Nuance's Dragon Drive Powers Natural Language Interface for Daimler Connected Apps and Services

FRANKFURT & BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Nuance Communications, Inc. NUAN today announced that its Dragon Drive connected car platform is powering the natural language interface of Mercedes-Benz' suite of connected applications and services. Mercedes-Benz drivers now have a more intuitive means of staying connected behind the wheel, using their voice to access various apps and services. Select models will feature the new connected voice experience beginning in September 2015.

Nuance's cloud-based speech recognition and natural language understanding have been deeply integrated into Mercedes-Benz' lineup of voice-enabled applications and services: weather, Internet radio, local search, and message dictation. Nuance's voice technologies make it simple and convenient for drivers to access these applications through a natural language interface that minimizes visual and manual distractions by allowing for commands to be spoken in a single phrase, such as, "Where's the next Shell gas station?" or, "Show me a Legal Sea Foods restaurant near my location."

By integrating cloud-based speech and natural language, Nuance is expanding on its existing embedded voice capabilities in Mercedes-Benz' infotainment systems. These allow drivers to complete tasks via voice that are important to the automotive environment even when an internet connection is unavailable, including voice dialing, navigation and one-shot destination entry, and control of embedded music options.

"As cars become increasingly connected, drivers are expecting more natural experiences when accessing the applications and services that they need," said Arnd Weil, Senior Vice President, Nuance Automotive. "Working closely with Daimler, we have integrated our natural language understanding and cloud-based speech capabilities into its expanded lineup of applications, providing drivers with an intuitive interface for engaging with their preferred content."

Availability

The suite of voice-enabled Daimler applications will be available on select models beginning in September 2015, with eventual deployment to other models. The voice user interface supports a variety of languages in Europe, North America and Asia, including German, UK English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, US English, Canadian French, Japanese, and Mandarin.

Dragon Drive is a part of Nuance's portfolio of voice, natural language understanding, content and touch innovations that are powering the next generation of connected cars, devices and the Internet of Things. With Nuance technology, people experience more humanized interactions with the world's best phones, tablets, computers, cars, TVs, apps and services from leading manufacturers, developers and network operators.

Dragon Drive's connected car capabilities and sophisticated natural language interface will be on display at the Connected Car Pavilion at New Mobility World in Hall 3.1, as part of IAA 2015 in September.

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About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. NUAN is a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance's proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

Nuance, Dragon and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States of America and/or other countries. All other company names or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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