p TRW���s AC100 system, a 24-GHz radar, is designed to
detect pedestrians and active slow-speed automatic energy
braking, while satisfying new European safety regulations.
At the 2013 Consumer Electronics
Show, Andy Gryc, automotive product
marketing manager at QNX Software
Systems (qnx.com), issued something of
a proclamation:
���The era of multi-year design cycles in
car infotainment is over.���
Given QNX���s market position���the
company claimed a hand in 40% of
all U.S. car infotainment systems sold
in 2011���it has enough street cred to
provide a narrative on electronics���
trends. In announcing version 2.0 of
QNX���s CAR application platform, Gryc
said the company recently helped an
automotive client cut that infotainment
development cycle time to 14 months,
instead of the more commonplace twoto three-year turnover.
But those design cycles for infotainment
systems are no longer about integrating
smartphone ports in the vehicle���s cabin
or positioning analog systems on the
dash. Increasingly, they���re now about
enabling a driver to digitally design
his or her own instrument cluster,
navigation systems, and uploading
voice-activated mobile apps���and doing
it all as rapidly as, well, updating a
smartphone app.
QNX demonstrated some of those
possibilities on a concept multimedia
system in a Bentley Continental GT
convertible. They constructed the system
using the HTML5-based QNX CAR 2.0.
The product allows various mobile
hardware and software designers to test
and debug their creations before they���re
integrated. In the case of the Bentley,
the open environment spawned veritable
bufet of third-party technology. The
center stack includes a Texas Instruments
(ti.com) digital light projection display,
a 3D navigation system from Elektrobit
(elektrobit.com), a voice recognition
technology called ���Truly Handsfree��� from
Sensory (sensoryinc.com) coupled with
AT&T;���s (att.com) ���Watson��� that manages
the media player and navigation system,
a video conferencing feature; a music
and video system powered by Shazam
(shazam.com) with Pandora (Pandora.
com); and a Web-enabled app that
monitors the location and condition of
the vehicle, such as tire pressure and ���uid
levels, from any browser using HTML5.
The CAR application platform 2.0 is out
in mid-2013 and Delphi Automotive
(delphi.com) has already selected
27