Nuance Extends Leadership in Speech-Enabled Mobile
Navigation
Nuance Mobile Speech Platform Navigation Service
Package Makes Voice Navigation Available on Mobile Phones
3GSM World Congress 2007, BARCELONA, Spain,
February 14, 2007 – Nuance Communications, Inc.
(NASDAQ: NUAN), a leading supplier of speech and imaging
solutions, today launched the Nuance Mobile Navigation
Service Package for the Nuance Mobile Speech Platform. The
new offering includes packaged street and address grammars
that allow mobile navigation application providers to add
voice destination entry (including street addresses,
businesses and points of interest) and natural spoken
turn-by-turn directions to mobile navigation applications
for mobile phones and PDAs.
The location based search market is expected to exceed
$1 billion in 2008 in the United States alone, according
to industry analysts. The availability of navigation on
mainstream mobile phones is a key growth driver in this
market. The Nuance Mobile Navigation Service Package will
help drive consumer acceptance of navigation applications
by making them easier to use on mobile phones. This new
offer extends Nuance’s leadership in speech solutions for
navigation systems, as Nuance is already a leader in
voice-enabled embedded navigation systems in the
automotive and portable GPS device segments.
The Nuance Mobile Speech Platform provides J2ME, BREW,
Symbian and Windows Mobile application developers with the
ability to enhance their offerings with a seamless speech
experience. From advanced speech recognition to natural
text-to-speech, the Nuance Mobile Speech Platform
dramatically improves the usability of mobile search
applications such as content download, directory services
and navigation. Instead of typing search terms or
locations on tiny keypads, users can simply speak their
request. Navigation applications designed with the Nuance
Mobile Speech Platform allow users to speak natural
queries into a mobile phone or PDA to find a location or
specific address. The phones can also support read-back of
on-screen directions, including street names, using
Nuance’s latest network-based text-to-speech technology.
“We currently offer users a number of different ways to
enter destinations, but we believe voice destination entry
will truly enhance the user experience of our service,”
said Drew Morin, senior vice president and chief
technology officer, TCS (NasdaqGM: TSYS), a global leader
in wireless data and location technology. “The Nuance
Mobile Navigation Service Package allows us to offer voice
destination entry so that subscribers no longer need to
use a telephone keypad. Speech entry is easy to use and
will offer subscribers a clean and simple interface for
our powerful and accurate navigation services.”
“As we continually evaluate the technologies necessary
to continue our market leadership, we turned to Nuance as
the leaders in speech recognition technology for voice
destination entry on mobile phones,” said Hassan S. Wahla,
senior director, business development, TeleNav, a provider
of phone-based GPS navigation services offered through
carriers and OEMs world wide. “Our continued work with
Nuance on the Nuance Mobile Speech Platform has been
extremely beneficial to our understanding of the full
power of speech recognition, and how it may fit into the
evolution of our navigation services.”
“Wireless location-based services present a tremendous
revenue opportunity for both wireless providers and
application providers, but widespread consumer adoption
requires a more efficient user interface, such as speech,”
said Michael Thompson, vice president and general manager,
telco, search and communications, Nuance. “Our leadership
in the full spectrum of speech technologies allows Nuance
to bring a complete speech solution to this market and
significantly enhance the usability of navigation services
around the globe.” |