The voice-activated command center allows drivers to keep their eyes on the road Windows Media 28K 80K

February 21, 1999
Web posted at: 5:08 p.m. EST (2208 GMT)

LOS ANGELES -- Intel is taking the personal computer a step further -- out of the home and into the auto.

The Connected Car PC is a voice-activated mobile command center that offers a Pentium MMX computer and just every gadget a driver could want.

It can read and send email, dial the phone, even play DVD movies and video games for riders in a back seat equipped with an optional monitor.

"What this is, is taking the technologies that we already have at our fingertips, and making them adaptable to people once they're in the car," says Intel's Dan Russell.

But some safety experts worry that PCs on the road will be just another distraction.

"You risk driver overload when you're downloading email or communicating with your home computer or helping the people in the back seat work a video game, or hearing that video game," says Steve Mazor of the Auto Club of Southern California.

CNN's Mark Bernheimer takes a look at the mobile technology.

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