Alpine Electronics has invested in technology for a “personal assistant” that might appear on a car radio screen as an avatar and act much like Apple’s Siri.
Alpine is joining Intel in investing in Speaktoit, a natural voice assistant, which will use the new funding to bring its technology to cars, robots, wearable devices and more. Speaktoit is already a popular app for smartphones.
Alpine said the technology will help improve driver safety.
We asked Alpine if this technology will be used in aftermarket radios. We were told by Koichiro Kanda, “We currently have many opportunities which we are considering to implement Speaktoit’s technology, but none which I can make public at the moment.”
Kanda is Managing Director of Alpine’s Alpine Technology Fund, based in Silicon Valley. He said, “We …look forward to future collaborations between Speaktoit and Alpine Electronics. We firmly believe in the balance between driver safety and a quality in-vehicle experience.”
Speaktoit has already been downloaded 10 million times, and is Android’s top-rated virtual assistant, it says. It can be used to verbally compose a text message or email, or to post on Facebook or Twitter, or to create a calendar reminder. You can also verbally find directions, launch apps and search the web, all in natural commands.
Speaktoit is a 3 year old company whose goal is to “make working with everyday technology easier, more effective, and more fun so that you are free to enjoy the important things in life.” It employs a team of 20 natural language interaction specialists.
We initially missed the announcement a month ago, but thought it worthy of a mention.
Source: Speaktoit, MarketWired via TechCrunch,
Photo via TechCrunch
Intel’s involvement not withstanding, it sounds like a financial black hole that will suck up resources as they try to keep up with the big boys.
go get it pioneer.