Connected Car

Connected CarConnected TV

TU-Automotive Detroit: collaboration in the driver’s seat

Posted on by Robert Guest

Last month, all of the car industry’s major players congregated at TU-Automotive Detroit, the world’s biggest conference and exhibition for autonomous and connected cars, to showcase the latest technological innovations and discuss where the industry is heading and how we can get there.

On the show floor, there were more than 150 booths offering live product demonstrations on everything from cybersecurity through to payments. Yet the one major trend that stood out at the show was the huge amount of collaboration between technology service providers, OEMs and Tier 1s. A good example is Hyundai’s partnership with Xevo, an automotive telematics provider. At the show, the two companies showed a new solution that enables payments to be made straight from the car’s screen, which opens the door to new services available in connected cars.

We have always strongly believed in collaboration and bringing the best solutions and expertise together – and it is absolutely crucial in infotainment service innovation.

Today’s consumers live in the multiscreen era and enjoy intuitive services that provide tailored recommendations that can be accessed at any time and from any device and location. As the multiscreen landscape continues to evolve, the vehicle will become part of the wider multiscreen ecosystem rather than an isolated environment. Consumers will be able to press play on one device with one particular type of content and continue that same experience within the car moments later.

However, in order for this to happen, it will require knowledge both of the consumer’s viewing habits, but also of the journey (taking the kids to school, going to work, being stuck in traffic or driving for hours for the holidays). This specialist skill set requires better collaboration between the automotive and content industries, which are slated to converge once driverless cars become commercially accessible to the public. For the content industry, the potential for monetisation is enormous: studios could offer exclusive content to passengers inside the car, while broadcasters and content distributors can strike deals with manufacturers to extend their pay TV services outside of the home and build a stronger relationship with their subscribers.

To bridge the gap between the content and automotive industries, we created ACCESS Twine™ for Car, our new solution that enables passengers to combine their own multimedia library with the manufacturer’s catalogue, and adjusts the experience to each journey and user, tailored to the specific demography and duration of the ride. With ACCESS Twine for Car, we are enabling drivers to enjoy specific audio centric content or news on demand, while passengers can watch videos, play games, listen to music or read eBooks from the comfort of their seat.

TU Automotive Detroit is always a great opportunity to meet with our partners, customers and industry friends to discuss the future of the car industry and which key trends are emerging. This year, we were pleased to see a greater focus on collaboration and we look forward to working with manufacturers and Tier 1s, as well as studios and content owners, to bring premium multimedia and entertainment services to the car.

Connected Car

Driving towards the future of in-vehicle entertainment

Posted on by Robert Guest

By 2020, the global in-vehicle infotainment market will reach $52.billion, with personalised entertainment experiences playing a big part in its growth. Consumers are already well accustomed to hyper-personalised services on their mobile devices, which know what type of content they want to watch – from a branded catalogue through to personal content – on a certain device at a specific time.

The idea that such entertainment services in a new automotive tailored portfolio could be available in the car has, until now, always been a vision of the future most typically seen in Hollywood movies. However, today’s cars are all connected and through our newly launched product, ACCESS Twine™ for Car, the pipedream of drivers and passengers being able to enjoy multimedia services while on the road can now be made a reality. Our solution will enable drivers to enjoy specific audio centric content or news on demand, while passengers can use it to watch video, play games, listen to music or read eBooks from the comfort of their seat.

ACCESS Twine for Car has the ability to combine the user’s own library with an international content catalogue and adjust the experience to each journey and user, means tailored to the specific demography and duration of the ride.
It will empower the driver and passengers to plug into their personal entertainment system and alleviate the boredom that typically occurs during long journeys. ACCESS Twine for Car will also help remove the frustration from busy commutes by enabling drivers to adjust content to their daily commute or offer parental controlled short form entertainment for children in the rear-seat on their way to school.

