Rumormill: OnStar to add hands-free Twitter functionality?

[Intrepidation]

General Motors' OnStar in-car communications system can give you directions or help you make a phone call, and soon it may also be able to send and receive Tweets. Gear Live recently received a survey from the General announcing that Twitter functionality could soon be on the way.

With a press of a vehicle's OnStar button, users will reportedly be able to send voice-activated Tweets of up to 140 bytes to everyone in their Twitter network. The text would automatically be added to the owner's Twitter account via the "What are you doing?" section at the top of the page. The system would also read aloud messages that are sent to the OnStar user.

Adding Twitter functionality would be a boon for fans of the social networking site, while also giving users less of an incentive to take their eyes off the road to check for messages on their smart phone, although the jury's still out on whether this can be done safely. From where we sit, this innovation would make even more sense applied to all text messages (not unlike Ford's Sync), which has somehow become a preferred means of communications for everyone on the planet under the age of 30. Thanks for the tip, Jonathan!

Autoblog

[FAPTurbo]

Hey cool! Now even more people can message everyone about that killer parking spot they found!

[PurdueGuy]

99% of twitter uses I have heard of are a complete waste of everyone's time.

[SoCalCTS]

I wish OnStar would go bankrupt.

We could finally get proper navigation in GM cars instead of that turn by turn bs.

Is twittering something GM needs in ANY of its cars?

Edited March 30, 2009 by SoCalCTS

[FAPTurbo]

Is twittering something GM needs in ANY of its cars?

I don't think anyone needs Twitter.

[Robert Hall]

Cool...though I know some people that tweet while driving now, via their iPhones. This would be safer... I could see my morning commute tweets being like this:

backed out of driveway, missed hitting recycle bin

stuck at light

stuck in middle lane behind hypermiling Prius driver

there's a tie up on the SB 101

but the 202 is clear

blah blah blah

blah blah blah