BMW is adding 4G LTE service to its new infotainment system and new voice control powered by Nuance.
The company’s new BMW LTE Car Hotspot lets you plug in your own 4G SIM card to bring Internet into the car. The device has its own battery and antenna so you can use it as a portable hotspot as well. It should be available in November, says The Verge.
With the new BMW ConnectedDrive system, drivers can now respond to text messages and emails by voice as they drive (not just listen to them read aloud as BMW offered in the past).
Also there’s a new controller. Called the iDrive Touch, it adds a touch pad to the company’s controller knob in the console (that you can manipulate like a joystick).
With the new system, BMW catches up to and exceeds some of Audi’s tech offerings. Audi was one of the first automakers to provide embedded 4G service.
The new BMW system also has some trick navigation features made possible by a 1.3 GHZ processor and dedicated graphics chip, says Autopia. At different distances to the next turn, you get different navigation views. The system offers virtual 3-D views of course.
The new Nuance voice control will become available this month in the 2012 7 series and it will move to the 3 Series and ActiveHybrid models later in the year.
See the sources below for more details.
Source: Autopia, The Verge, CNET
Photo via Autopia
