Nuance's Dragon Drive! Hopes To Reshape In-Car Voice Systems

Anyone who has spent any amount of time in a vehicle with a voice-recognition system understands how lackluster most of them are. Even fancier rides usually have pathetic voice systems. Most drivers don't even bother to use the majority of the voice features, simply because it's a real chore to remember the correct phrasing, or it doesn't understand you -- basically, it's a long way from being even half as elegant as Siri is on the iPhone 4S. But there's one company on the PC side that seems to have this game figured out: Nuance. It's the company that makes the Dragon Dictate software, and now, they're finally porting that goodness over to the automotive world. Dragon Drive! is the newest addition, offering Nuance's heralded natural language understanding platform, but in an automotive way.


It's described as "automotive-grade," and it's developed specifically for the connected car. It's reported that the system enables automotive manufacturers and suppliers to deliver eyes-free, hands-free message dictation and direct access to content, music, and navigation – all powered by the same core technologies at the heart of Nuance's successful Dragon Dictation and Dragon Go!. Dragon Drive! Messaging is the first in a series of connected services that will hit the market this summer as part of Nuance's Dragon Drive! platform. It'll act as a mobile assistant messaging experience that lets them speak, listen and respond to text messages and emails – keeping their hands on the wheel and eyes on the road.


Dragon Drive! Messaging is currently available in six languages including US and UK English, French, Italian, German and Spanish, but we've yet to hear of any automakers making this a part of their OEM equipment. Hopefully, 2013 and 2014 model year cars will begin to integrate it. The sooner it gets to Bentley, the sooner it'll trickle down elsewhere.