Washington Post: XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. plans to introduce new technologies next year that will allow users to switch stations using voice commands.
XM, working with Kirkland, Wash.-based VoiceBox Technologies Inc., is designing a system that allows the driver of a car to control the radio by asking it to search by genre of music, for example. The system will then reply to the driver with several options.
The feature is part of a push into new services that will market the company as more of a computing-and-communications service for the car. Customers will be able to access the kind of information that usually would come over a desktop computer, including real-time traffic information, as well as other entertainment.
XM, which this week also said it would start broadcasting two of its channels in surround sound in March, had more than 5 million subscribers at the end of September.
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