"North America is Jaguar’s biggest and most important single market," said Jonathan Browning, managing director of Jaguar Cars Ltd. "Mike O’Driscoll’s experience both at Ford Motor Company and at Jaguar will help ensure that Jaguar continues to expand its sales and remains a leader in the luxury segment in this key marketplace."

Mike O'Driscoll

Photo: Ford

Dale will turn 65 years of age at the end of April and will retire from Jaguar with 42 years of service to the company.

The voice recognition system is already in use in Mercedes C-Class, E-Class, S-Class and CLK Coupe vehicles, and other applications are being developed, such as telephone-access information centers, phone banking, and unified messaging to manage all personal information systems with a single software program. The computer program, developed by the DaimlerChrysler's interdisciplinary research group from Ulm, Germany, is programmed to understand the basic sounds of speech, called phonemes. German, for instance, is made up of 40 such mini-sounds, English about 50 phonemes. The software learns this readily manageable repertoire of sounds, from which all words are assembled. The Ulm scientists have catalogued speech data from the inhabitants of all regions of Europe. The spoken words are separated into their individual sounds, subjected to a training process and statistically evaluated to form the comparative basis for the speech recognition system.

In use, the computer records the energy data and frequencies of the individual sounds. It perceives the chain of phonemes as a series of independent events; on this comparative basis, the computer investigates all permissible combinations of phonemes and indicates the word path with the highest probability.

Volkswagen and its luxury division, Audi, committed $500,000 to AAPD last night at the opening of its new Government Relations Office at the Ronald Reagan Building. Presenting the check on behalf of Volkswagen and its employees was Dr. Jens Neumann, Volkswagen AG’s Board Member in charge of North America. AAPD’s Chairman, John Kemp, accepted the check.

This extraordinary commitment of support by Volkswagen and Audi to the American Association of People with Disabilities enables AAPD to promote on a nationwide basis values of the Americans with Disabilities Act: equal opportunity, economic self sufficiency, independent living and full participation. We are most grateful to Volkswagen of America," said Kemp. According to Kemp, key leaders in the disabled community view "Initiative 2000" as the "kick off to national awareness" of the true employment potential of those millions of Americans with disabilities where an unemployment rate of 67 percent exists, with 90 percent willing and anxious to work. This lack of public awareness of the employment viability of these talented people is a serious national problem, as the government continues to spend upwards of $300 billion per year on disability payments.

"Initiative 2000" will be a cross country torch relay to take place in the summer of 2000 with high visibility events anticipated in major locations across the United States. At last night’s opening, Volkswagen of America, Inc. also donated a special mobility access equipped 2000 Volkswagen EuroVan to a charity chosen by raffle. An Audi A6 Avant was also donated for charity.

The giveaway highlighted Volkswagen’s new "Mobility Access Program," in which people with disabilities who buy a new Volkswagen are eligible to receive money for mobility access conversions. People who buy a new EuroVan get $1,000 from Volkswagen for wheelchair access and $500 for hand controls. With other Volkswagen passenger cars, Volkswagen will offer $500 for hand control installations.

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