American Ford Fiesta's are already fitted with a system that reads out Twitter updates and text messages received on driver's smartphones and it is anticipated that the same system will be fitted to the British Ford Focus next year, and then other cars in the range.

The MyFord project also hopes that future versions will allow drivers to dictate tweets through the use of a voice recognition system.  This system also enables drivers to operate their MP3 players using voice commands.

Kia and Fiat are working on similar technology, and Volkswagen is inviting people to develop apps to be installed in its cars. 

Full story - Times Online 09/05/10