Want to Listen to the Beatles? Just Ask for the “Fab Four”

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Gracenote, a company that combines information, technology, services, and applications for entertainment solutions, announced that it will provide a solution to specifically address difficult-to-pronounce names of musical artists for the MyFord Touch voice recognition for music searches.

Gracenotes says its MediaVOCS technology, which is featured in the MyFord Touch system, will offer improved voice recognition. So if a user needs to find an artist with a difficult-to-pronounce name or one that goes by another name, the system will still be able to identify and play music from that artist. For example, a user can ask for “the King” to hear Elvis songs.

The company says artists often don’t use standard pronunciation, and no one else delivers proper pronunciation, short names, nicknames, and regional pronunciation.

"Accessing and managing music libraries in the car can be frustrating and distracting to drivers, especially now that many digital music collections are quite large," said Stephen White, senior vice president at Gracenote in a statement.  "Our expert editorial team has worked hard to ensure our database includes the most popular alternative names for artists, and we are pleased to deliver an enhanced voice recognition experience that makes it safer and easier for Ford drivers to access their music."

Gracenote also packages cover art and music metadata into embedded databases that are specific to markets in which cars are sold. Premium cars such as the 2011 Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX will be loaded with this data as a part of the cars’ premium map-based navigation packages.