Speech recognition specialist Nuance Communications Inc is to pitch mobile operators with software that would fully voice-enable mass-market feature phones.
The Nuance Voice Control (NVC) suite is platform independent and works with smart phones but with standard handsets as well, to let a user launch any device application with their voice.
Various network-based services can also be activated and updated over the air with the system.
It means that mobile users could voice activate dialing and messaging, or tell their phone to start playing music, or talk open a browser and dictate a search string.
Nuance software is already embedded on more than 300 million phones worldwide. Version 2.0 of NVC integrates the widely deployed VSuite command and control application with Nuance’s Open Voice Search (OVS). As an example of the use of this combination, if linked to a web browser application it would let someone speak a command like “Find directions to the High Street, Anytown which would kick off a Google maps search, or open a navigation application.
NVC 2.0 will also allow users to dictate completely open-ended text or e-mail messages, a feature that draws on Nuance’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition technology.
Dragon is probably the company’s best-known line, but Nuance also produces systems that can convert text into good quality speech, as well as developing call routing systems for use in automated contact centres.
NVC 2.0 is the first to include speech recognition on the device, seamlessly integrated to speech recognition in the network, the vendor said.
Because it is platform, operating system, and search engine agnostic, it will allow operators to reach mass-market consumers on a variety of devices quickly.
All VSuite commands could be launched from the idle screen of a mobile device and the graphics integrated with a carrier’s existing branded applications on the device.
