working to supplant Siri’s Nuance speech recognition with in-house tech

Although ’s Siri uses Nuance’s speech recognition technology, the digital assistant may be getting a new voice soon. Although Nuance continues to power Siri’s speech recognition, a of former Nuance employees reportedly are now part of ’s in-house efforts to develop a new speech recognition technology to power Siri, reducing its technological dependency on third-parties.For instance, a of former employees of VoiceSignal Technologies, a speech software firmed acquired by Nuance, now appr in lding roles developing Siri as an in-house appliion for , according to a Friday report…According toXconomy, lding the tm is Gunnar Evermann as Manager, Siri Speech. Evermann moved from ’s California hdquarter to Boston, opening the firm’s .Furthermore, Nuance’s former vice president of resrch, Larry Gillick, is now listed by as“chief speech scientist, Siri,”according to the report.The crux of the report: has assembled a small tm of notable names in speech technology and is looking to expand those efforts in the Boston ar, industry sources tell Xconomy.Based on their online job profiles, we can say that members of the speech tm here are working on Siri, the company’s voice-activated virtual assistant. Details beyond that are hard to come by, however, even for others in the field.Don McAllaster, is reportedly Siri’s senior resrch scientist. He worked with Gillick when both were at Dragon Systems, another speech firm.“By opening its own speech-technology here – stocked with former Nuance employees, no less – could be signaling a move away from relying on Nuance for Siri’s guts,”writes Xconomy reporter Curt Woodward.Although usually does little development outside its California home base, the firm is noted for its desire to retain technology in-house.The most recent example of keeping components -only was the much-publicizedrejection of Google Mapsfor Maps, then the equally-public reversal, permitting Google’s mapping service back in the form of a downloadable App Store app.Such a move to replace Nuance also makes sense after CEO Tim Cook callediOS-enabled cars‘’ to his company’s future. In-dashversions of Sirihave become an integral part of that future, as well.However, the most potent rson for to cut ties with Nuance might be because the Boston-based company also supplies speech technology to rival .