Ford Sync System Selects Nuance to Provide Speech Technology

BURLINGTON, Mass. - Ford Motor Company utilized an array of Nuance speech solutions for its new in-car digital system. This new factory-installed, in-car communications and entertainment system, dubbed Sync, is designed to change the way consumers use digital media portable music players and mobile phones in their vehicles. This Ford-exclusive technology, based on Microsoft Auto software, includes Nuance's speech recognition and speech synthesis technologies that provide consumers with the ability to bring into their vehicle nearly any mobile phone or digital media player and operate it using voice commands, or the vehicle's steering wheel or radio controls. Sync integrates the vehicle with portable electronic devices and is upgradeable. Features of the new Sync system based on Nuance speech solutions include:

Voice-activated calling: Drivers can press the Push-to-Talk button on the steering wheel, and then say the name of the person to call. Sync will connect with the names in the mobile phone's contact list.

Audible text messages: With Nuance speech synthesis, Sync will convert text messages from a phone to audio and read them out loud. The system is translates commonly used text messaging expressions such as LOL.

Voice-activated music: Drivers can browse the music collection on a digital media player or USB drive by genre, album, artist and song title using voice commands, such as Play Genre Rock, Play U2, or Play Playlist Acoustic.

Voice recognition: The Nuance speech recognition in Sync lets a driver speak commands that are understood by the system, without any training.

Multilingual intelligence: Sync is fluent in English, French, and Spanish. Sync will debut this calendar year on the 2008 Ford Focus, Fusion, Five Hundred, Edge, Freestyle, Explorer, and Sport Trac; Mercury Milan, Montego and Mountaineer; and Lincoln MKX and MKZ. The technology is expected to be available on all Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles in the near future.