Journeys and maps.
These two always came hand in hand for the last centuries, if not millennia. The pre-journey planning was essential in order to choose the best route and save time on the way.
All this was revolutionized by the U.S. Department of Defense with the invention of GPS tracking and route calculating in the last decades.¹
It is therefore, that Generation Y is the first one, that is able to travel without spending a significant amount of time before starting to get moving.
- From now on, it's more convenient to travel -
Since 1975, the pioneering Dragon Speech Recognition software has continuously improved to understand human’s voice & meaning.²
The integration of voice recognition and GPS services brought the next level to new age voyage planning.
- From now on, it’s more safe to travel -
Voice Command Systems in cars are the realization of many childhood phantasies. They enable not only the trip planning to be controlled with linguistic commands, but also other multimedia & infotainment functions of the vehicle. There are Ford Sync, Lexus Voice Command, Chrysler UConnect and GM IntelliLink to list a few.
A major risk to be avoided is the distraction the driver faces when using his or her hands to operate the car’s dashboard. Due to the ability to tell the system where you want to go, who you want to call & what you want to listen to, the need for manual control decreases drastically.
The innovative development of these speech-recognition software, such as Nuance, will enable drivers to make natural-language requests in their vehicles. Meanwhile, compared to other outdated systems, which supported 50 to 60 voice commands, there are up to 10,000 commands in modern systems. These also include the function to initiate tasks to book a table at your favorite restaurant.³
The continuos development of these integrated voice control function increases the car’s functionality of being simply a vehicle. Slowly but surely, the fiction of the popular 80’s TV series „Knight Rider“ is about to become reality, where the lingual interaction between the driver & the car resulted in team-play scenarios.
However, the increased scope for functionality of speech recognition in a car, is pushing the expectations and requirements. What started as a voice controlled navigation & route planning, is currently evolving into onboard personal assistance.
For this, the support of 10,000 voice commands don’t seem to be sufficient enough and the artificial intelligence of Voice Command Systems needs to be adapted to various languages, pronunciations and cultures.³
It sure can be said, that the development of Voice Command Systems in cars has not only been created but already revolutionized the interaction between driver and vehicle. However, there are endless possibilities which will give a vehicle not only a strong functionality but also a character.
- From now on, it will be more than just riding a car -
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¹ National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on the Future of the Global Positioning System
² http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2013/07/inner-voice.cfm
³ http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-57321094-48/siri-like-voice-recognition-coming-to-cars/
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