Abstract: A device for controlling the air flow from an air outlet of a heating and/or ventilation and/or air-conditioning system of a motor vehicle. The air outlet has an air discharge opening which is for discharging air into an inner vehicle space and over which there extends at least one elongate slat which can be pivoted about a longitudinal axis in order to influence an air flow flowing through the air discharge opening and whose pivot position can be adjusted by at least one adjustment mechanism which is coupled to the slat. At least one actuation mechanism, which is fitted to a vehicle seat when the vehicle seat is mounted in the inner vehicle space, moves into mechanical operational engagement with the adjustment mechanism and brings about an adjustment of the at least one slat in accordance with a position of the vehicle seat with respect to the inner vehicle space.

Abstract: A device for controlling the air flow from an air outlet of a heating and/or ventilation and/or air-conditioning system of a motor vehicle. The air outlet has an air discharge opening which is for discharging air into an inner vehicle space and over which there extends at least one elongate slat which can be pivoted about a longitudinal axis in order to influence an air flow flowing through the air discharge opening and whose pivot position can be adjusted by at least one adjustment mechanism which is coupled to the slat. At least one actuation mechanism, which is fitted to a vehicle seat when the vehicle seat is mounted in the inner vehicle space, moves into mechanical operational engagement with the adjustment mechanism and brings about an adjustment of the at least one slat in accordance with a position of the vehicle seat with respect to the inner vehicle space.

Abstract: The system has a speech recogniser (2) for recognising speech from a user and a synthesiser (6) for replying to him and engages in a dialogue with the object of enabling the user to convey to the system a piece of information such as a telephone number. The system builds up the number in a buffer (10). Each time it receives a string of digits, it reads it back for confirmation. When a number (or part of one) is read back, it is divided into “chunks” according to certain criteria: the positions of these divisions can be recorded to be taken into account in later processing. Responses are compared with the current buffer contents to determine whether they it should be interpreted as a correction, partial correction or pure continuation of the existing contents. Positions in the buffer at which pure continuations are entered are marked, to allow a “final repair” process in which, if the final result fails to match some criterion of acceptability (e.g.

Abstract: The invention provides a multi-modal interactive dialogue apparatus and method that has inputs and outputs of different data types, for example audio and visual. The apparatus is provided with a data store in which data relating to properties of the different types is stored, and this data may be used to control how a dialogue with a user progresses.