Nuance Communications, Inc. is making One-Shot Destination Entry technology available for Microsoft Auto. The latest version of the Nuance VoCon 3200 speech recognition engine supports new search algorithms to allow one-shot, multi-slot entry in just one spoken command. Instead of walking through a multi-step dialog and responding to independent prompts for city name, street name and house number, the user can simply speak the address in one shot, stating for example, “196 Sunset Boulevard, San Francisco, California.”

“We’re seeing strong demand for voice-driven user interfaces that control today’s automotive telematics, navigation and infotainment systems,” says Greg Baribault, director of marketing, Microsoft Automotive Business Unit.

The increased demand for natural language user interfaces is due in part to the need to reduce driver distractions. A recent study on in-car distraction implemented by the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany revealed that speech recognition combined with Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology significantly reduces distractions and improves driving performance while using navigation systems in the car. The study compared the impact of conventional destination entry by voice requiring individual confirmation of city name, street name and house number, and a more advanced user interface requiring a single confirmation (both versus manual operation). The system supporting single confirmation reduced the reaction time by 47%, while the conventional speech input for city, street and address reduced reaction time by 24%.