Connected cars will be a big business for cellular carriers as governments demand more embedded systems inside vehicles to meet safety demands. Tethering will also be big, but smartphone integration less so. Read more »
Most connected vehicle technologies have focused squarely on the car, but BMW and Honda are working with the University of MIchigan and Cohda Wireless to develop autonomous driving technologies that work on two wheels. Read more »
BMW’s not totally picking sides in the mobile platform wars, however: Samsung’s S-Voice software will be right alongside Apple’s Siri EyesFree in the automaker’s iDrive software package. Read more »
A group of French researchers believe that the sensors and transmitters we wear will route and relay data, not just collect it. We won’t just be connected to the network. We’ll be the network. Read more »
Fifty-seven percent of drivers Cisco surveyed said they would let themselves be chauffeured around town by a driverless car. The number was even higher among Americans. Read more »
The Tesla CEO says he’s weighing a form of autonomous driving technology that would do away with the expensive laser tracking systems adopted by most automakers and instead uses cameras to sense the car’s surroundings. Read more »
We upgrade our smartphones every one to two years. Why not our smart cars? Nvidia has developed a chip architecture that could let us boost the brainpower of our connected cars after they roll off the lot. Read more »
A new startup backed Turntable’s Seth Goldstein plans to make connected software without the car. Joyride is building a gaming and entertainment suite for the smartphone designed to be entirely hands-free. Read more »
A new report from Juniper Research predicts big uptake for in-car connectivity, which may in turn drive big-data-derived revenue for telematics companies and car manufacturers. Read more »
Life360 has received a lot of interest from automakers as location-sharing becomes a hot technology in the connected car. It’s planned car app lets you know not only where the kids are but how to get to them. Read more »
At Mobile World Congress, Spotify debuted in its first cars appearing in Ford’s already music-loaded Sync AppLink platform. Ford CTO Paul Mascarenas also told us that its graduate its first apps from its developer program. Read more »
Amazon is officially part of the connected car, having launched its first app, Cloud Player, on Ford’s Sync platform. It’s next app should be obvious. Amazon already has the technology to integrate the Kindle into the dashboard. Read more »
Gracenote is hacking the Ford Focus to tap into vehicle performance data, which it then feeds into the car’s infotainment system. The result: a car that plays different songs depending on how you’re driving. Read more »
The spectrum automakers plan to use for vehicle-to-vehicle networks sits right up against the airwaves the FCC wants to reallocate for Wi-Fi. The auto industry says that’s the perfect recipe for interference. Read more »
Piping Bluetooth audio to a car isn’t all that new, but running smartphone apps on the car is and it’s quickly gaining momentum. Here’s how important my smartphone is to my current vehicle. Read more »
Ford and GM opened up their closely guarded connected car platforms to developers at CES, which means we’ll soon see a plethora of apps appearing in our dashboards. But the automakers aren’t Google. They’ll be careful about what exactly they’ll let into the vehicle. Read more »
Ford has lots of developer programs up its sleeve. After opening up Sync to developers this week, it announced Thursday OpenXC, an open-source software and hardware program that exposes the internal workings of the vehicle to a future generation of apps and devices. Read more »
Cohda is building the hardware and software that will allow vehicles on the road to form intelligent ad hoc mesh networks. Cisco and NXP both like what Cohda is selling and are investing undisclosed sums in the Australian startup. Read more »
Google’s mapping and local search data is making its way into more connected car platforms. Automakers aren’t quite ready to let us download Google Maps directly into our dashboards, but they’re definitely leaning more heavily on the search giant to power their nav systems. Read more »
Nokia’s latest version of its Drive software aims to emulate a full-feature embedded vehicle navigation systems, which leads me to wonder if Nokia has plans to get into the connected car market with a bring-your-own-maps strategy. Read more »
Sprint’s approach to the connected car is certainly odd for a carrier. Instead of focusing on connectivity, Sprint wants to become an automotive infotainment and telematics systems integrator. To accomplish this it’s soliciting a lot of help, starting with Airbiquity, Aeris and WirelessCar. Read more »
Ford and University of Michigan researchers are experimenting with interior coatings that will combat microbial buildup left by grubby hands on the steering wheel and radio dial. In short, Ford is hoping silver ion additives will keep our cars from smelling. Read more »
