Gracenote and Voxonic’s CarStars Wins the CNET “Best of CES” Awards for Hottest Car Tech at 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show
New Personalized In-car Entertainment Solution is Chosen from Hundreds of SubmissionsLas Vegas, January 10, 2009 – Gracenote® today announced it won a “Best of CES” award for its CarStars solution, the world’s first personalized automobile entertainment system, in the Car Tech category. CarStars, a collaboration between Gracenote and Voxonic with support from Omnifone, Atlantic Records, Nissan Motor Co. and Azentek, is designed to create a dynamic user interface tailored to a diver’s specific tastes and provides an entirely new in-car entertainment experience using celebrity images and voices. Produced and judged by editors from CNET (www.cnet.com), the winners of the “Best of CES” awards were announced Saturday, January 10, at the 2009 International CES in Las Vegas.
Selected by CNET’s unbiased expert editors, winners are recognized as having the hottest products in their respective technology categories for their unmatched innovation and creativity, and their ability to excite consumers and help them explore a world gone digital. CNET editors reviewed hundreds of entries, as well as scoured the 2009 International CES show floor for products to consider for the prestigious award.
The CarStars personalized experience uses Gracenote’s MusicID® and Playlist Plus™ products to profile a driver’s music collection, as well as its MediaVOCS® voice recognition enhancement that allows users to control their music collections using voice commands. Drivers are able to simply call out an artist, track, album or genre to play their music, or use Gracenote’s More Like This™ feature to create instant, intelligent playlists. Gracenote, a leader in in-car digital media, is known for its powerful platform for enhancing the entertainment experience in the car and is now taking it to the next level with Voxonic integration and through a partnership with unlimited music provider Omnifone.
Voxonic’s VOX technology applies its “Voice Models” to transform the actual celebrity’s voice into any language, resulting in a global solution for auto OEMs. This means car makers can have MIMS speaking English in North American cars and Japanese or Chinese for their Asian models, or Roy Ayers speaking French or German for the European market. The Voxonic solution will allow users across the globe to select the languages in which they want to experience the featured artists.
CarStars incorporates Omnifone’s MusicStation service to provide instant unlimited access to millions of music tracks and seamless synchronization of a consumer’s music experience with other personal devices - such as mobile phones, desktop PCs, set-top boxes and home entertainment systems. Using MusicStation, CarStars users will be able to synchronize their existing music library with Omnifone’s award winning unlimited music service of over five million tracks, using embedded Gracenote technology. The service works with multiple entertainment platforms instantly and effortlessly while optimizing the quality of the content, without the worry about file formats or interoperability.
Gracenote and Voxonic have collaborated with Atlantic Records to provide popular artists such as Musiq Soulchild for the entertainment system demonstration. The companies have also joined with Nissan Motor Co. to demonstrate the technology in the Nissan Altima Coupe during this year’s CES.
The solution includes the creation of Text-to-Speech engines in the celebrity’s voice in multiple languages so that dynamic content can be delivered to the vehicle in the language of choice of the user. For example, real time information such as news, and new music releases, will be able to be delivered to the system and delivered to the consumer in the celebrity voice. This is vastly superior to today’s pre-recorded celebrity voice experiments in the automotive and mobile markets.
“This moment reflects the work and vision we had for this solution and we are thrilled to have won this prestigious award,” said Stephen White, vice president of product and content management, Gracenote. “CarStars is personalizing the automobile entertainment system in a dynamic, interesting and exciting way, and we are pleased to have been recognized.”
“Each year at the show, CNET editors scour the show floor to determine the top technologies that will set the trends for the coming year,” said Scott Ard, vice president of content at CNET. “Chosen from hundreds of products at the 2009 International CES, Gracenote and Voxonic’s CarStars demonstrates the innovation and creativity to be awarded our “Best of CES” award within the automobile industry.”
The ten categories include car tech; cell phones and smart phones; computers and hardware; digital photo and video; gaming; GPS; home audio; home video; MP3 and portable video players; and televisions. A video of the winners and finalists showcasing their technologies can be found at http://www.cnet.com/ces.
Gracenote at CES
Gracenote is demonstrating the new in-car entertainment system at CES 2009 in the South Hall 3, Booth 30333. To schedule a meeting with Gracenote at CES, please contact Veronica Skelton at 415-342-3435 or veronica@conceptpr.net. For more information on Gracenote’s MusicID, Playlist Plus, MediaVOCS or host of digital music and video services for the entertainment, mobile, automotive, and consumer electronics industries, please visit www.gracenote.com, or contact us directly at GracenoteLicensing@gracenote.com.
About Gracenote
Gracenote, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, is a global leader in embedded technology, enriched content, and data services for digital entertainment solutions within the Internet, consumer electronics, mobile, and automotive markets. Formerly known as CDDB®, Gracenote delivers a substantially improved consumer experience in digital media devices and applications, plus media monitoring and other data services to the recording industry, making it an integral part of the digital media economy. Gracenote powers leading services including Apple iTunes, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, Winamp; home and automotive products from Alpine, Panasonic, Philips and Sony; and mobile music applications from Samsung, Sony Ericsson, KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Europe), and others. Gracenote is headquartered in Emeryville, California. www.gracenote.com/corporate.
About Voxonic
Voxonic Inc. has developed some of the most innovative software since windows revolutionized the computer industry in the early nineties. This exciting technology is able to convert any person's voice into any known language in the world. The applications are endless streaming from international business, politics, music, automotive, entertainment and the video game industry.
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Gracenote, MusicID, MediaVOCS and CDDB are registered trademarks of Gracenote, Inc. All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
For More Information Contact:
Veronica Skelton
Concept Communications for Gracenote and Voxonic
415.342.3435
veronica@conceptpr.net
