Sensory released VoiceHub, a free online portal for creating and designing voice user interfaces, it said Tuesday. Sensory integrated support for TrulyNatural, its vocabulary speech recognition that runs on devices with customizable natural language understanding (NLU) capability. Voice user interface (VUI) designers can use the capability to produce natural language-enabled products capable of supporting dozens of languages and dialects, it said. "Providing free access to flexible tools like VoiceHub helps to accelerate the next wave of branded voice experiences and domain-specific, customized voice assistants," said Todd Mozer, Sensory CEO. Since the VoiceHub beta was released in October, VUI designers have created voice artificial intelligence models for dozens of automotive, wearable, smart speaker and smart home products, he said. A new, large vocabulary and NLU capabilities will enable enhanced VUI functionality with “intents and entities,” Mozer said. Designers will be able to develop more complex and “truly conversational” voice interfaces that can handle millions of phrases, he said. Sensor is co-hosting a webinar on Jan. 27 with STMicroelectronics focused on creating large vocabulary NLU models for the semiconductor company’s STM32 discovery kit. Attendees will learn how to create custom wake words and domain-specific language models and to integrate with ST development platforms, it said.

Automakers have largely aligned on touch screen and voice as the primary modalities for infotainment human machine interfaces (HMI), said Strategy Analytics Tuesday. Touch- and voice-centric HMIs have achieved a majority market penetration in all major markets, led by China where voice is the primary modality in many verticals, it said. The development of voice as the primary interaction modality has wide-ranging implications for interface designers, software developers and product planners, said analyst Derek Viita. In-car touch screen and voice control performance have long trailed their counterparts outside the car, due to poor user experiences and long production cycles, Viita said. Consumers now look to their trusted mobile or home-based voice assistant for all voice tasks, including those in the vehicle, he said. Analyst Chris Schreiner expects “tepid” satisfaction until the pace of automotive hardware improvements speeds up, along with “wholesale improvements in voice UI design.” Voice’s strength in the car is context-based, said Schreiner: A useable and useful voice UX in the car must take into account accurate location-, traffic- and weather information and user preferences, he said.

Sharp introduced Wi-Fi microwave ovens that are Works with Alexa-certified for “hands-free operation.” The SMC1449FS, a 1.4 cubic-foot 1000-watt model ($169), responds to 70 Alexa voice commands, said the company Wednesday, giving an example of asking Alexa to defrost two pounds of meat. Another voice command selects the correct settings for popcorn. A 1.1-cubic-foot model ($149) works with 30 Alexa voice commands, the company said.

Universal Electronics Inc. will supply voice-enabled remote controls to the U.K.'s Virgin Media for its new Virgin TV 360 platform, said UEI Tuesday. The RF4CE voice-enabled remote is powered by UEI chip technology with automated setup and control through UEI’s cloud-based QuickSet platform that’s designed to simplify entertainment and smart home control by making the remote “self-install-ready.” Virgin customers will be able to search content by voice on the RDK-based Horizon 4 platform, it said. Colliers analyst Steven Frankel remains “bullish” on UEI “as new design wins from customers shifting to next generation set-top boxes could overtake the headwinds from those customers like DirecTV and Dish that have seen installations negatively impacted by the pandemic,” he wrote investors Wednesday.

Nearly half of U.S. broadband households own a smart speaker or smart display, said Parks Associates Wednesday. The user experience across smart speakers varies widely, said analyst Jennifer Kent, beyond early uses focused on information requests and music streaming. As voice control devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home move into emergency detection and response, companies will need to ensure quality of service to instill consumer confidence, Kent said. Parks plans a smart speaker webinar Thursday at noon EST.

Amazon’s Echo Frames smart glasses, announced last year and available to select customers under the company’s Day 1 Editions program, are available for everyone to preorder for Dec. 10 shipping, blogged the company Thursday. Shoppers who were part of the invitation-only Day 1 Editions program, which introduces new concepts for customer feedback, can buy updated Echo Frames for $70, Amazon said. The Alexa-based glasses have mics that respond to the wearer's voice and can be turned off with a double-click of the action button. Users can ask Alexa to make calls, set reminders, add to to-do lists, get news, listen to podcasts and control smart home devices; they can also choose which notifications to receive from contacts and apps on a paired smartphone. The open-ear audio design directs sound to the wearer’s ears while minimizing what others can hear, Amazon said, and the volume adjusts based on ambient noise level. The frames also support access to Google Assistant and Siri from a compatible device with a long press of the temple, it said. Improvements in the second-generation frames include better audio quality, longer battery life, new colors and features that make it easier to interact with Alexa. Amazon added support for calendars and group messaging so users can keep their phone in their pocket “without worrying about missing an important update.” Echo Frames come with non-corrective lenses and are compatible with most prescription lenses, said Amazon. Echo Loop, a smart ring that was trialed under the Day 1 Editions program, will not advance, with production and sales ending, Amazon said: “We learned a lot about how customers want to use Alexa for short, snackable content throughout the day, and we will take that with us as we continue to invent new customer experiences.” Customers who bought Echo Loop will continue to receive updates and support and can use their devices as they do today, Amazon said.

Voice assistants are more desirable to consumers than other chatbot technologies, said a Friday report from artificial intelligence developer Myplanet. Phone-based voice assistants ranked a 33% comfort "agree rate" vs. 22% with text-based chatbots, said the report. Scheduling bots using voice had a 24% comfort level vs. ones that used text (20%). Female respondents were more comfortable than male respondents with phone-based voice assistants (37% vs. 30%), banking chatbots (22% vs. 15%) and customer service bots (34% vs 21%), it said. People prefer chatbots for simple tasks such as customer service or scheduling, it said, vs. ones dealing with sensitive information, such as health and banking data.

Q3 revenue in DSP Group’s SmartVoice segment increased 45% from a year earlier and 82% sequentially from Q2, said CEO Ofer Elyakim on a Monday investor call. "Accelerated" demand for devices incorporating DSP’s proprietary voice user interface (VUI) SoC helped drive the segment to record-high quarterly revenue, he said. Interest in VUIs for work-from-home and remote-learning PCs and tablets is “robust,” he said. “We expect this trend to continue as the pandemic lingers.” VUI growth in connectivity products “is felt everywhere as every person needs a screen, whether it's for work, for studying, for any other activity,” he said. “In this market segment, we're seeing a much greater adoption.”

JVCKenwood launched an Indiegogo campaign for two wireless smart headsets that give access to either Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. The headphones access the cloud-based voice assistants through a user’s mobile device. Use cases shown include asking the assistant for directions, listening to a programmed schedule or engaging a music playlist. The noise-canceling earphones have three mics. The WS-A1 and WS-A1G, priced 15% off at $280 Monday, are slated for shipping in February and March. None of the units had been claimed Monday, with 41 days left in the campaign, which has a flexible goal of $25,000.

Australian subscription TV platform Foxtel is using TiVo’s voice search, part of its Personalized Content Discovery platform, said parent company Xperi Thursday. The search uses a dynamic knowledge base of entertainment metadata, said to be capable of understanding trends and conversations. Customers can search by voice across linear TV and video on demand programming.