KDDI Corp. will introduce three new handsets for its au mobile phone service next month that will allow customers to orally control its EZ Navi Walk navigation service.
The new voice capability will eliminate the troublesome process of manually inputting information on the search query, such as addresses and phone numbers, KDDI said Thursday.
The EZ Navi Walk service uses a satellite-based global positioning system to give location information to pedestrians.
If information on train transfers is desired, the customer merely speaks the names of departure and arrival stations into the handset, along with the dates and times.
By adopting technology known as dispersive voice recognition, the handset can pick up the data needed from the oral inputs and send it to a server computer for processing.
The new handsets will hit the market in early February and cost around 10,000 yen.
