This gift comes in the context of ongoing interactions between researchers at MERL and my group at UNH. Kent and Bent Schmidt-Nielsen hosted me several years ago for a demonstration of the Project54 system (I drove to Boston in a police SUV, which was fun), and I also gave a talk at MERL last fall.  In 2009 my PhD student Zeljko Medenica worked as a summer intern at MERL under the direction of Bret Harsham (Bret recently gave a talk at UNHon some of this work – see picture below). Zeljko is headed back to MERL this summer and he will work under the direction of Garrett Weinberg.

I greatly appreciate MERL’s generous gift and I plan to use it to help fund a graduate student working on speech user interfaces. I hope to report back to Kent, Bent, Bret and Garrett on the student’s progress by the end of this summer.

Enter Project54. According to Matt “[r]esearchers are working to reduce the risk.” He goes on to describe UNH’s Project54 system which allows officers to issue voice commands in order to interact with in-car electronic devices. This means officers can keep their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel. The article includes praise for the Project54 system by Captain John G. LeLacheur of the New Hampshire State Police. The Project54 system was developed in partnership with the NHSP and almost every NHSP cruiser has the Project54 system installed.

Both the print and the online versions of the article begin with a picture of the Project54 in-car system. This great picture was taken by Sheryl Senter and it shows Sergeant Tom Dronsfield of the Lee, NH Police Department in action.