BURLINGTON, Mass., – August 16, 2016 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced its new suite of Dragon professional productivity solutions for PC and Mac that leverage Nuance Deep Learning technology to deliver upwards of 24 percent greater accuracy driving new levels of documentation productivity for professionals. The new Dragon releases include Dragon Professional Individual, version 15; Dragon Legal Individual, version 15; and, Dragon Professional Individual for Mac, version 6, and feature powerful dictation, transcription and customization capabilities. All these solutions also sync vocabulary customizations and auto-texts with Nuance Dragon Anywhere, available separately, to extend the benefits of professional-grade speech recognition to mobile devices running iOS or Android.

Deep Learning is Ready for Work

Dragon speech recognition accuracy, speed and personalization have long set the standard for voice productivity on the Mac, PC and mobile devices. And with Deep Learning technology at the core of its speech engine, Dragon delivers increased accuracy for even more users, with an enhanced ability to learn individuals’ voice patterns and accents, and deftly adapt to acoustics in open office or mobile environments. This latest Dragon release marks the first time Deep Learning capabilities can run embedded on a personal computer leveraging a user’s own speech data to improve their own language and acoustic model.

“Deep Learning is a powerful pattern recognition technique inspired by the way the human brain learns and interprets sensory input, which Nuance has leveraged to advance accuracy across our speech recognition technologies, including Dragon,” said Vlad Sejnoha, chief technology officer, Nuance Communications. “Training such Deep Neural Net models typically requires large amounts of training data and a high-performance computing environment. However, our new Dragon portfolio includes our latest breakthrough that allows Dragon’s Deep Neural Nets to continuously learn from the user’s speech during use on a standard personal computer, and drive accuracy rates in some instances up to 24 percent higher.”

The new Dragon also brings with it advanced transcription, powerful customization, and an improved ability to work with portable touchscreen PCs, extending the benefits of speech recognition to more mobile use cases and environments. As a result, documents are completed with higher accuracy in a fraction of the time, giving professionals across a number of industries – such as legal, public safety, social services and education – the ability to focus more on mission-critical tasks.

Dragon Professional Individual, version 15

Dragon Professional Individual, version 15 delivers additional usability and performance enhancements to give professionals the ability to get more done in less time. Designed for PCs, Dragon Professional Individual expands the boundaries of speech recognition innovation for document creation with accuracy improvements up to 24 percent, without training, over previous versions, as well as across-the-board enhancements, including:

• Optimization for popular touchscreen PCs
• Formatting and other recognition improvements to minimize post-editing
• Simplified set up and improved user interface
• Enhanced support for recorded audio transcription, with streamlined setup and improved profile management
• Expanded support, including full voice-driven editing, formatting, and command and control within popular desktop or web applications for business
• Contextual guidance tailored to user behavior, as well as improved help to get new users up to speed quickly or for existing users to easily further discover the power of Dragon.

Dragon Legal Individual, version 15

In addition to leveraging the robust feature set of Dragon Professional Individual, Dragon Legal Individual, version 15 for the PC is designed specifically for the legal industry, empowering attorneys and other legal professionals to speed document turnaround and reduce transcription costs. A specialized legal vocabulary trained using more than 400 million words from legal documents enables legal professionals to quickly create and format case files, contracts, or briefs all by voice. Powerful customization, fast and accurate transcription, and automatic formatting of legal citations further boost efficiency.

Dragon Professional Individual for Mac, version 6 

Dragon Professional Individual for Mac, version 6 empowers busy professionals to quickly and accurately complete documentation and reporting on the Mac by boasting accuracy improvements of up to 24 percent, without training, over previous versions. The solution features contextual guidance tailored to an individual’s usage, as well as improved help to get new users up to speed quickly or for existing users to easily further discover the power of Dragon.

In addition to enabling professionals to quickly and accurately dictate reports, spreadsheets, emails, and other documentation, the solution now offers a transcription Batch Mode to save time transcribing multiple audio files. Dragon Professional Individual for Mac also empowers users to work even more quickly and accurately by voice with support for Full Text Control within the latest business applications. Dragon Professional Individual for Mac leverages Apple’s Accessibility API to support Apple Pages, Apple Keynote, Apple Numbers, Microsoft Outlook 2016, and Scrivener, among others.

“Our customers are writers, and we are always looking for ways in which we can expand on the powerful tools available to them. We designed Scrivener to support any creative or professional workflow—whether building a meticulous outline, hammering out a draft or referring to research, Scrivener’s features are flexible enough to accommodate the writer’s way of working. Dragon support takes this a step further, giving our users another way of getting their words down, allowing them to think out loud, quickly and easily dictating long-form notes and text right inside our app,” said Keith Blount, founder, Scrivener.

