Ford, Nuance aim to make Sync more conversational
Ford and Nuance have bolstered the voice recognition in its Sync in-cabin entertainment system to be more conversational and recognize more commands.
Sync isn't up to the standards of the artificial intelligence powered KITT car in Knight Rider (right), but the second generation of Sync is a vast improvement over the first. On Thursday, Ford and Nuance said they have introduced 10,000 first-level commands, up from 100 in the first version. Now Sync will recognize commands like "Call Paul Degnars."
In addition, Samantha, the voice of Sync, will have more natural speech patterns and sound less like a computer. The next-generation of Sync will power MyFord Touch featured in the 2011 Ford Edge. To bolster the system, Nuance and Ford cooked up more direct commands, made navigation entries easier and allowed for direct tuning of radio stations, say Howard 100 on Sirius.
Sync's new voice recognition system uses the Nuance Unsupervised Speaker Adaptation technology.
Ford's plan is to make in-cabin car technology a differentiator to sell cars. The company is plotting apps for its ecosystem to enable the Internet at 70 mph.
- Ford adds Google Maps to Sync line-up
- Ford, University of Michigan students eye commute in cloud apps
- Ford: Solving the Internet's 'last inch' problem at 70 mph
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com