IN-DEPTH: Interview with Nuance Communications' Arnd Weil  -- The demand for real-time information and dynamic network services that keep drivers connected on the go is on the rise.  

Be it for the latest weather conditions for a particular location or driving directions or even finding the best price on diesel fuel, the value of being "connected on the go" is enormous.

At the same time, one needs to be cautious and the deployed technology shouldn't be detrimental as far as the safety of the drivers is concerned.  

For its part, Burlington, Massachusetts-based speech and imaging solutions provider Nuance Communications, too, believes that connectivity should not come at the expense of safety and convenience.  

The company says it is the first and only vendor to provide seamless access to all connected services -both on-board and off-board - via a single, consistent voice user interface.  

Recently, Nuance unveiled Nuance Voice Control Automotive, a platform that is designed for auto manufacturers to bring voice-enabled connected services to drivers around the world. The company expects first cars with Nuance Voice Control Automotive to start shipping next year. 

More and more cars support connectivity to off-board content and information, but there is still a huge problem to access and use such data, says Arnd Weil, general manager, Automotive, Nuance Communications.  

Weil, who is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Navigation Day @ CeBiT (March 5, Hannover), spoke to TheWhereBusiness.com's Ritesh Gupta, about latest trends and opportunities. Excerpts:  

Earlier this month, Nuance announced the availability of Nuance Voice Control Automotive. Can you elaborate on what factors were taken into consideration before coming up with this offering? Also, what were the main challenges in finalising this offering? 

Arnd Weil: Nuance Automotive has identified incremental opportunities to enhance the user experience in car. More and more cars support connectivity to off-board content and information, but there is still a huge problem to access and use such data.  

An intuitive, save and usable user interface including voice recognition is essential to offer such new data-rich connected services. These connected services will extend the on-board functionalities and provide real time and additional data to the driver.  

Last year, referring to research, you had mentioned that half of drivers who rely on navigation devices use the text-to-speech feature. How do you assess the current integration of speech technology into personal navigation devices? How have the features resulted in utility (benefits) for the driver and also improved on his/her safety?  

Arnd Weil: Text-to-Speech has indeed become a standard feature not only in high-end but also low cost PNDs. Announcing street names during route guidance is perceived as a clear value by the users. Voice destination entry and command & control of the device by voice has seen a large evolution introducing new features like 1-shot address entry (enter full address in one utterance - only have to look at confirmation/corrections screen once in order to reduce the driver distraction). Nuance is the driving horse behind speech recognition on PND working with all major PND brands. We are expecting several major trends in the near future: 

- Connected Services will be speech-enabled on PND's

- Speech recognition will be implemented for more use cases beyond address entry (e.g. POI search, Phone Dialling by voice, etc.)

- Speech recognition will be introduced on lower cost models 

Independent studies have shown that the driver distraction (mean deviation, reaction time, eyes movement etc.) is significantly reduced when speech recognition is used vs. manual operation of the device. 

Last year, it emerged that Nuance is increasingly involved in application and human-machine interface development. It's leveraging work done by other divisions to benefit automotive applications; for example, a text-to-speech screen reader originally developed to aid blind people. Can you elaborate on what new offerings Nuance is currently working on?  

Arnd Weil: Nuance is working on a new way to interact with all kind of devices, be it a PND, the car, or the mobile handset. Nuance has launched new applications like SMS dictation, web search by voice, natural speech interface designs and more. All of these activities are leveraging core technologies from different divisions in the company. For e.g. dictation technology from Healthcare division, Hosting capabilities for Connected Services from the Mobile division, etc. 

It is acknowledged that the best applications are those that are able to recognise and respond appropriately to the words that drivers are most likely to speak in a given situation. How do you assess this viewpoint and also how are you coping up with the same?  

Arnd Weil: Nuance Automotive is doing a number of UI studies to evaluate and understand driver behaviour in different situations. We are even performing such studies for our OEM partners in the automotive industry. Understanding our ultimate customer, the driver on the road, is an essential part of our strategy. R&D is using results of such surveys and studies in order to respect user demands and behaviour. 

Can you share the latest market data, depicting the effect of multimodal voice user interface on reducing driver distraction?   

Arnd Weil: Multimodality is expected to become an essential part of the HMI design. Traditional Telematics was focused on a basic IVR experience using a voice channel only. Connected Services over data channel will allow the use of the car infrastructure (display, controls, audio system etc.) in a much more efficient way. "New" technologies like handwriting recognition, predictive text, smart touchpads and speech recognition will be added. The pure display will be enhanced by speech out / text-to-speech, avatars and more. There will be many more options for differentiation, branding and personalization in future, giving your car a voice, a face and a personality. Many more options are currently in research... 

What do you recommend when it comes to increasing the adoption of connected services through clever integration and optimisation of the user interface?  

Arnd Weil: Connected Services and on demand business is well understood and implemented by Nuance in several markets and the automotive team is in process of implementing solutions with key partners. The main recommendation is to focus on such services where speech is essential to the user interface. The speech interface is done to increase driver safety - keeping things simple is an important design goal in all activities. 

As a supplier of multimodal input and output solutions for automotive and navigation systems, what new trends do you project in this industry? Also, what's on Nuance's agenda? 

Arnd Weil: Some key drivers for speech: Connected Services will largely drive new HMI design choices. Broader language coverage (e.g. incl. Asian countries and Eastern Europe) and a better multi-lingual implementation is essential. New systems will become more natural and more adaptive to the user, which will require lots of new technologies to be used in new UI designs. The more the complexity of new HMIs will increase, the more we see the need to simplify the user experience. A good speech interface does not only require fantastic core technologies but also a great UI design.  

Arnd Weil is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Navigation Day @ CeBiT (March 5, Hannover). 
The Navigation Day @ CeBit will tackle the question of how to sell Navigation in 2010 and present winning strategies to monetise connected services and geo-content. Navigation experts come together to discuss 2010's crucial trends, business models and strategies in connected navigation, geo-enabled content, in-car navigation and mobile navigation. The 3rd annual Navigation Day @ CeBIT conference will pull together the top execs from the huge CeBIT exhibition in one room at one time. Last year's fantastic event united 150 senior executives from around the CeBIT exhibition.
 

For more information and if you wish to participate, please contact: 
Osman Iqbal
Regional Director - Europe
TheWhereBusiness/Telematics Update
T: +44 (0) 207 375 7196 (Direct)
E: osman @ thewherebusiness.com