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Why didn't we see a Nuance announcement during WWDC?
One major rumor missing from the WWDC keynote yesterday was voice control. It was just last year that Apple purchased Siri, a popular voice companion app for iOS. Apple was also rumored to be working with Nuance to offer some form of voice control in its software. References to Nuance were recently spotted in a developer version of Mac OS X Lion, and sources claim Nuance software is running at Apple's North Carolina data center. Even the Chief Mobile Technology Architect at Nuance was spotted in the WWDC audience yesterday. Despite this mounting evidence, voice control was a no-show at WWDC. Both TechCrunch and Robert Scoble heard from sources that Apple's voice technology was not ready for a WWDC demonstration. It's there, and Apple is still working on it, but it's not quite ready for prime time. Perhaps Apple will wait to roll out this feature and use it to drum up added excitement when iOS 5 finally arrives this fall.
Apple-Nuance deal may take root in NC datacenter
The stars appear to have aligned for the rumored Apple-Nuance deal, according to TechCrunch. The suggested strategic partnership between the Cupertino tech giant and the Burlington, MA speech-savvy software firm may find its first expression in Apple's new North Carolina data center, per the latest report. TechCrunch's sources say that Apple may already be running Nuance code (and possibly some Nuance-supplied hardware) in the Malden datacenter, either to support the existing Siri product (acquired by Apple, powered by Nuance) or to begin building out speech functions for the rumored reboot of MobileMe as iCloud. While Apple could afford to buy Nuance outright (the publicly-traded company was worth about $6 billion before the latest news shoved the stock price up), TC points out that it would be an expensive buy that would effectively kill the golden goose: Nuance's partnership deals, which make up a lot of the company's value, would get knocked out by the acquisition and would have to be renegotiated. The partnership approach gives Apple the core technology it needs without the overhead. Apparently, there were other players in the speech bake-off; Microsoft is rumored to have pushed Apple to include its speech recognition tech in iOS, but Apple didn't bite.
Verizon's FiOS TV creeps over to Malden, Massachusetts
As Verizon continues to surround Boston with FiOS, we've got yet another rollout coming that will make those situated in downtown Beantown oh-so-envious. Next up on the list of Massachusetts communities to get access to FiOS TV is Malden, which granted the outfit a cable franchise authorizing it to pipe its fiber-based service to approximately 22,000 households in the area. No official word on a go-live date just yet, but you can start up the countdown for sure.
