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Unified Communications Featured Article
July 08, 2008
Voice Recognition Technologies Set to Offer More Features
By Anil SharmaSince July 1st, new laws in California and Washington have banned the use of handheld communication devices while driving. As more states legally ban the use of cell phones while driving, hands free technologies with voice recognition are set to become increasingly popular. With voice access, drivers can activate dialling, use texting and listen to music, weather and sports updates.
Drivers can now look forward to getting more voice recognition features on their cell phones as more states introduce hands-free phoning requirements, smart phones become more common and additional players enter the market.
Michael Wehrs, vice president at Nuance (News - Alert) Communications said his company is conducting a study that tests the use of speech recognition systems on drivers.
Wehrs said, "The results clearly show that drivers' skills are far less impacted when they use speech recognition systems than when they take their eyes off the road to interact with their devices. In conversations with carriers where we have shared the study results, they all express optimism that including speech recognition will help ensure their customers can continue to safely use their mobile devices."
Recent studies have also suggested that drivers selecting music manually took two times longer to carry out lane changes than those using a voice command picking the artist and song title.
Nuance speech technology will ship more than 200 mobile phones this year. Yahoo! is working to add voice-enabled search to its mobile platform this summer. Other players include Microsoft (News - Alert), which acquired Tellme. Tellme will use simple voice commands to find the nearest businesses based on a GPS location, and also get maps, directions, and traffic, all powered by Live Search. Vlingo FIND, a free local search and maps application, is also gaining presence in the voice recognition market.
Nitya Prashant is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Nitya’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