RIM’s QNX has pulled the wraps off the developer program for its new connected car platform, Car 2. Launching in early 2013, the SDK uses the same WebWorks tools as BlackBerry 10, creating the industry’s first dev program that bridges the smartphone and dashboard. Read more »
Despite the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated connected car platforms, those systems remain largely closed to developers due to safe driving concerns. While those platforms will eventually open up, automakers have to be wary of placing too many limitations on development today. Otherwise consumers will ignore them. Read more »
Ford is joining Chevy in offering a smartphone-based navigation app that integrates with its connected car platform. TeleNav’s new Scout for Sync AppLink doesn’t have all of the features or a full-bore nav system, but it could fundamentally change the in-vehicle mapping game. Read more »
If you want in-dash vehicle navigation in your GM car, you pretty much have one choice, OnStar. But in the fourth quarter Chevy is launching an alternative to OnStar called BringGo that makes use of in-car connectivity to meld smartphone and dashboard navigation. Read more »
Why check your phone for deals when you can check your car dashboard instead? Ford has integrated deal-broker Roximity’s location-based offers app with its Sync connected car platform, allowing drivers to verbally search for nearby bargains without slowing down. Read more »
As connected car platforms become more fragmented, Stitcher has an answer to the problem of developing for so many different vehicles. Instead of building to automaker’s in-dash APIs, it’s asking automakers to tap into its own API. Read more »
Sure, using voice commands to turn on the car radio on your iPhone is nifty, but iSpeech wants to elevate speech-recognition technology beyond the device and distribute it throughout our homes. Tony Stark can talk to his house in Iron Man, so why can’t you? Read more »
Honda on Wednesday became the latest big automaker to unveil an in-car connected infotainment system. Called HondaLink, the platform uses Harman’s Aha technology to connect to reams of different content sources and customized software to let new Fit EV customers manage their cars’ power systems. Read more »
The Internet of things is supposed to connect every aspect of our lives from our homes and cars to the objects we wear and the goods we consume. It’s even connecting ice machines. But one thing the Internet of things lacks is a unifying standard. Read more »
BMW will be the first the automaker to incorporate Nuance Communications’ new voice command and control platform into its dashboards. The German car manufacturer said today it is using Nuance’s Dragon Drive voice messaging technology in its luxury and compact sedans. Read more »
Let’s assume that sometime in the future every car has Wi-Fi and every car has a cellular data connection. Wi-Fi is essentially free, while cellular data is expensive. Is there a way to maximize the “free” connectivity of Wi-Fi while minimizing the costs of mobile data? Read more »
A lot of automakers are lining up to support Apple’s new Siri Eyes Free technology, but Ford, the most aggressive company in the connected-car space, isn’t joining the queue. A platform war over the connected-car interface might be in the making. Read more »
Sierra Wireless believes that laptop PCs too thin even to support an Ethernet port would be ideal candidates for an embedded LTE connectivity. On Thursday it unveiled its latest LTE module, which, at 2.5 mm in thickness, Sierra claims is the world’s thinnest 4G wireless module. Read more »
Verizon recently has aggressively pursued its LTE-connected-car strategy, buying up Hughes Telematics and on Wednesday launching a new initiative with foreign car manufacturers. But not all automakers are necessarily on board with Verizon’s dream of embedding 4G into every car. Read more »
You can already access music subscription service MOG on your smartphone, tablet, PC, and many home entertainment appliances. Now it’s moving onto the biggest gadget of them all, the car. MOG is launching on Ford’s Sync connected car platform. Read more »
Verizon’s ambition to connect more than homes and phones just zeroed in on the automotive market. It announced on Friday it is buying Hughes Telematics for $612 million in cash, gaining the company’s crop of machine-to-machine (M2M) connected car technologies and services. Read more »
State Farm is sidestepping some of the actuarial science that goes into calculating your auto insurance premiums. Instead of determining through statistical analysis how much someone of your age, gender and residence typically drives, State Farm wants to go to the source: your car. Read more »
Want to know what’s going to happen at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week? Why not ask the organizers? I got on the phone with the GSMA, and here’s what they told me to expect: connectivity in everything, NFC and, of course, LTE. Read more »
