BMW, a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company has developed a prototype system that allows drivers to compose full-text e-mails and text messages using voice commands.

Unlike voice-activation options in existing BMWs, the technology relies on speech recognition algorithms that offer drivers, as well as passengers, freedom to dictate original messages from over a million recognized words in the database, according to PCW.

The BMW prototype system will allow its drivers the ability to compose e-mails with the same ease you would on a PC in an office setting—without taking your eyes off of the road or using your hands. The ground breaking system will also respond to e-mail by dictating out loud what you want to say while using voice commands for editing functions, such as deleting, moving, or replacing text.

Other car companies like Ford with its Ford Sync and GM with its recent development on a voice communications app for Android (News - Alert) mobile phones are moving toward this type of speech recognition technology in the effort to decrease the chances of an accident.

In related news, Loquendo (News - Alert), global provider of speech recognition (technology), recently announced a newer version of Loquendo ASR 7.9 and Loquendo TTS 7.20, enabling users to exploit all the new features and benefits offered by those two key new releases.

Loquendo Speech Suite now supports the latest version of the W3C (News - Alert) standard SSML 1.1, enabling the creation of TTS prompts in a standardized, cross-platform and XML-based mark-up language.

The new platform has been enriched with enhanced logging capability to facilitate application development and tuning. On the configuration side, Loquendo Speech Suite inherits the simplified installation procedure of LTTS 7.20 and makes it easier to switch between MRCP v1 and v2 profiles, making it less hassle for users.