Additionally, Dragon Professional Individual, Dragon Legal Individual and Dragon Individual Professional for Mac can be synchronized with the Dragon Anywhere mobile app for Android and iOS devices, enabling a powerful cross-device experience so that professionals can use the same vocabulary customizations and auto-text commands wherever they use Dragon.

“This latest suite of professional productivity solutions brings with it some of the most advanced capabilities to drive documentation productivity – with higher accuracy, speed and efficiency,” said Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager of Dragon. “Combined with Dragon’s optimization for portable touchscreen PC’s and the ability to sync with Dragon Anywhere, professionals are able to keep up with documentation demands from just about anywhere their business takes them.” 

Availability and Pricing

Dragon Professional Individual will be available for download in English in the US, UK and Australia for $300 on September 1, 2016. Physical product shipments will be available by mid-September. Dragon Professional Individual is available for $150 for users upgrading from Dragon Professional Individual, version 14 and Dragon Professional, versions 12 and higher, and for $200 for users upgrading from Dragon Premium, versions 12 and higher. Additional details can be found here.

Dragon Professional Individual for Mac will be available for download in English in the US, UK and Australia for $300 on September 1, 2016 with special upgrade pricing of $150 or registered users of Dragon Dictate for Mac, versions 4 and higher. Additional details can be found here.

Dragon Legal Individual will be available in U.S. English from the Nuance Online store in the United States for $500. For more information and to purchase Dragon Legal Individual, please visit the Dragon Legal Individual page on Nuance.com.

Join the conversation by liking Nuance on Facebook, following Nuance on Twitter at @DragonTweets and @NuanceInc, and subscribing to the What’s next blog.

Nuance’s Dragon Drive Powers Natural Language Interface for Daimler Connected Apps and Services
Intelligent Cloud-Based Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding Give Drivers a Safer and Easier Way to Stay Connected Behind the Wheel

FRANKFURT, Germany and BURLINGTON, Mass. – September 15, 2015 – Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced that its Dragon Drive connected car platform is powering the natural language interface of Mercedes-Benz’ suite of connected applications and services. Mercedes-Benz drivers now have a more intuitive means of staying connected behind the wheel, using their voice to access various apps and services. Select models will feature the new connected voice experience beginning in September 2015.

Nuance’s cloud-based speech recognition and natural language understanding have been deeply integrated into Mercedes-Benz’ lineup of voice-enabled applications and services: weather, Internet radio, local search, and message dictation. Nuance’s voice technologies make it simple and convenient for drivers to access these applications through a natural language interface that minimizes visual and manual distractions by allowing for commands to be spoken in a single phrase, such as, “Where’s the next Shell gas station?” or, “Show me a Legal Sea Foods restaurant near my location.”

By integrating cloud-based speech and natural language, Nuance is expanding on its existing embedded voice capabilities in Mercedes-Benz’ infotainment systems. These allow drivers to complete tasks via voice that are important to the automotive environment even when an internet connection is unavailable, including voice dialing, navigation and one-shot destination entry, and control of embedded music options.

“As cars become increasingly connected, drivers are expecting more natural experiences when accessing the applications and services that they need,” said Arnd Weil, Senior Vice President, Nuance Automotive. “Working closely with Daimler, we have integrated our natural language understanding and cloud-based speech capabilities into its expanded lineup of applications, providing drivers with an intuitive interface for engaging with their preferred content.”

Availability

The suite of voice-enabled Daimler applications will be available on select models beginning in September 2015, with eventual deployment to other models. The voice user interface supports a variety of languages in Europe, North America and Asia, including German, UK English, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, US English, Canadian French, Japanese, and Mandarin.

Dragon Drive is a part of Nuance’s portfolio of voice, natural language understanding, content and touch innovations that are powering the next generation of connected cars, devices and the Internet of Things. With Nuance technology, people experience more humanized interactions with the world’s best phones, tablets, computers, cars, TVs, apps and services from leading manufacturers, developers and network operators.

Dragon Drive’s connected car capabilities and sophisticated natural language interface will be on display at the Connected Car Pavilion at New Mobility World in Hall 3.1, as part of IAA 2015 in September.

Join the conversation by following Nuance on Twitter at @NuanceInc and by subscribing to the What’s next blog.
About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) is a leading provider of voice and language 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 devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications. For more information, please visit www.nuance.com.

Nuance, Dragon and the Nuance logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States of America and/or other countries. All other company names or product names may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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