telematics

Ford researchers have been working with healthcare experts to develop an addition to their SYNC telematics system, and consumers are likely to find this either encouraging or terrifying, likely to to privacy concerns. The application is aimed at drivers with a chronic illness or medical condition...

Back in 2009 Mercedes-Benz launched a new telematics feature called mbrace that at the time was said to offer everything from a vehicle locator for crowded car parks, somebody to direct you if you get lost or even the ability to order online--all whilst sitting in the driver’s seat. Designed...

Mercedes-Benz was late to the telematics game, but now that its mbrace system has been available for a while, it's looking like a trailblazer, compared to systems just hitting the market--Hyundai's Blue Link, Kia's UVO and Toyota's Entune, among them. At the recent New York Auto Show, we talked...

When the 2012 Toyota Prius V arrives sometime, we hope, this year--it's been delayed by the aftermath of the Sendai tsunami--it will be one of the first Toyota vehicles to showcase Entune, the automaker's new telematics service. With Entune, which was unveiled earlier this year at the 2011 CES...

General Motors has made huge inroads in China, and now, those inroads have grown a bit wider: yesterday at the 2011 Shanghai Auto Show, GM launched its smartphone app for China's OnStar subscribers. The OnStar app for Chinese drivers is nearly identical to the one that subscribers in North America...

A new strategic partnership between Toyota and Microsoft will see the next generation of telematics systems built on the Microsoft Azure platform, allowing the incorporation of GPS, energy management, multimedia, and more within a single platform. Microsoft's SYNC system, already several years old...

Luxury brand announces its technological sophistication by partnering with AT&T's now-downwardly-mobile 'cheap brand.' -- For those of us who have already been reading seemingly endless reports and speculation about the proposed merging of operations of two major U.S. cellular providers, it was...

New technology is exciting, but like most exciting things it's also fraught with peril -- and that's doubly true for developers. Think of all the tsoris caused by the great VHS vs. Beta battles of the 1980s, or the far more recent Blu-ray vs. HD DVD war, both of which cost manufacturers billions of...

At the recent 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, GM showed off a new standalone retail version of its popular OnStar telematics system that acts as a replacement rearview mirror that owners will be able to install in virtually any vehicle. Today the automaker has announced that the new...

Today's navigation systems are great at finding the shortest route between Point A and Point B. Some even integrate traffic data to identify alternate paths if the shortest one is congested. But Hyundai's newest navigation platform will also tell you which route is the greenest, keeping CO2 out of...

As we reported earlier, Saab is working on a new telematics and infotainment system for its future cars called Saab IQon. The new system, previewed this week in Saab’s striking PhoeniX concept, is essentially a new car communications platform based on Google’s Android operating system...

Tonight, Chevrolet unveiled its new Chevy MyLink in-car infotainment package, which lets drivers control integrated online services like Pandora internet radio and Stitcher SmartRadio using either touch-screen menu options or voice commands to control smart phones via Bluetooth connectivity. While...

There were a couple of more interesting articles the past few days involving software in cars. Early last week, Markus Waibul over on the Automaton blog and I both wrote (here and here) on the concept of "car platooning." I also noted in my post the Ford development effort involving a new crash...

Over 3 million of today's smartphone users use telematics apps -- apps ranging from navigational services like Waze to streaming music players like the now-ubiquitous Pandora. That figure is expected to rise dramatically over the next five years; in fact, ABI Research estimates that by 2016, it...

Urban mobility is a hot topic these days -- and rightly so. Roughly 50% of the world's population now lives in urban areas, and by 2030, that figure should hit 60%. As cities and megacities grow, navigating them swiftly and efficiently will become critical for economic, social, and safety reasons...

Telematics--a fancy name for using telecommunications and information to control, assist, or otherwise interact with a vehicle--is a burgeoning field these days, but it hasn't always been that way. Until recently, a handful of luxury carmakers and General Motors' OnStar system were the only games...

Pay a fee, swap out your rear-view mirror, and you're ready to roll with GM's new OnStar Anywhere service, announced today from the CES show in Las Vegas. The full reveal, with details, will be coming later in the show, but stay tuned, because we'll have it all as soon as it's released. What we can...

The mbrace system is being offered as standard equipment on all Mercedes-Benz models except the GLK, C-Class, SLK and the new E-Class Coupe.

Ford is enhancing the capabilities of its vehicles by introducing exclusive new SYNC features that add traffic, directions and information (TDI) in a simple download found on the company’s www.syncmyride.com website. The latest application ties together the advantages of navigation and...

Microsoft and Ford took a lot of heat when the software giant simply pointed out the capability of the Sync platform to handle targeted in-car advertising - without announcing any plans to actually do so. Mercedes-Benz had better prepare for a storm, as it is soon to roll out a test of a system...