Connected Car

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is turning 50 in 2017, which gives us a perfect opportunity to look back on how the automotive and video worlds have evolved.

TV: from one channel to TV Everywhere

Younger readers of our blog might not remember it, but back in the 1970s, watching TV was a lot less diverse than today. Germany was divided into two separate countries with radically different TV cultures and the rest of Europe consisted almost entirely of public broadcasters, with British TV airing just three channels: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Today, each consumer can access a plethora of channels from a number of sources (cable, IP, Over-The-Top, satellite, terrestrial) and across an incredibly wide range of topics such as sports, news, reality TV and TV series.

In addition, the rise of new video sources like YouTube and the move that social media platforms are turning into smaller scale broadcasters is providing viewers with access to even more content. This in turn has led to the requirement for good quality Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs) and search engine, as well as a need for better user experience solutions.

While this may come as a surprise to many, even though there wasn’t much variety in the content people had access to back in the 1970s, the Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) was born in that era. An incredibly viral video last year showed that children today have no clue how this device works anymore, which demonstrates that we are indeed in a completely digital era for consumption, storage and security. Today, viewers use the cloud to store their content, restart a programme exactly where they left it off and appreciate lifelike details using Ultra HD and High Dynamic Range (HDR) ready TVs.

We are very excited to see that our product portfolio is at the intersection of these technologies, enabling broadcasters and operators to offer state-of-the-art experiences across multiple devices and content sources. ACCESS Twine™ provides content aggregation & data collection for analytics features that can be easily integrated within operator-powered apps to ensure that consumers stay within the operator’s branded environment for all their media needs. Our solution also facilitates secure media re-distribution across all platforms, including support for state-of-the-art end-to-end DRM and DLNA® VidiPath™. Our NetFront™ Browser family also enables a seamless HTML5 powered experience across all screens – from smartphones and tablets through to the next generation TV screens. ACCESS’ solutions include WebKit-based NetFront™ Browser NX and Chromium-based NetFront™ Browser BE, both available as HbbTV editions.

Automotive: 50 years preparing for the driverless car?

‘The Car’, a thriller about a rogue driverless car committing murders in a remote area of the US, was released back in 1977. While the evil machine trope wasn’t new in any way, it shows how far back we started thinking that our cars would drive themselves one day. Cars today may be smart, capable of parking themselves and towing each other, but the days of the fully autonomous, driverless car are still a few years away as the industry solves fundamental challenges of security and passenger experience.

The automotive revolution is moving up a gear and we’re proud to be an active player in one of the most exciting areas of technology today, such as In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI). We are now preparing for the next wave of technology innovation that will be presented on the show floor and discussed in a number of tracks, including Automotive and personal mobility, Connect2Car and Vehicle Technology.

We have been involved in the movement towards more connectivity and entertainment in the car for a number of years, working with OEMs and Tier 1s alike to build the in-vehicle infotainment experiences of the future. Using standards-based proprietary solutions, we are opening the door to seamless solutions that can be accessed directly via the head unit or the driver’s own mobile device plugged into the car for a truly personal feel.

As members of the GENIVI Alliance, we will be showcasing how ACCESS Twine™ for automotive and our HTML5-based NetFront™ Browser family enable car infotainment to support 2- and 3-way media sharing for Head-Units, Rear-Seat Entertainment and Bring-Your-Own-Devices, HTML5 based browsing, control, applications and media re-distribution playback together with usage data creation and cloud components for easy service integrations.

We hope you are as excited about what the future holds for TV Everywhere and IVI as we are, and we look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas! To register to meet with us at the GENIVI Networking Reception at CES 2017, contact automotive@access-company.com.

The recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) demonstrated that there really is no end to innovation in the technology world. The never-ending stream of new gadgets popping up at CES 2016 confirmed that connectivity is pervading every aspect of our lives, as demonstrated by the following three trends:

TV Screens: Sleeker and with more pixels

TVs are always a must see at CES. From the curved screens of last year, we have now moved to ones that can be rolled up and, more excitingly, to better resolutions than we could ever have imagined. This is enabled by new compression standards like Ultra High Definition (UHD) and, more recently, High Dynamic Range. HDR content and displays demonstrate a much greater range of brightness and luminosity, making images on the TV become closer to what we see before us in real life – effectively delivering a much more lifelike and immersive experience for viewers.

