Home / News & Blogs

Voice control coming to XM radio

Stephen Shankland | December 29, 2005 4:45 PM PST

Summary

The technology will let drivers issue voice commands to search through 160 channels of music, talk radio and other stations.

Topics

Stephen Shankland, Personal Technology
XM Satellite Radio and VoiceBox Technologies announced a multiyearalliance Thursday to bring voice control to the satellite broadcastservice.

The partnership will let drivers issue voice commands to search throughXM SatelliteRadio's 160 channels of music, talk radio and other stationsand to find personalized information such as stock prices, traffic andweather. The technology is planned to be available to automakers and tothose producing aftermarket products in mid-2006, the companies said.

The companies will demonstrate the technology at the ConsumerElectronics show next week.

XM competes with conventional broadcast radio and with anothersatellite-based subscription service, Sirius Satellite Radio.

This week, Sirius announced it has accumulated 3 million subscribers. XMhas more than 5 million subscribers.

Jupiter Research estimates 55 million satelliteradios will be sold in 2010.

XM announced that it had chosen VoiceBox's technology because it worked accurately in noisy environments. The technology is designed to let users control electronics with free-form conversational language, the companies said.

On Wednesday, XM announced it will use technology from Neural Audio to broadcast some digital radio signals using 5.1 surround sound, which employs five speakers and a low-frequency subwoofer instead of the conventional two speakers.

Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer, and Yamaha will introduce home audio systems that support the feature, which XM calls XM HD Surround. XM will demonstrate the technology at the electronics show.

Talkback - Tell Us What You Think

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity