Wednesday January 17, 12:03 am Eastern Time
Nuance and GM unit for voice to drive OnStar Virtual Advisor
NEW YORK, Jan 17 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news) on Wednesday said it has tightened its relationship with speech recognition company Nuance Communications Inc. (NasdaqNM:NUAN - news), the engine for the automaker's OnStar Virtual Advisor -- a voice-enabled hands-free Web service for the car.
The service slowly has been introduced in the Northeast and will roll out across the country in the fourth quarter. Users of the service, which started four years ago as a safety feature on Cadillacs, will be able to get stock quotes, news and sports as well as have their e-mail read to them.
Nuance is the market leader of natural speech recognition, supplying a powerful engine that allows users to use natural speech to request and get information, make transactions and contact people.
General Magic Inc. (NasdaqNM:GMGC - news), a Nuance partner, developed and will host the services. But the direct relationship will give General Motors and Nuance a direct relationship to research other uses for voice recognition, OnStar Spokesman Todd Carstensen said.
``It's a direct relationship for keeping current with their technology and to work with them on a research and development bases when we're thinking about new service for Virtual Advisor,'' Carstensen said.
OnStar Virtual Advisor will be bundled together with the regular OnStar service, a 24-hour assistant center available with just a touch of a button, said OnStar Spokesman Todd Carstensen. Using the satellite global positioning service, an OnStar staff person can tell where a car is located, give directions, dispatch a emergency personnel if needed as well as other services.
OnStar Virtual Advisor, along with a phone-like service that needs no hands and operates through voice commands, will be available through a pre-paid fee arrangement.
OnStar equipment is built into 32 of GM's 54 models. A one-year safety service is either included in the price or is part of an option package on some models. After that, the safety service costs $199 a year and additional services can run up to $399 a year.
OnStar currently has 700,000 to 800,000 subscribers and is adds about 4,000 to 5,000 each day, Carstensen said.
``In volume terms, they're targeting to get to 4 million vehicles by 2003,'' Ronald Croen, Nuance Chief executive. ``We see this as a significant segment of the user population wanting to access all this centralized information from their cars.''
With that many cars and users, OnStar probably will end up voice-enabling much of the information people want to access, including directions, local restaurants and weather conditions functions for which a human being will not be needed.
biz.yahoo.com
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