What features would you like to see in the next generation of navigation and telematics systems?

1. Live traffic information on the navigation systems
2. Real time information (gas prices, movie times, airline information...)
3. Bluetooth for personal cell phone integration.
4. 802.11 (Wi-fi) for home network integration (sync the vehicle with your home computer to download email, mp3 files, schedule, contacts…)
5. Voice recognition
6. Text to Speech (read your email to you)
7. High speed wireless data connection
8. Integrated safety, security, and concierge services (OnStar type system)

4 & 7 would make everything else possible. Cars just need to have built in computers with all the ports and such ( usb, firewire, pci, scsi, ... ) with a specialized & integrated os - tying some vehicle functions into it. Microsoft has been working on this for several years now. Originally called Windows Automotive. An automotive OS with bluetooth & 802.11g could do it all.

4 & 7 would make everything else possible. Cars just need to have built in computers with all the ports and such ( usb, firewire, pci, scsi, ... ) with a specialized & integrated os - tying some vehicle functions into it. Microsoft has been working on this for several years now. Originally called Windows Automotive. An automotive OS with bluetooth & 802.11g could do it all.802.11 can be great for loading/unloading of music, videos and/or other data while parked in your garage for example, and Bluetooth is great for quick, localized wireless data transfers, but neither enables the ubiquitous wireless access means for real-time data needs (such as traffic, weather, gas prices and other information) while the vehicle is on the road. For that, the car requires a more universally accessible communications infrastructure to feed information to/from the vehicle, such as mobile phone technology or maybe satellite. For example, if you want traffic updates or the latest gas prices, a driver certainly cannot use whatever information that was downloaded the last time they were parked in the garage--that might be hours, days or weeks old!

802.11 can be great for loading/unloading of music, videos and/or other data while parked in your garage for example, and Bluetooth is great for quick, localized wireless data transfers, but neither enables the ubiquitous wireless access means for real-time data needs (such as traffic, weather, gas prices and other information) while the vehicle is on the road. For that, the car requires a more universally accessible communications infrastructure to feed information to/from the vehicle, such as mobile phone technology or maybe satellite. For example, if you want traffic updates or the latest gas prices, a driver certainly cannot use whatever information that was downloaded the last time they were parked in the garage--that might be hours, days or weeks old!

Terpnut, you are right. 802.11 and bluetooth are generally short range transport protocols.

Item 7 on the poll (High speed wireless data connection) would be used to provide most of the real-time information using either CDMA 1xRTT/ EV-DO (EV-DV when available) or GSM/GPRS/EDGE (UMTS / W-CDMA when available) via commercial carriers. It would also be able to provide normal voice calls.

You missed the point. The regular ports coupled with bluetooth and 802.11g could make integrating additional hardware easy. Of cource the normal 300ft range of wireless can only get you but so far, as so with the much shorter bluetooth range. But you can easily attach your harware of choice using the two. Just think of the common laptop, by attaching additional devices using existing interfaces you can create a mobile system.

Besides, WiFi has come along way two. A couple weeks ago, some kids in the desert achived a 55+ mile range using an un-amplified wireless LAN signal. I'm sure a long range WIFI network could be established just as the the digital telephone networks did years ago.

I was only taking issue with your remark that "an automotive OS with bluetooth & 802.11g could do it all." I read that to say that an automotive platform only needed 802.11 and Bluetooth for communications. And I was just emphasizing that, in addition to that, a vehicle's mobile platform requires access to a ubiquitous, high-speed wireless mobile link to provide it with the real-time data it needs to REALLY function well. Your example of two students in the desert is not a "real-world" use of 802.11. Even with WiFi's wide deployment, it only provides a microscopic fraction of the coverage provided by today's commercial, digital voice/data services already available from mobile phone companies. Also, while mobile phone technology is pretty hardy and car-tested, nobody has built and widely deployed an 802.11 communications platform for the auto yet (although I think Linksys or Netgear are coming out with their automotive WiFi MP3 units soon).

Yeah you're right they couldn't "do it all" but that's really all that's needed as a bare minimum until more speciallized components can be applied... so yeah there is still some work to do, so what are you all waiting for. You guys need to get to work down there in College Park...you already have all of the east coast internet traffic comming thorugh there. Now lets get the mobile information super highway going... at least then there will be less wires to burn down during riots...

