Nuance's Dragon TV offers voice recognition platform for connected televisions

Nuance isn't skipping a beat in Las Vegas, as the speech recognition company is busy launching a brand new platform that focuses on bringing its technology to connected TVs. According to the company, the platform, called Dragon TV, can be used to build customized voice and touch apps that run on televisions, set-top boxes, phones and tablets. Essentially, the technology will allow the viewer to use their voice to conduct searches, send messages and access plenty of other features, and mobile devices can be used to act as a remote to control the TV. Nuance's new platform is available now for OEMs, developers and operators to take advantage of, and supports Linux, Android and iOS as well as all major TV, set-top box and remote control standards. Head past the break for the full press release, and make your way to the company's site below to get more details.

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NUANCE UNVEILS DRAGON TV

TV, Device and Set-Top Box OEMs and Service Operators Will Transform the Digital Living Room with Nuance's Voice, Natural Language Understanding and Touch Innovations for Content Discovery and Social Media Engagement

Las Vegas and Burlington, Mass. – January 9, 2012 – Nuance Communications Inc. today unveiled Dragon TV, a unique voice and natural language understanding platform for TV, device and set-top box OEMs and service operators. Dragon TV makes finding and accessing shows, movies and content in today's digital living room easy and fun for consumers. Leveraging Nuance's renowned voice and natural language understanding capabilities, Dragon TV creates the "lean-back experience" consumers demand, with the ability to easily find content by speaking channel numbers, station names, show and movie names. People can even search for content by actor and genre – and stay connected via Twitter, Facebook and Skype.

An estimated 1.6 billion TVs will be connected by 2014 according to Strategy Analytics – and the broad spectrum of channels and media options available today are already nearly impossible to navigate with traditional TV remotes. Consumers have more options and media than they're even aware of, and still can't find "what's on." Dragon TV changes all of that, giving OEMs and service operators the ability to deliver TVs, set top boxes and applications that let consumers find and experience content with Nuance's leading voice technologies. Further, Nuance's renowned natural language understanding technologies allow consumers to say virtually anything to quickly and easily discover shows, movies and more. For instance, people can say:

"Go to PBS"
"What's on Bravo at 9 p.m. tonight?"
"When is Ellen on?"
"Watch Dexter on DVR"
"Find comedies with Vince Vaughn"
"Play David Guetta on Music Choice"

Dragon TV also makes it even easier to stay connected from the couch leveraging the unique messaging and social media capabilities that today's digital TV OEMs and operators offer, such as email, messaging, Twitter, Facebook and Skype. For instance, people can say:

"Send message to Julie, 'Old School is on TBS again this weekend – super excited'"
"Send update to Facebook, 'Anyone else looking forward to Celebrity Wife Swap?'
"Call John via Skype" and be talking in no time

Dragon TV is incredibly flexible, and can be integrated across embedded, connected and hybrid modes, allowing TV, device and set-top box OEMs, and service operators to take advantage of the content available on the device and in the cloud. Dragon TV features include:

Seamless Application Control: Digital home devices are now integrating applications for e-mail, social networking and interactive communication. Dragon TV offers a straightforward and simple method of input to drive adoption.
Discovering: A wealth of information is now available over TV, including program guide listings, personal media and web content. Dragon TV delivers a seamless, universal search solution allowing users to access this content with ease.
Messaging: From social networking to e-mail, the availability of messaging applications on TV continues to grow. With Dragon TV users are empowered to interact and communicate via an integrated text and speech solution.
Accessibility: Governments and standards bodies are now mandating accessible solutions for TV. Leveraging Nuance's core speech technologies and natural language understanding, Dragon TV makes TV accessible to everyone.
Complex Acoustics: With Nuance's Far-Talk technology, Dragon TV is able to break through the interferences of multiple acoustic sources and focus on what's important for interpreting commands – the users voice.

"Traditional search on televisions is tedious and amazingly outdated," said Mike Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile. "Dragon TV brings an amazing voice experience, similar to what people do everyday on their phones and in their cars, directly to the living room."

Availability

Dragon TV is currently available for TV, device OEMs, operators and developers, supporting all major TV, set-top box, remote control and application platforms, including Linux, Android and iOS.