Burlington, Mass. and Aachen, Germany, September 9, 2009 — Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN), today announced that its Music Search and One-Shot Destination Entry speech technology are now featured as part of the BMW 2010 model series. Nuance’s innovative speech technology has been integrated as part of Professional, BMW’s new navigation system. The system is available in various languages, and will be introduced throughout the U.S. and Europe beginning this month.

Speech technology has been available for many years in BMW’s infotainment systems to support voice dialing and destination entry in the conventional multi-step approach. However, through these technology advancements made possible by Nuance, the new generation of BMW systems now enables a more conversational dialogue between drivers and BMW navigation and entertainment systems. Drivers can search for music by voice and enter an entire destination address in one, simple spoken command, ultimately reducing the distraction posed by manual input and limiting visual confirmation.

Nuance’s speech technology is combined with BMW’s iDrive system, its renowned console controller that enables drivers to control the entire head unit, including entertainment, communication and navigation systems. Both interfaces can be used simultaneously and allow a multimodal use of the speech input that allows drivers to switch easily between the manual controller input and speech recognition. This allows the driver to use navigation and entertainment system quickly and efficiently while minimizing distractions. The system was developed by Harman Becker Automotive, a leading automotive supplier and Nuance partner.

“Speech technology is increasingly becoming a key automotive interface as it allows drivers to remain focused on the road, yet still take advantage of today’s most popular in-car features like MP3 connectivity and navigation,” said Arnd Weil, general manager, Nuance Automotive. “By integrating our Music Search and One-Shot Destination Entry as part of in-car infotainment systems, car manufacturers have demonstrated their commitment to providing a safer and more user friendly driving experience.”

With Nuance’s next-generation Music Search capabilities for automotive, BMW drivers can quickly and easily access their favorite, stored songs from behind the wheel by selecting the audio source, genre, artist, album or song with a simple, spoken command. Nuance Music Search also recognizes several languages in parallel. So a French-speaking driver can look for a German song title or English album, and vice versa.

Recent surveys commissioned by Nuance have shown that controlling in-car systems by voice is one of the most important features to reduce driver distraction and increase overall ease of use of the entertainment and navigation systems. Nuance’s Voice User Interface study found that consumers desire shorter dialogues with fewer confirmations. Nuance’s Distracted Driver study confirms that One-Shot functionality has a measurable positive impact on reaction time and is reducing the driver distraction. Also, manual control of media players is highly distracting with the average driver 50 percent more distracted during lane changes, versus being able to simply say the artist and song title via a speech-based interface.

Today more than 100 models from major car manufacturers and nearly all leading portable navigation device manufacturers feature Nuance’s industry leading speech technology to enable voice destination entry or speech synthesis for voice guidance. To learn more, please visit http://www.nuance.com/automotive/

About Nuance Mobile
Nuance Mobile builds innovative, intelligent and intuitive touch and speech interfaces to simplify and enhance the way people interact with mobile devices, applications, and services. Nuance Mobile solutions make mobile devices and in-car systems easier to use, automate customer self-service, and optimize the access and discovery of even the most advanced mobile applications and content — regardless of technical know-how, location, environment, or physical and literacy capabilities.

About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications and professional services. For more information, please visit: www.nuance.com.

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