GM is completely relaunching OnStar next year to include in-car access to Pandora online radio, Stitcher news podcasts and WiFi. Voice-activated Facebook, texting, e-mail and MP3 player control are amongst the additional rumors. Let’s confirm one of those rumors right now. OnStar, the in-car services network, announced a new service which allows you to update your Facebook status by dictating to the OnStar. And there’s more! You can also listen to the most recent updates from your news feed via OnStar. The company is working on integrating web-based services like Google Maps into its core offering as well.
The driver assistance service is not stopping there. Text messages are believed to be in the upcoming update as well, reportedly landing later this month, which will finally enable drivers to text and drive while staying safe and not endangering others. Text-to-speech translation will be done obn incoming notes and voice-to-text is said to be undergoing testing for outgoing updates. I will be Facebooking and Tweeting you while driving to work, like OMG BTW W R BFF 4 EVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV(breath)VVVVVER. In theory, a seemingly very real and very relative theory, you could take flipping the bird to the guy that just pissed you off all the way to the interwebs, without ever having to speak to them directly or going to the effort of typing anything.
The price point might not scare you either, many of the services are expected to be free. After all, OnStar needs to compete with Ford’s Sync.
“You can argue that we haven’t marketed it, we haven’t advertised it, we haven’t communicated it,” said Micky Bly, executive director of GM’s hybrids, electric vehicles, batteries and infotainment. “That communication starts today.”
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