Fast Technology Pace Seen Clashing With Long Lead Times in Connected Car World

Though the panel was held at CTIA, no major wireless carriers were represented, and extending the mobile data environment to the vehicle remains a narrowing opportunity for carriers including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, panelists said. In response to a local radio broadcaster’s question about how a head unit might tie into a comprehensive wireless plan that also includes smartphone and tablet coverage, panelists said the issue was critical for the connected car market, but one without a solution. “If you don’t get on it quickly,” the broadcaster said, “everybody will just use their Bluetooth” and rig their own mobile streaming solution piggybacking off existing data plans.

"We need to have those kind of capabilities,” said Syed Hosain, chief technology officer of telematics wireless service provider Aeris, but he cautioned “we have to be careful.” He compared the situation to consumers having separate bills for electricity, gas and phone. A utility industry “should be able to coordinate a single bill, but they don’t,” he said. “If you set an arbitrary restriction or impediment, it’s not going to happen,” he said, and he doesn’t envision a scenario “for some time."

The increased use of technology in cars comes at the expense of safety, said Ronald Medford, deputy administrator at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who said the critical challenge is to find a way to bring technology into a vehicle through a portable mobile device or installed product in a way that doesn’t increase driver distraction. NHTSA studies show that 2 or 3 seconds of eyes off the road increase the risk of a crash, he said. The agency recently published draft guidelines for car makers to ensure the way a driver interacts with features in the vehicle doesn’t cause present “eyes-off-the-road” risk. The guidelines separate activities into performance activities and drive-related tasks that occur in a 2-12 second block are allowed. Non-driving-related tasks would be locked out, he said. A critical issue, he said, is that currently there’s no way to indicate whether a device is being used by a driver or passenger. Technology that could make that distinction “could really enhance a lot of technology in a way that allows everyone to use it except the driver,” he said.

Finding a way to isolate the driver in a separate zone would enable driver safety features independent of other passengers, said Lars Boeryd, director automotive marketing at Bluetooth chip maker CSR. “We haven’t figured this out yet, but if through some triangulation method we could find if there’s a phone in the bubble where the driver is,” it could be possible to prevent drivers from using their phones when sitting in that seat, he said.

Instead of focusing on ways to block the use of technology that causes driver distraction, the industry should be working on ways to accommodate multi-tasking in an increasingly distracting world, said Hosain of Aeris. Teenagers multi-task as part of their daily activities and will expect to extend that experience to the car, he said. There’s an expectation that everything will be solved by technology, he said, and if the industry doesn’t cater to next-gen drivers’ need to multi-task in a safe way, “they're going to do it regardless,” he said.

Teenagers’ expectations of changing technology presents challenges for supply-chain providers, said Tom Taylor, vice president-advanced strategy, Hughes Telematics. New apps appear constantly and are updated weekly, he said. “That is so far away from the automakers’ world” where designs are done on a 5-year basis, he said. Taylor said there will be increased software downloads to vehicles, citing recent efforts by Ford and Mercedes-Benz. “The automakers will have a way to refresh the car and make it feel newer to keep up with consumer electronics,” he said. “We haven’t been able to do that until recently,” he said.

Establishing standards for how to download apps, communicate over Bluetooth and handle other technology functions in the car will be important to the future of the connected car, panelists said. Consumers don’t have the confidence that if they buy different models of cars that the tech features inside will work the same way, leading to confusion and frustration, they said. “Bluetooth doesn’t work the same way in all vehicles,” Hosain said, “and if we can’t solve that problem, how will we solve safety and other issues?"

CTIA Wireless 2012 Show Notebook

BMW, Fiat, KDDI, Renault, and JVC Kenwood have joined the Car Connectivity Consortium to support MirrorLink, a car connectivity standard, the group said Wednesday. The goal of the consortium, which numbers 58 companies following the addition of 20 in Q1, is to create a solution for connecting any MirrorLink-enabled smartphone with a compatible vehicle system for access to apps designed to make driving safer, more intuitive and more enjoyable, it said. The consortium is targeting member companies in the mobile, automotive and CE industries, it said. Member companies include Alpine, Daimler, Delphi, Ford, Fujitsu Ten, General Motors, Garmin, Harman, Honda, HTC, Hyundai, LG, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Panasonic, Pioneer, PSA Automotive, QNX Software Systems, Renesas Electronics, Samsung, Sony, Sony Ericsson, Toyota and Volkswagen.

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E-commerce transactions one day will be cash-free and “card-free,” Geoff Iddison, group executive of E/M-Commerce at MasterCard Worldwide, told Consumer Electronics Daily after the company’s announcement of its upcoming PayPass Wallet Services Tuesday. The services, more than two years in development, add an online component to the existing MasterCard PayPass “contactless technology” that’s in 400,000 merchant physical locations worldwide, Iddison said. The services are due to launch in mid-Q3, Iddison said. MasterCard’s digital wallet capability allows consumers to pull funds from an assigned credit or debit card using NFC technology on a smartphone with a PayPass app or by tapping the PayPass Online tab when buying from a participating e-commerce merchant, Iddison said. Consumers can link multiple credit card accounts -- including those from other credit card companies such as American Express or Visa -- to a master account, and all credit card information is held in a “highly secure server within MasterCard,” Iddison said. In the digital wallet world, consumers never need to carry their physical cards, he said. “You just bring your password and click.” If a phone is lost or stolen, “there’s zero liability for consumers,” Iddison said, comparing the scenario with losing a credit card. Information including shipping and billing addresses are stored with a customer’s account, eliminating the need to enter that information at checkout, which MasterCard said will significantly reduce customer “dropout” that often occurs when customers become frustrated at the point of checkout. Initial partners include American Airlines, Barnes & Noble and Citibank, the company said. PayPass Wallet Services will roll out first in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the U.K., all “English-speaking countries” where smartphone penetration is “entrenched,” Iddison said, noting 45 percent market penetration in the U.S. More markets will roll out next year, he said. PayPass online is “not a new religion, but it attempts to solve all the pain points for merchants and consumers,” he said.

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Smartphones as music source gear are gaining traction, as evidenced by new accessory introductions at Pepcom’s Mobile Focus event Tuesday night. Monster will begin shipping in June a Bluetooth-enabled speaker system called Clarity Micro, a $199.99 tabletop speaker that can play music from a mobile device up to 30 feet away. The speaker system responds to 15-20 voice-commands including “fast-forward” and “play.” Users can switch to phone mode by saying “answer” when a call comes in on a phone, a company spokesman said. Magnetized, snap-on grilles -- available in black, white and turquoise -- can be bought separately, he said. Research In Motion will begin selling in two weeks its Bluetooth- and NFC-enabled Music Gateway that sends music from any smartphone or tablet to a stereo playback system with an auxiliary input. The pillbox-size device plugs into an auxiliary audio jack on a stereo system and streams music wirelessly from a smartphone or tablet that’s A2DP-enabled, the company said. The smartphone serves as remote control from across a room, a spokesman told us. Suggested retail price is $49.99.