systems, and control of in-car infotainment systems.