Tele Atlas teams with Mercedes Navigation

07 September 2007, 2:48pm

September 07, 2007 – Gent, Belgium – The long-standing partnership between Tele Atlas (FSE: TA6, EUNV: TA), a leading global provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location-based solutions, and Harman/Becker Automotive Systems with its speech group, supplying speech processing technology and products to the global automotive industry, has delivered a significant advance in voice controlled navigation for the new Mercedes C-Class vehicles and set a new standard for this automotive segment.

The navigation function recognizes the names of all cities, towns, streets and even Points of Interest (POIs) in any of eight European countries, as nominated by the purchaser. Stored sentences such as “Go to office” make regular destinations even easier.

Voice-operated navigation in the Audio 50 APS system, available now for the Mercedes C-Class, is a function of the optional Linguatronic voice-operated control system for audio, telephone and navigation from Harman/Becker. A single button push initiates speech recognition for the driver to specify navigation, audio or telephone, including address book with direct speech input of contact names. Selecting navigation, the driver can state requirements using whole words and phrases for all entries. Text-to-speech technology enables the Linguatronic system to reply with questions and confirmations.

Continuing advances in the speech recognition technology of Harman/Becker Automotive Systems, mean many more synonyms are accepted, such as: enter destination, destination entry, destination input, enter address, enter town, enter city, enter name of city, enter street, enter road, etc. At the same time, hesitant “ums”, “ahs” and “ers” are filtered out. A speaker adaptation function further optimizes the speech recognition to the characteristics of the driver.

“The Tele Atlas Voice Maps products, as used by Harman/Becker, are the most comprehensive and precise on the market,” says Luc Peirlinckx, Director Program Management Phonetic Topographics at Tele Atlas. “They are integrated with the Tele Atlas MultiNet database and hence the phoneme data is fully aligned and ready with each new MultiNet edition to maintain freshness of data. Detailed linguistic development ensures the recognition of virtually all variants in end-user pronunciation and enables solution providers to deliver the clearest, most informative vocal instructions available. We actively support our partner’s efforts to deliver robust speech-enabled applications by employing a dedicated, in-house linguistics team, working to ensure compatibility and continuously expanding the content, coverage, and quality of our vocal data.”

Purchasers in Europe can specify full-word recognition for one of the following options: Austria and Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium (in Dutch language), or the United Kingdom. All users can select their language of communication from any of six language options: German, UK-English, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. Each navigation system is delivered with a DVD carrying the full Tele Atlas map data for Western and Eastern Europe.

For further information, please contact:
Dirk Snauwaert
Public Relations Director Tele Atlas Europe
Phone: +32 475 69 30 97
dirk.snauwaert@teleatlas.com

Toby Gavin
Senior Account Manager
PFPR Communications
Direct Line: +44 (0) 1622 766 526
Mobile: +44 (0) 7921 484915

www.teleatlas.com

Geo: International