After screaming "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" a few times at it, I think attention in the form of some wire snippers may be required. Or remove the optical storage banks while in zero G. "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do."

They'll sell you a subscription service to not send you these voicemails. Now that's the money maker!

You know, adding a simple "ON-OFF" to the feature and a short menu of topics (like "restaurants", "gas stations", "malls", "car features", etc.) would turn this from a useful but intrusive feature into a "must have". My cell phone comes with a navigation feature that lets me find "things" based on location: I find this to be the second most useful application on the phone (after voice calls, ahead of SMS).

This could be a win-win for Toyota: the revenue stream from providing product placement for advertisers could be enhanced by improved targeting (you get to charge a whole lot more for adverts that actually generate a sale than the usual AM radio kind of "spam") and you convert an (annoyed) customer into a sales force with the "Hey, Bubba, watch this!" effect.

Someday someone will figure out this simple formula to use location-based services effectively. Until then we'll have to put up with sorting one more set of voice mails each morning before we have had our coffee...

God help us if they see fit to break in over the in-car CD player with these 'service announcements' - I can see myself going back to the bicycle in *very* short order....and getting run down by someone rushing to the 50% sale on at PC World they've just heard about.

Bad idea - but be honest: you could see it coming...couldn't you?

Does it also come with the ability to listen in to conversations in the car as OnStar is reputed to do?

Its only Toyotas - who cares what they do to Toyotas