Pioneer AVIC-HD1BT brings plain speech voice-activated GPS units

by Cyrus Farivar, posted Oct 26th 2006 at 12:23AM

Yeah, we love GPS around here as much as the next guy, but it really doesn't impress our lady friends too much when our mellifluous prose gets interrupted by Cro Magnon-like gestures while we have to ask for directions on our nav units. We'd much prefer to use a phrase like "Find me a hotel in Paris in the seizième arrondissement, play Serge Gainsbourg's 'Je t'aime' and adjust for mood lighting -- s'il te plaît" and have our ride respond instantly. Well, save for that last request, apparently plain English queries (or 13 other languges) to a GPS stystem are now possible thanks to software by IBM built onto Pioneer's new AVIC-HD1BT nav unit. It's loaded up with a 30GB hard drive (20GB for maps and the rest for music), a DVD player and an iPod connection of some sort. Although Pioneer claims that the AVIC-HD1BT is for the European-only non-"luxury car market" driver (sorry, us Lexus-driving Yankees will have to suffer), it still doesn't come cheap: €2,500 ($3,145).

[Via IDG News Service]

Filed under: GPS, Transportation

Tags: avic-hd1bt, gps, ibm, paris, pioneer, voice recognition, VoiceRecognition

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Dp462090 @ Oct 26th 2006 12:34AM

Why does voice recognition, and GPS sound like a bad idea to me...

Neutral

W00ter @ Oct 26th 2006 1:52AM

In the US, it is the AVIC-Z1 - been out for a while and engadget covered it some months back.

Neutral

Eh @ Oct 26th 2006 5:01AM

Does it have Yakov Smirnov mode?

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