In-car texting set to get smart

You can already make hands-free calls behind the wheel – but soon you will be able to send texts without touching your mobile!

Microsoft and voice recognition expert Nuance are developing hi-tech kit that will be able to translate speech into SMS while you’re on the move. It could even be adapted to include E-mail!

Fatima Vital, of US-based Nuance, told us: “We are aiming for natural communication between car and driver, which will have benefits for concentration and safety.”

The software should arrive early next year, and is a development of the system installed in the latest Mercedes C-Class. Called COMAND APS, the multimedia centre can read out incoming texts and allows sat-nav destinations to be entered verbally. The device can also select music from CD or MP3 in the same way and can distinguish between individual musical styles and even band names. In the US, Ford models also use this system, and the firm is likely to be the first to get the new voice-text technology. A spokesman told us Ford was considering it for the UK.