Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Nokia lets you customize the voice for Ovi Maps navigation

My daughters like to name the different voices for GPS navigation software I have on my smartphones and my wife likes to joke that these are the only women I listen to when it comes to navigation. Nokia just launched a rather unique free service that I think can make GPS navigation fun for a lot of people. With their new Nokia Own Voice for Ovi Maps application loaded onto your Nokia S60 device you can record any voice you want and generate a voice pack for use with Ovi Maps GPS navigation program. You can record your own voice, your wife’s, your kids, or even your mom’s voice so you can setup who you want to listen to. You will also have the option to share that voice pack with your friends or the world and find other voices to use with your Nokia device.

After loading the application onto your smartphone you need to record the voice 53 times by following the instructions in the program. The recordings are then uploaded to Nokia’s servers so a voice pack can be generated for use on your device. You do not have to share the voice pack if you don’t want, but Nokia makes it easy via Facebook and Twitter too. With 10 million downloads of the free Ovi Maps navigation program I imagine we will soon see thousands of available voice packs for you to choose from.

Whose voice do you plan to use for your navigation?

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