Issuing voice commands to your vehicle's infotainment system used to be an arduous task that rarely, if ever, produced the desired effect. New systems, like Ford's SYNC, have cured many of those ills and BMW is on track to bring voice recognition to the next level later this year.

Beginning in September, BMW will roll out its new voice control system, allowing users to issue direct spoken commands to manipulate both the navigation and audio controls.

The most revolutionary – if obvious – implementation of the system will be with navigation, letting the driver to speak the destination by specifying the place, street and number. With audio, the user can select an artist, album, title or even the genre of music, but at launch it will only be accessible through the vehicle's built-in media library, with external media player support coming 2010.

YouTube - BMW New Voice Control