Wearables: Health and fitness is not just for the New Year

While the first few weeks of January sees a glut of health and fitness related products – from celebrity workout DVDs to smoothie makers – it also piggy-backed onto the continuing popularity of wearables to become a massive trend at CES, combining practicality with style. There was an abundance of smart clothes, including connected leggings and baby socks that alert parents in case a baby has problems breathing, as well as smart shoes that can substitute as a personal trainer. The race to connect continues, but this year’s CES has proved that consumers were planning to achieve this with style.

Connected ‘’Smart’’ Cars: We will all become Knight riders

When Knight Rider, the show featuring a fully autonomous car with artificial intelligence, was aired back in the 1980s, the thought of the real world having autonomous cars was pure fantasy. This year’s CES saw these dreams become reality, making it ever more apparent that cars are transforming into fully autonomous vehicles. New technologies demonstrated at CES aim to transform the passenger experience with panoramic screens that provide a range of infotainment and multimedia features. A multitude of features, such as turning on headlamps and opening garage doors automatically when a vehicle reaches a certain distance from home, are also enabling cars to evolve into real-life companions that can support day-to-day life.

The in-car infotainment experience is something we are heavily involved in through a range of embedded solutions that are integrated with automotive human-machine-interfaces (HMI), device management, dashboard and multimedia systems. Our solutions offer car manufacturers and tier-one suppliers the added confidence of deploying market proven technologies that deliver interactive content in resource constrained environments.

At CES, we showed our latest automotive innovations at the GENIVI showcase at CES, while multiscreen enthusiasts could see how our solutions deliver exciting new seamless and secure experiences across all screens at the Telechips suite at the Palazzo Hotel, or on the INNOPIA stand on the show floor.

For more information, please contact: tv@access-europe.com.

The two trillion dollar automotive industry is going through a seismic shift. Alongside massive demand from emerging economies, new electric based vehicles and tougher emission regulations; the notion of Big Data and connectivity is starting to dramatically alter the way drivers and passengers interact with carmakers and service providers.

Of the 70 million passenger vehicles sold each year, Millennials accounted for 27% of new car sales in the US last year, up from 18% in 2010, making them the second largest group of new car buyers. This group, which has grown up in a connected world with ubiquitous access to the Internet, is also the most likely to make buying decisions based on connected car functionality.

Millennials and many other car users expect the car to be a hub for information sharing and intelligent application usage. This can range from collaborative satellite navigation system like Waze that allow drivers to easily share their knowledge, such as diverted routes, accidents and traffic jams to interactive entertainment systems and fault diagnostic data, useful for car maintenance and breakdown services.

In a parallel to the Internet, with its free services like Google Maps or Dropbox, many of these Millennial car owners are prepared to gain useful services in exchange for data. A recent global study released by SDL found that 89% of Millennials in the US and roughly 75% in Europe would accept brands tracking personal data provided they’ve built trust with the user. Another study conducted last year by New York based agency MRY found that Millennials value cars and smartphones for similar reasons, including accomplishing daily tasks, keeping connected with friends and family, exploring new places and shopping.

To address this increased consumer demand for personalised information and media services, car manufacturers are developing hybrid infotainment systems based on embedded functionality. These systems support both the driver and passenger device to project a vehicle-optimised version of popular apps from the smartphone to the dashboard and rear-seat screens.

These converging trends provide a great opportunity for OEMs to strengthen their relationships with those Millennials who show a willingness to share personal information to personalise the car experience. In order for OEMs to offer custom experiences to their customers, solutions that provide better driver insight such as ACCESS Twine™ will prove crucial, allowing OEMs to receive information about the driver’s habits, media consumption, devices connected to the infotainment system and combining them with real-time feedback on the car use.

This granular data on the driver and the vehicle will enable manufacturers to improve the in-car services, customise the content catalogue available to the driver and passenger, offer tailored information about the next petrol station or rest area, and even deliver targeted advertising directly to the dashboard.

With the connected car concept still relatively new, developing the skill sets and technologies to offer innovative use cases to a largely untapped market offers early access to a multi-billion dollar market.