 | As we look into a new decade for embedded computing, we’re not the only ones seeing in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) getting more and more important. The CEA and Ford held a presser this morning and a few comments were noteworthy.Steve Koenig, Sr. Director of Industry Analysis for CEA, pegged IVI sales at $9.3B. He’s seeing a fourth screen developing, to add to the TV, PC, and mobile devices, and it’s in the car. But wait …Ford has a slightly enhanced view of the situation. It’s not news they’ve been working hard on the SYNC platform with Microsoft. But where they are going is very interesting.“We don’t think looking down at a mobile phone is the right user experience,” said Doug Van Dagens, director of connected services at Ford. But that doesn’t mean what’s on the mobile phone isn’t the right stuff. Their view means a lot more than simply hands-free, however.Jim Buczkowski, Director of Electrical Systems Engineering for Ford, put it this way: “We think of it as ‘beamed in’, ‘brought in’, and ‘built in.’” He went on to explain beamed in means connected to the cloud via 3G or other technology. Brought in means to integrate the user’s mobile device of choice, and augment content using things like USB sticks. Built in refers to the infrastructure, some of which is SYNC but there’s other things going on in the car environment.By basing services on a strong infrastructure like SYNC working with Microsoft, apps are easier to develop, more portable, and more usable. By bringing in a consumer’s mobile device, and not recreating it’s value, costs are saved and time to market is improved, and new device features can be incorporated quickly.So maybe we’re not really developing a fourth screen, we’re just making an extension for mobile devices that lands in a car while the user is there and adds its capability to the car’s services. Gary Shapiro, president of CEA, asked “Do consumers know they want the Internet in their car?” The answer is a resounding no – however, they want the services at the right value.The information side of this is important too, and ties into safety. Ford is working with INRIX on traffic information, Tellme on voice recognition, Airbiquity on the connected services, and others. They’re doing things like in-car radar to provide forward collision warning, blind spot object detection, and cross-traffic alerts for drivers.With a leg up, Ford and Microsoft plow forward with SYNC, while the GENIVI folks work on an open source direction for IVI. The objectives are similar: work with a well-defined software platform to speed app development, decrease costs, and get the user experience to be more robust and common among platforms so using, not relearning, is the focus.Ford CEO Alan Mullaly keynoting again at CES 2010; he’ll be talking more about this for sure.Topics covered in this article
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