This was posted on IBM's internal site today. It'd be really cool if we could upgrade our tl software to do this

Speech hits the road

IBM, Honda offer directions and dining with a word

IBM and Honda have developed a completely hands-free speech recognition system that will keep drivers' eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel.

The two companies have delivered an in-car navigation system that can identify spoken street and city names that exist across the entire continental United States. This industry-leading navigation application will be offered as standard equipment on the 2005 Acura RL and as options on both the 2005 Acura MDX and 2005 Honda Odyssey in the United States and Canada beginning this month.

Using IBM Embedded ViaVoice software, Honda is the first car manufacturer to equip automobiles with in-car navigation systems using advanced speech recognition and text-to-speech capabilities. Features of the new system include:

* Ability to speak any street address in the U.S. and receive turn-by-turn voice guidance to the destination.
* Access by voice to names and directions of nearby restaurants and restaurant reviews.
* Eliminates the need for drivers to take their hands off the wheel or eyes off the road, since no typing on touch screens or manual dialing is required.
* Integration of voice-recognition technology into the car's audio system so that driving instructions can be heard over the speakers.

To create this natural-sounding text-to-speech system, IBM and Honda research-and-development teams digitally processed hundreds of hours of speech recordings previously found in earlier-model Honda systems. They also produced hundreds of additional recordings to design a high-quality, customized, natural-sounding text-to-speech voice, digitally segmenting speech and intonations that can allow vehicles to communicate naturally with their drivers. The result: a totally new type of speech synthesis that can capture the characteristics of the human voice. In addition to the natural-sounding text-to-speech, the Honda Odyssey, the Acura RL and the Acura MDX now feature more than 700 commands and more than 1.7 million street and city names that are accessible by voice.

 

http://www.acura-tl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93280


But yours has more details. Will move it to Cars forum tonight.

 

Look like a software fix. Buying an upgrade DVD should give us the same capability.

I use a dictation program in my office that is very accurate. One of the main features that any voice recognition program requires to improve accuracy is the ability to train and adapt to the user. Speech varies from person to person and from region to region. Without a speech recognition program that "learns", it is impossible to have an accurate translation.

 

Really? The voice recognition system in the TL can be upgraded with DVD? Aren't there some problems with hardware there?

carcar

 

its not possible to just change the dvd to get this upgrade. the dvd-rom in our cars are only for the map and point of interests(basically just the database). there is no navi software on the discs. the software itself resides in the rom on the dvd drive (someone from tsx forum took it apart). you would have to upgrade the embedded rom image on the drive in order to actual upgrade the software. our cars do however have a PC card slot which people have speculated can be used to upgrade the navi software.

 

ViaVoice requires training - I wonder how it's going to work in the RL/MDX/Odyssey. My experience has ranged from good to spotty...

 

Move to Cars.