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LG's Magic Remote is powered by Nuance
It was Monday morning at CES when LG unveiled its Magic Remote: a television zapper that recognized Wii-style motion control and voice recognition -- stripping out the fiddly array of buttons that most TiVo users are familiar with. Nuance, of Dragon Dictation fame, got all excited and lifted the lid on which company's voice recognition technology was powering the unit (hint: it's Nuance). Thanks to the handy press release after the break, we've learnt that if you bellow "Lady Gaga" into the unit, it'll return materials related to Ms Germanotta herself -- although if you've seen Jack Donaghy's voice-activated TV from 30 Rock, you might not be too convinced that you can kiss goodbye to buttons just yet.
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Nuance's Dragon TV Powers New Voice Capabilities in LG Magic Remote
Nuance's Latest Digital TV Voice Platform Lets LG Magic Remote Users Simply Speak to Find and Watch Shows, Movies and More
BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced that its new Dragon TV platform powers the new voice recognition features in the LG Magic Remote for the LG CINEMA 3D Smart TV, initially supporting US English, American Spanish, Canadian French, and Korean. With the LG Magic Remote, people can simply speak to quickly find and immediately experience their favorite shows, movies, music and more.
The explosion of digital media and content available on TV has far out-innovated the traditional TV remote control, making the content discovery process frustrating for consumers. LG's Magic Remote revolutionizes the digital living room experience with the power of Nuance's Dragon voice recognition, enabling people to discover and access movies, music and games by name and, even actors and keywords. For instance, they can simply say:
"Boston Red Sox"
"College Football on FX"
"Desperate Housewives"
"Amazing Race"
"Bradley Cooper"
"Angry Birds"
"Lady Gaga"
And, because LG's smart TVs deliver a connected experience, people can even use the voice capabilities on the Magic Remote to search for Web content by keyword or phrase, or access social media content like Facebook or YouTube.
"LG's smart TV portfolio was designed to give consumers a unique and unmatched living room experience, an array of entertainment and media content at their fingertips. And by integrating Nuance's voice technology, it's quickly and easily available with the spoken word," said Taegil Cho, Vice President and Leader of TV Product Planning Group, LGE.
Dragon TV is Nuance's new interactive voice platform for TV, device and set-top box OEMS and subscription operators that makes finding and accessing shows, movies and content in today's digital living room easy and fun. Leveraging Nuance's renowned voice and language understanding capabilities, Dragon TV lets people just sit back while they quickly and easily find content by speaking – be it channel numbers, station names, show and movie names – and the ability to stay connected via Skype, Twitter and Facebook.
"TV manufacturers like LG have rapidly innovated their TVs and media content capabilities, but the traditional remotes and television guides have fallen behind – that's where voice comes in," said Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile. "Nuance's Dragon TV portfolio brings entertainment and media front and center with the ability to simply speak to find almost anything that is on TV or On-Demand."
Availability
The LG Magic Remote will be made available from LG in early Q1 2012. To learn more, visit http://www.lg.com.
Dragon TV is now available for TV manufacturers and subscription TV operators supporting all major hardware and software platforms, including Linux, Android and iOS. For more information, visit www.nuancemobilelife.com