My answer is: none of the above.

By telematics, I assume that you mean a system that can actually interact with the vehicle and not just some access point for e-mail and the like.

The On-star system can do some neat stuff such as unlocking the doors, examine/download ECM modules and locate the vehicle. The fly in that ointment is that you have to engage the call center where the person who answers the call can be of varying proficiency. Why not make those functions self-service so you can do these functions yourself via Internet access, touch tone phone or even voice recognition? You might even add functions such as remote starting and turning on/off headlights. That's my idea of telematics.

integrating all the features of a computer don't cost much for a vehicle. and especially if it was a luxury vehicle.

i mean, how much would a pc with bluetooth and wifi cost?

i can get a mini-atx board + case + bluetooth dongle + a fine state of the art sound card and connect the things in the car for less than $400.

i can even add a $200 GPS receiver and i have a navigator.

hardware like this doesn't cost a lot. and developing a software to integrate this "pc" with the car's computer is not a difficult task at all.

but still manufacturers (like GM) refuse to integrate a simple thing like an mp3 player in their cars.

Implementing PC technology into a vehicle is not that simple as you cannot just take off-the-shelf computer parts (e.g. motherboard, processor, hard drive, NIC) and stick them into a car! Off-the-shelf parts are NOT designed for the temperature, motion shock and other physical extremes of a typical car! In addition, current generation computers may not even provide the availability (i.e. "up-time") and reliability that consumers demand from their vehicle electronics. If GM still cannot even design and build a fully working cruise control after 40 years, do you think that they can deploy a reliable car-based computer system (including wireless MP3 player or Bluetooth) today?

i don't think a DVD player is of a lot of use in a vehicle (except to keep the kids from annoying me when driving). what would i say about a PC?!

wifi, bluetooth, windows.. etc do NOT fit as a permanent solution in a vehicle. would be really useless.

what i was pointing at and don't understand is (for example) making the audio player play mp3s is a very simple task and doesn't need any additional hardware. its just the firmware being used needs to be modified thats all.

our cars DO have computers in them. they do have micro processors and at a fairly good speed too. your car DOES have some flash memory in it that is all the same as PC's.

if you're talking about reliability (like in shocks to harddisks) then let me tell you that you can run WINDOWS on a pc WITHOUT a harddisk (if you have enough memory to use instead).

the technology is available and if the engineers have reached this much with vehicles then they can EASILY implement more sophisticated PC-based tech in their cars.

Samboosa,

I don't agree with your basic point that PC technology is "easily" incorporated into a vehicle, nor that much of it is already in there. First, existing vehicle electronics and computers, while admittedly getting more complex and powerful each year, are NOWHERE near the processing, memory, storage and display capabilities of even a typical $500 home computer. Second, that typical PC has components that cannot reliably function in the hostile environment of a typical automobile. You CANNOT take a Pentium or Xeon processor, standard graphics card, NIC, hard disk, etc. into a car on a typical sub-zero winter day in Minneapolis, or a sweltering summer day in Texas, and expect it to last more than a few hours or days before the heat destroys the components. Few of these commerical off-the-shelf computer components are designed to handle the temperature and physical motion extremes of an automobile. That is why it is not "easy" to deploy PC technologies into a car.

That said, we are definitely getting closer as new software platforms from Microsoft, and toys such as the Linksys wireless MP3 player come to market. As an example, what Linksys is TRYING to do, i.e. design, test, build and sell something "simple" like a hard-drive-based MP3 player with built-in 802.11 wireless, is NOT that simple or easy at all. Their months or years of engineering work put into this, and still without a marketable product, prove my point.

Finally, your point about running Windows without a hard drive is well taken, however no manufacturer can affordably build a computer with purely flash memory (in lieu of hard drives) due to cost constraints. Besides, no flash memory can possibly meet the storage demands of future vehicle application requirements, e.g. application software, music, mapping data, etc. Basically, to make it feasible, vehicle computer systems MUST have 20 GB, 40 GB or more of storage for less than $100 in mass production. Can't touch that with flash memory.