Even today, most new automobiles have to be spoken to loudly, pointedly and directly, and even then it's a crapshoot as to whether or not your command will be recognized and acted upon.įor as much as we complain, we totally get it. It's not that things aren't improving, it's just that they aren't improving at the same rate as the hardware and software surrounding them. While processing speeds and user interfaces have made great strides in the past handful of years, voice recognition has managed to continually disappoint. Anyone that's used an early generation Ford SYNC system - or pretty much any vehicular voice command system - knows exactly what we're getting at. It's one of those technological wonders that we all seem to take for granted, while simultaneously throwing laughter its way for not being nearly sophisticated enough. Or, more specifically, speech recognition.