The Boston Globe reports that Bose has developed a new kind of in-car audio system that simplifies navigation and multimedia functions—but it's only for those who can afford one of the 400 $266,000 Ferrari 612 Scaglietti being built this year. Surprisingly, it's also the first in-car receiver Bose has ever developed—it turns out that while the company has been making its own car speakers and amplifiers for years, it's been rebranding head units made by other manufacturers all this time.

This subterfuge ended up giving Bose lots of free customer research. "When people had problems with those radios, who did they call? Us. Because our name was on it," said John Pelliccio, technical marketing manager for the group, in the article. "We got a lot of unsolicited information about people's likes and dislikes. We learned a lot just by listening."

But that's beside the point. Bose made simplicity a goal in developing its new media system, according to the report. There are only two knobs and a row of six buttons for radio presets—though voice recognition is an option for those who'd like to call up tunes by David Bowie at 140 mph without taking their eyes off the road.

The article said that the tuning knob senses when someone is reaching for it and responds by enlarging the text on the screen. "Rotate the outer part of the knob and the system will organize the available stations by genre such as rock, classical, talk, or news on AM-FM, TV, and satellite bands. The two knobs work in the same fashion for all functions, such as navigation, stored music selections, mobile phones, and television," the report said. Sounds great—maybe soon we'll see something like this in the next Volkswagen Jetta.

(Image credit: Bose Corporation)