While talking to the television is nothing new – many of us have been screaming at it and offering one-way advice for decades – it will soon become a two-way process, thanks to voice technology leader Nuance Communications (News - Alert) and TV maker Panasonic. Today, Nuance announced that its voice technologies have been adopted by Panasonic for its digital TVs to deliver an intuitive and interactive experience with digital program guides. By leveraging Nuance's recently unveiled Dragon TV platform, Panasonic (News - Alert) is expected bring to market a new portfolio of TVs that provide improved (not to mention infinitely more modern) usability and accessibility to digital content.

While navigating a television wasn't very complicated once upon a time – you didn't exactly have a lot of programming options -- televisions are very different beasts nowadays. As the delivery point for a multitude of media, old-fashioned as well as cutting-edge, television navigation has increased in complexity. Viewers can choose between shows, movies, music and now Internet and social media content. To provide a truly interactive experience with media and content with complicated and sometimes antiquated program guides, Panasonic has implemented Nuance's innovative voice technology to improve the digital TV experience. With the partnership, television viewers will benefit from the ability to find and interact with content by speaking channel numbers, station names, show and movie names. 

“TVs have become the epicenter of the digital living room, with what seems to be unlimited entertainment and media content. But that content is only as powerful as the experience and the ability for consumers to access it. By integrating Nuance's voice technology, Panasonic can empower consumers to enjoy TV watching with Voice Guidance technology in a more universal way,” said Hiroyuki Iwaki, group manager of Panasonic's TV product planning, in a press release.

Dragon TV is Nuance's unique voice and natural language understanding platform for TV, device and set-top box OEMs and service operators. Dragon TV makes finding and accessing shows, movies and content in today's digital living room easy and fun for consumers. Leveraging Nuance's voice and natural language understanding capabilities, Dragon TV creates what the company calls the “lean-back experience” consumers demand, with the ability to easily find and interact with content by speaking channel numbers, station names, show and movie names.

“The digital living room is quickly proving to be the next big opportunity for voice, as it lets consumers engage their TVs in a way that is natural and intuitive,” said Michael Thompson (News - Alert), senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile. “And because our Dragon TV platform is incredibly flexible, we're able to give our OEM partners like Panasonic new ways to differentiate the TV experience based on the unique demands of their consumers.”