Dragon brings voice control to smart TVs and set-top boxes

Nuance has developed a new platform that will bring its Dragon voice-controlled software to a range of devices including set-top boxes and smart TVs.

It has been estimated that around 1.6 billion smart TVs that can connect to the internet will be sold by 2014 and many will be able to make use of voice recognition and programme control software.

The new Dragon TV platform will enable a number of voice recognition services to be delivered, including letting users find content by speaking channel numbers, station names, and programme and movie names.

People can also search for content by actor and genre. The platform also lets people link to social networking sites and stay in touch or send emails.

 It was announced by Nuance that LG will be one of the first manufacturers to make a device that can access the Dragon TV services. Nuance said that in future there is no reason that devices won't incorporate voice-to-text in social media.

"It is not currently part of the functionality of LG's Magic Remote, but there is no technical reason why those functions couldn't form part of future applications of the Dragon TV platform, with  speech converted to text," the company said.

The LG Magic Remote will be equipped to work with the company's new Smart range of TVs. It will be available in the first quarter of this year and Nuance expects more device manufacturers to take up the platform.