Australian English a Challenge for SYNC
MELBOURNE, 30 Aug, 2012
It has the ability to recognise 19 different languages, but one of the biggest challenges Ford Motor Company had with SYNC was getting it to understand Australian English.
As SYNC rolls out across Asia and Australia, engineers involved in the project have been working to ensure the system can accommodate many different dialects and accents.
They have even managed to make SYNC Australia-friendly. The system is smart enough to have a version of voice recognition specific to understand the nuances of the Australian English accent.
The system also includes an Australian accent for the voice prompts the system delivers as feedback to vehicle occupants.
“Australian English pronunciation is determined less by region than by social, cultural and educational influences,” says Mark Porter, Ford Motor Company Supervisor, SYNC Product Development/Core Voice Technology.
“It is sometimes claimed that there are variations in accent and pronunciation among people of different states and territories.
“Most linguists consider there to be three main varieties of Australian English: (a) Broad Australian English, (b) General Australian English and (c) Cultivated Australian English.
“They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent.”
The broad range of new vehicles Ford is introducing in Asia will have increasingly sophisticated and intuitive technology that enables customers to more easily and safely access entertainment, navigation and other communication services – increasingly through their smart phones.
As the Ford Motor Company accelerates plans to develop and deliver leading-edge in-car technology to customers across Asia, the company’s Connected Services group in the Asia Pacific and Africa region will manage the roll-out of SYNC and other connected services.
To head up the group, Ed Pleet has been appointed as director of Ford’s Connected Services group, based at the company’s APA headquarters in Shanghai, China.
“In today's world, people want to be connected at all times, and that includes when they are in their car. So Ford developed SYNC to offer a smarter, safer and simpler way to connect drivers with in-car technologies and their digital lives,” Pleet said.
“SYNC has already proved successful in North America, which is why we are working hard to bring it to more customers in Asia Pacific and Africa.”
The Connected Services team will build partnerships with world-class technology service providers across Asia Pacific, Africa and Europe to ensure customers have seamless access to affordable data and information services, further enhancing the driving experience.
The team will also tap into the local expertise of Ford’s vast network across the APA region, helping to understand customer needs and wants for in-car technology.
SYNC has been available in North America since 2007 and showcased Ford as a pioneer in vehicle connectivity. It is already equipped in more than 4 million vehicles globally.
SYNC is a voice-activated connectivity system, allowing drivers to make hands-free calls via Bluetooth®1, and control in-car entertainment options such as music through voice control, allowing the driver to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road.
In Asia Pacific and Africa, SYNC is available with the arrival of the Ford Focus as part of the continued global roll out. The system has just been launched in the Australian version of the Ford Focus.
Apart from understanding specific languages, SYNC can understand different accents, and will be able to recognise up to 150 unique voice commands.
In China the award-winning system in the new Focus speaks and understands Mandarin Chinese – a language spoken by more than 1.2 billion people.
Extensive research went into the development of the Mandarin voice recognition feature, with speech data recorded from about 2,000 people around China representing a broad spectrum of society and a variety of accents. They were asked to read paragraphs, give common greetings and recite numbers so that Nuance engineers could isolate the individual phoneme, or the basic unit of speech.
This is why SYNC will be able to understand the wide-ranging accents from Beijing, Hebei, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Anhui, Sichuan, Chonqing, Hubei, Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi. So whether the customer is a Beijinger who adds the “er” sound to the end of words or a Southerner who tends to blur the distinction between consonant sounds like “sh” and “s”, SYNC should have no problems carrying out the driver’s wishes.
Nuance’s natural text-to-speech technology is also behind “Karen”, the female voice of the Australian English voice on SYNC, providing drivers with a more natural, conversational experience with their Ford vehicle. All of these refinements are designed to encourage drivers to take advantage of the hands-free capabilities of SYNC and keep their focus on driving.
Ford believes SYNC will prove enormously popular in APA markets. A recent survey showed that more than 60 per cent of mid to large size car owners in China own a smart phone. In addition, more than 70 per cent of smart phone owners in China have instant messaging, music and search apps on their phone, and they are also the most used applications.
Smart phones also dominate the market in Australia and continue to grow in popularity every day.
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