Along with providing drivers and passengers with futuristic in-vehicle entertainment experiences, car manufacturers and automotive suppliers can also benefit from ACCESS Twine for Car. Its ability to seamlessly integrate with built-in devices and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Remote Media Access means car manufacturers can collect and use the data to better understand end-users and deliver better service recommendations, as well as personalised, targeted advertising to optimise and generate new revenue streams and increase customer loyalty.

Key features of ACCESS Twine for Car:

  • Audio & video; live, catch-up and on-de¬mand content
  • Multimedia content types including HTML5 games, eBooks, ePapers, audiobooks and more
  • Indexes content in the cloud for ease of access from any authorised device
  • Offers multi-zone playback
  • Parental control
  • Seamlessly integrates with built-in devices in the car, such as the head unit and rear seat entertainment, and personal devices brought in the car, including smartphones and tablets
  • Supports DRM protected content
  • Independent from broadcast infrastructure

We’re proud to be launching a solution that will bridge the gap between the automotive and content industries and provide numerous benefits to drivers and passengers, as well as to the car manufacturers and suppliers we work so closely with. If you would like to learn more about how ACCESS Twine for Car can help you offer best-in-class car infotainment experiences, please contact automotive@access-company.com.

Connected Car

CES 2018: the year automotive and entertainment collide

Posted on by ACCESS Europe

In 2017, the automotive industry showed heavy investment in advanced connectivity and this year’s CES has already confirmed that there is more to come. According to the TU-Automotive “Keeping Entertained in the Autonomous Vehicle” report – which features our VP Product Management Robert Guest – “the global in-vehicle entertainment market will reach a total market value of $52.2bn by 2022”, making it one of the most attractive sides of the industry to get involved in.

For us, the show featured a lot of exciting news with these highlights to report on behalf of ACCESS:

The GENIVI showcase reception event (January 9 at the Bellagio Hotel) enabled us to share our vision for the future of connected infotainment services with some of you – and we hope to have more conversations on the topic with you all throughout the year.

Furthermore, during CES we were able to share this vision with multiple OEMs and Tier 1s by discussing how our solutions help them navigate the evolution of auto tech, including:

  • ACCESS Twine™ for Car (Twine4Car) combines secure media distribution technology with our flexible multimedia content service for OEMs, bridging the gap between the automotive and the content industries. It increases the safety, comfort and flexibility in content consumption for drivers and passengers. Through ACCESS Twine™ for Car, we act as the single point of contact for the OEM for all types of content to ease-up the realization of state-of-the-art streaming services for cars.
  • Our high performance NetFront™ Browser, a key component of the ACCESS Twine™ for Car solution which also provides support for standardized HTML5 environments for applications, streaming media and Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs).

Finally, the show was an opportunity for us to provide attendees with our new ebook “Gearing up for an IoT-enabled automotive world”, which you can download from our website.

If you’re still wondering how to tackle the connectivity revolution in the car, get in touch with us.

Still need a bit of time to make up your mind?

DOWNLOAD OUR EBOOK

Looking forward to discussing how we can help you this year.

Connected CarConnected TV

New ebook: Gearing up for an IoT-enabled automotive world

Posted on by Robert Guest

The in-vehicle infotainment market keeps garnering exciting headlines and for good reason. Electric vehicles, autonomous driving and smart cities are all receiving significant investment, and the revolution towards a more automated, connected future is moving up a gear.

However, there is a lot of work to be done.

To help OEMs and Tier 1s navigate the twists and turns of today’s automotive industry, we have produced an ebook that looks at the long and exciting journey – with many technological stops along the way – that will take us from today’s reality to this vision. Starting from the current state of the market, we look at the impact in-car connectivity is already having on the market: from solving the BYOD vs. embedded conundrum, to adopting open standards and engaging the consumer. Looking ahead, we also cover the advent of the Internet of Things and how it will transform the automotive industry.

