Spanish car maker SEAT has been getting to grips with regional British accents for its pioneering new satellite navigation system.
SEAT is today launching an innovative new satellite navigation system called SMART, which stands for SEAT Media Audio Recognition Technology. The new system uses state-of-the-art GPS plotting, which is combined with a 20Gb hard drive that has been filled with a wide array of voice instruction data in order to offer bespoke instructions.
The innovative SMART system has been equipped with something called 'Automatic Regional Speech Equivalence' software, which means that the system will recognize which area of the country it is in, and then personalise its voice instructions accordingly.
Owners of one of these new systems will get some control over the way their instructions are given to them. If you are going on a long journey, for example, you can choose to have the same regional dialiect (perhaps your own, or one you enjoy) throughout most of the journey. The last 10 miles of your trip, however, will always feature instructions in the local dialect of your destination.
Apart from being entertaining and turning the satellite navigation system into a fun as well as a practical feature of the car, the SMART system has two purposes. Firstly it aims to make drivers feel more at home in their car by offering instructions in their own dialect when owners are driving around their home town. Secondly, the makers hope that it will help its owners to become more accustomed to the regional dialect of places that they visit before they even arrive.
The new system is also able to take inputs from the car's various ECU chips so that it will know the car's condition, report relevant facts to the driver, and make friendly comments. One example that has been given is that if you change your wiper blades as part of routine maintenance, then the next time they are activated the car will say something like, "Raining again! Glad you got those wiper blades changed now, aren't you?"
Britain will be the first country in the world in which the new system will be available to buy, with the first SMART equipped Leon, Alhambra and Altea cars being delivered today.
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