Television Industry Preparing for Voice Recognition Interfaces for 2012

Submitted by Dan; December 09, 2011


Businessweek reports on the scramble towards voice activated TV remote controls in the coming year. The scramble seems to be triggered by Apple's plans to enter the televison market in the near future. Steve Jobs said that he had finally "cracked it", referring to the TV user interface. Most believe that this revelation relates to Apple's Siri voice recognition system, and the industry is on the move to lessen the hit by Apple, if true. Businessweek suggests an voice command as simple as "Record the next episode of Modern Family" as a much needed improvement over the current solution. Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group goes on to say "Anything would be better than what we have now." Businessweek writes that whether or not the rumors are true that Apple is planning to release a TV set by 2013, Siri like voice recognition is headed for the living room. Microsoft is already there, via its Xbox 360 game console, Comcast, Samsung Electronics, LG, and Sharp are working on voice enabled features for TV sets, set-top boxes, and related products. The upcoming remote devices are said to look, naturally, more like iPhones than traditional remotes, with possibly a single physical button to activate the microphone. Others are working to simply embed microphones around the living room and eliminating a physical remote altogether. Nuance suggests that 5% of television sets could be voice controlled by Christmas 2012 - Just one year away.


Tags: Apple Television, Apple TV, voice enabled tv, voice recognition television