Mentor Blogs

  It used to not be such a big deal to buy a car and drive it for several years without feeling that much is missing. There were advances, of course, but models were more or less similar from year to year. That was then; this is now: In its annual survey of what vehicle owners want in their next car,  J.D. Power and Associates says there’s a lot of interest in device and application linking for … Read More

J.D. Power and Associates, Smartphones, buy a car, vehicle owners, wireless connectivity

A while back I met with the folks at TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) who are responsible for the VZ Navigator app on Verizon smartphones as well as navigation apps on myriad other smartphones. Networks in Motion launched the app in 2006 and TCS acquired them three years later. VZ Navigator uses Navteq maps but the app is built on HTML5 so TCS can work with any map provider and otherwise customize a … Read More

Air Force, Portable Navigation Device (PND), Verizon, Navy, Metro PCS, Special Operations Command, Sprint, DENSO, Verizon smartphones, VZ Navigator, GPS signal. Google Maps, Networks in Motion, U.S. Army, QNX, AT&T, location-based services, TeleCommunication Systems (TCS), Smartphones, Amazon, Marines

It’s an article of faith in the automotive industry that consumers want to bring their smartphones into their cars and use them in pretty much the same way they would anywhere else – safely, of course. But a Harris Poll suggests otherwise: three in four car owners fear in-car connectivity, according to a Harris Interactive survey, believing that such technologies are too distracting or dangerous … Read More

Harris Poll, Smartphones, Harris Interactive

 It was a big deal less than two years ago for Delphi Automotive to show how a driver could bring a cell phone into a vehicle and interact with the phone’s apps on the car’s display screen – all of them when the vehicle was parked and only the appropriate ones when the car was moving. Since then the effort to enable the use of smartphones in cars without distracting drivers has expanded to incorporate … Read More

workload assessment, Smartphones, Delphi automotive, Delphi's Electronics & Safety Division, 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, Kathy Winter, MyFi Connecting with Safety vehicle, distracting drivers, driver state monitoring

I want lots of connectivity in my next car and have every reason to expect it (and, of course, to use it responsibly). We’re talking-cutting edge technology of the kind increasingly available to mid-range buyers; features like Internet access, voice recognition, full-color touch-screen displays, diagnostics, and various forms of infotainment. I was a bit surprised to learn that all of that and more … Read More

OLED Displays, Network Car, LCD, Android, Bluetooth, Linux, Microsoft, Netscape, 3G Cellular, Google, Delphi, DSRC, IBM, Infotainment, Bob Schumacher, COMDEX, Internet Access, DVB-T, DVB-SH, Genivi Consortium, QNX, Voice Recognitiion, Wi-Fi, Touch-Screen Displays, USB, Smartphones, Sun Microsystems

“Who needs a portable navigation device?” I sneered, back in the day when PNDs cost several hundred dollars and I didn’t travel very far very often, but after getting lost one time too many, buying one seemed like a good idea. It still does, but now the newness has worn off, replaced by thoughts of “what’s next?” My cell phone has a navigation application that works better than I thought it would, … Read More

TeleNav, Smartphones, Frost & Sullivan, Google Maps Navigation, Android 2.0, Networks in Motion, Portable Navigation Device (PND), iSuppli Corporation, Motorola Droid