CES 2018 is upon us and, once again, will set the agenda for the next generation of in-vehicle services. Our main stop will be the GENIVI Reception at CES 2018 (January 9, Bellagio Hotel), where we will be available for discussions and demonstrations of our solutions ACCESS Twine™ and the NetFront™ Browser family. We are always interested in comparing visions for connected infotainment services and contrasting it with ours, detailed in our ebook.

If you would like to discuss the points we’re raising in our ebook, please contact automotive@access-company.com to book an appointment with us in Vegas. We’re looking forward to seeing you as we kick-start the year!

Connected CarConnected TV

CES 2017: taking connectivity to the next stage

Posted on by ACCESS Europe

Beyond the myriad of smartphones, fridges, drones and robots, CES offers an annual reminder as to why technology is such a fantastic area of business: by combining creativity with efficiency, we can provide new services that improve our everyday lives in a heartbeat. Yet, it’s important to remember that each of these fabulous new products have required months of development, testing and design to be shown on the Las Vegas show floor – and of course, better connectivity, which has become the crux of technological innovation. Reflecting on this, we are proud to see the level of innovation that we have witnessed in automotive and video at the show:

TV: shinier displays and better integrated solutions
In our CES Preview blog, we reminisced about the evolution of TV over the past 50 years. The days of the black and white, one-channel screen are long gone. Instead, our digital lives are coming to a screen near you, thanks to greater connectivity, sharper contrasts and better forms of integration.

Our main focus at CES was on new services such as NVidia’s The Shield, an Android-powered TV box supporting YouTube in 4K, Netflix in HDR and access to Google Play movies, Amazon Video and games streaming.

As strong believers in the idea that content sources need to be made accessible to consumers in an easy, centralised way, we are very excited about this new advance in aggregated media libraries. Our mission is to enable operators to offer best in class experiences across multiple devices and content sources through products like ACCESS Twine™, regardless of the hardware and infrastructure to deliver this content to the consumer.

Operators that want to ensure that consumers stay within their branded environment for all their media needs will need to combine quality content catalogues with content aggregation and data collection for analytics features within their apps. By using solutions that also support secure media re-distribution across all platforms and HTML5 powered experiences for HbbTV and other current standards, operators can deliver immersive experiences to subscribers on the beautiful displays showcased at CES.

Automotive: concept cars galore
Since the advent of connectivity in the car, CES has been the place to go to discover first hand the latest announcements, concept cars and products in the automotive space, an industry that is reported to weigh about 25% of all activity at CES. While the traditional players showed their innovations, like e.g. BMW’s BMWi Inside Future gave visitors to the show a glance at the future of its autonomous fleet, Mercedes’ EQ’s 24-inch display confirmed that connectivity and User Experience were at the core of its future ambitions.  Besides that, upcoming players showed their new products and concepts. A particularly prominent one is Faraday Future, which was founded in 2014 to rival Tesla. At CES, Faraday Futures presented its FF91 electric vehicle, slated to ship in 2018.

What we found particularly interesting however is the combination of consumer electronics and the automotive industry going one step further with the integration of Amazon’s cloud-based voice service, Alexa, inside Ford’s SYNC 3-enabled cars. This integration will provide advanced features like weathering updates, locking or starting the car remotely. Others, like BMW, Nissan and Toyota, are investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to better assist drivers as we transit from our current, driver-centric industry to the far away driverless future.

CES was also a perfect opportunity for us to reunite with other members of the GENIVI Alliance, and to showcase our solutions for the automotive sector: ACCESS Twine™ Car and our HTML5-based NetFront™ Browser family. These solutions enable car infotainment to support media distribution for Head-Units, Rear-Seat Entertainment and Bring-Your-Own-Devices as well as HTML5 based browsing and applications. Centralized control, general usage data creation and complementary cloud components to manage users, devices, content metadata and usage data enable easy service integrations. This provides manufacturers and Tier 1s with readily available solutions to enrich custom in-vehicle infotainment systems.

If you’ve missed us at the show but would like to know more about our solutions, please contact automotive@access-company.com (Automotive) or tv@access-company.com (Video). Alternatively, head to our website for more information.

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