BMW Group introduces the first ever voice control for the Internet in the car

Munich. The Internet with its up-to-date and comprehensive wealth of
information will soon be available to BMW drivers and passengers in
voice form. The benefits are obvious: more safety, more comfort and
practically all information and media at your fingertips - just like in
the office or at home. An increasing amount of information is not only
available as text on the Internet but also in audio format. News or
e-mails for example can already be listened to as "audio
streams" today just like music, stock exchange information,
current events or the weather. It is becoming increasingly difficult to
find what you are looking for among the vast amount of information on
the Internet. And since driving a car is a very complex and
multifunctional task it is essential to avoid distractions through
complicated operation or displays at all costs. The ultimate search
engine becomes mobile The German automobile manufacturer BMW Group was
able to gain one of the best and most experienced partners in the heart
of Silicon Valley for the development of this revolutionary "surf
by voice" service: Google Inc. Over the last 2 years the Google
search engine has received all important awards for technology, user
friendliness and speed. This additional service is also a component of
the BMW "Connected Drive" initiative. In the development
project which is already in progress, practically all search terms can
be entered using the car's hands-free system, i.e. without using
keyboard or any buttons whatsoever. The search terms, with a vocabulary
of more than 100,000 words, are virtually unlimited and already now
enable the user to access more than 1.3 billion web pages. No limits:
all Internet pages are also automatically displayed in WAP format The
search results and the accessed web pages can be displayed both in the
usual HTML format as well as in the mobile specific WAP format. HTML
pages can be shown on the BMW high-resolution colour on-board monitor.
A real-time converter translates the HTML pages into WAP format
"on the fly" if desired. This provides a hitherto unknown
level of flexibility in tailoring information and services to
individual user preferences. Google Inc. and BMW Technology Office Palo
Alto: innovations out of Silicon Valley Google is a pun on the term
Googol which stands for the numbers 1 to 100 with 100 zeros. The Google
search engine achieves its unmatched performance and accuracy by means
of the patented PageRank mathematical model. The result is astounding:
usually the user finds the desired page among the first addresses
offered. Google is available in 26 languages: http://www.google.com. In
close connection with the BMW AG, the BMW Technology Office in Palo
Alto (Silicon Valley) ensures that new IT developments are also made
accessible to BMW customers.