ReadSpeaker Powers Custom Voices for Spotify Car Thing Smart Player

ReadSpeaker, a voice technology company from Sweden, announced that Spotify uses its neural text-to-speech (TTS) technology to deliver custom voices for Spotify’s newest exploration in the US - a limited release of Car Thing, a smart player for the car. ReadSpeaker’s technology currently powers the custom voice available in Car Thing, the bold, first hardware adventure from the Swedish streaming company.

For car owners who are perfectly happy with their classic cars, and prefer to hold off getting an electric until they cost half the price, there is now a simple option to still have an Apple CarPlay experience while driving. The Fesco Group, a manufacturer of innovative consumer technology solutions, introduced the Intellidash Pro, the much-anticipated wireless version in a series of plug-and-play dashboard-mounted IPS touchscreen smart displays.

The smart speaker market in the second quarter of 2021 surged to new heights as consumers and brands adapt to the ongoing pandemic, according to the latest research from Strategy Analytics. Even with the looming specters of supply chain challenges, component shortages, and the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus hanging over the market, global shipments of smart speakers and smart displays in Q2 2021 grew 34.8% from Q2 2020 to 39.5 million units, a record for a second calendar quarter.

Consumers are increasingly looking to have high quality sound integrated into their lives in creative ways. However, ensuring that their demands are met across connectivity and sound can be hard to achieve. Often, the more creative and interesting the application, the higher chance it’s harder to produce a sound that is perfect for every use case.

Bose launched its new Smart Soundbar 900, an immersive soundbar design with Dolby Atmos and all-in-one wireless system for music and movies. Custom-engineered with upfiring dipole speakers, the new soundbars works with Bose ADAPTiQ and the Bose Music app for room setup, being able to make it feel like the room is filled with sound from every direction. The Smart Soundbar 900 supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and Bose Voice4Video technology adds voice remote control for a connected TV.

Sondrel has created a powerful, quad core IP platform that is ideal for ASIC solutions for remote gathering and processing of video and data at the Edge with secure onwards transmission of the results. The SFA 200 reference design is targeted at battery powered applications in Smart Home, Sensor Fusion, voice-control, and other devices where a compact chip can add processing ‘smarts’ by providing local end-point data processing for data collection and analysis along with inference processing.

NXP expanded its already broad portfolio of voice enablement solutions with the acquisition of Retune DSP, the Denmark-based provider of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) software and algorithms for voice control and communication applications. Announced in July and now confirmed, the acquisition of Retune DSP adds three powerful voice DSP software products that will merge with NXP’s voice solutions. The combination with NXP’s broad customer base, global footprint and scale, promises to expand breakthrough voice solutions through combined R&D, sales force and customer support teams.

Libre Wireless Technologies announced a technology partnership with Vodafone to deliver Vodafone’s UK launch of Pro Broadband with Alexa Built-in - featuring voice-assistant calling, messaging (ACM) and Vodafone One Number calling, as well as a selection of advanced custom Skills. The Vodafone Pro Broadband with Alexa Built-in product offers a Super WiFi Plus booster with hybrid 4G broadband back-up and dedicated support.

Great voice recognition can only start with great voice pickup. Just “OK” pickup will greatly compromise recognition accuracy and increase user frustration. The high speech quality you need demands a high-quality audio front-end. And if cost is no object, of course you can build a great solution. But can you also satisfy mid-range markets with attractive pricing?

Sensory announced the integration of its TrulyNatural embedded speech recognition software within the latest public beta release of Zoom Rooms for Android, iOS, MacOS and Windows. With this integration, voice commands are now supported on all Zoom Rooms platforms, which now offer the convenience of voice control while maintaining privacy. With this update, Zoom-native voice commands support expanded functionality, all processed locally, never in the cloud.