German researches show a voice activated BMW in the Future Park at CeBit 2007.

The EU supported TALK project of the Saarland University focuses on the development of new technologies for adaptive multimodal and multilingual human-computer dialogue systems.

To demonstrate their voice solution they integrated it into a BMW car. At the CeBit you can try to select songs on the CD player or ask where the next pizza restaurant with your voice sitting inside the TALK BMW.

The TALK system is supposed very flexible to understand drivers in their natural speech. To use voice control inside a car, it needs to be less attention grabbing than pushing a button. It cannot be as nerve-racking as the IVRs used in call centers.

The system is currently available in English and German.
More details on the Talk Project site. Via Innovations-Report (German).

The CeBit 2007 will start on March 15th.